Hydrogeologist Consultant, Office of Innovation, Sustainable WASH Hub, 11.5 months (Remote)

Consultant Programme & Policy Medical & Health Innovation

Contract

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UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential.

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.

And we never give up.

For every child, clean water

The OOI Sustainable WASH Hub (‘the Hub’) has been established by UNICEF with the support of the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs to help bridge the gap to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals for water and sanitation. The Hub is a global home for building, accelerating, and scaling transformational climate resilient solutions for a WASH secure future. It does so by identifying targeted, strategic solutions that have significant potential for impact and capacity to scale.

• Capacity: Building the capacity of UNICEF to innovate and to adapt and adopt innovation, then building this capacity into our country partners.
• Portfolio: Curated set of solutions that focus on key problems UNICEF is trying to solve for and with children and young people.
• Connect: Becoming a center of excellence for facilitating innovation knowledge management; enabling innovators, academia, the private sector, partners, and countries to connect to facilitate innovation and scale.

We're an interdisciplinary team around the world tasked with identifying and scaling new technologies and practices. With our partners, we focus on convening and collaborating on new and different solutions, low- and high-tech, by Identifying proven solutions that can be implemented at national scale in multiple countries – taking the ideas that help thousands in one country, bringing them to dozens of countries across multiple sectors, and impacting the lives of millions of children.

WASH Portfolio

UNICEF has identified problems that, if solved, will unlock faster progress. Innovation is key to co-creating new solutions to problems like lack of handwashing stations, leaks in water networks, climate-resilient sanitation services, remote monitoring of water or wastewater systems, remote sensing and other technologies for locating water sources in water scarce environments, fecal sludge management in humanitarian settings, absence of adequate sanitation products and accessible menstrual health information for women and girls.

More specifically, the WASH innovation portfolio aims at addressing the following four problems, out of which the groundwater mapping project addresses the second problem:

1. Lack of adequate and climate-sensitive groundwater mapping and development leads to poor drinking water quality, challenges in locating sustainable water sources, and impedes progress towards child development and Sustainable Development Goals, especially affecting Small Island Developing States.
2. Insufficient climate-sensitive data and a poor understanding of integrating climate change impacts into WASH programming present challenges to WASH practitioners modeling long-term sustainability of water resources, impacting the resilience of the service.
3. A lack of supportive environments for WASH SMEs, characterized by limited access to finance and unfavorable governmental policies is limiting the capacity of SMEs capacity to expand and flourish, hindering their ability to effectively contribute to WASH governance and services.
4. Complexities in innovative finance options make it difficult to implement, scale, and replicate effective solutions, exacerbated by the increasing challenges to secure finance for WASH projects in a resource-scarce environment

Hydrogeology inputs are required into solutions for all four problem statements (for example technical input into innovative finance programmes centered around groundwater sourced water supplies). However, most of the technical input is required into the first problem statement, relating to climate resilient groundwater mapping and development.

The portfolio currently contains solutions for groundwater mapping using innovative approaches and for managed aquifer recharge. The Hub is looking over the next 1-2 years to scale both sets of solutions in the current demonstration countries and beyond into new countries and regions. Technical support is required to facilitate the scoping of scaling, development of toolkits and supporting countries to introduce and scale these approaches.

How can you make a difference?

1. Support mapping and scoping of innovative WASH solutions that respond to Sustainable WASH Innovative Portfolio problem statements. 2. Support identification, implementation of innovative solutions with specific highlights on Nature based Solutions including Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) solutions across UNICEF progamme countries. 3. Support documentation, standardization and contextualization of different MAR solutions to be scaled up and replicated in different contexts and settings. 4. Provide technical support in the implementation of the groundwater mapping innovative solution-More Water More Life. 5. Provide technical support and capacity building on hydrogeological capacity needs to UNICEF COs, ROs and stakeholders for innovation projects as required.

Your main responsibilities will be:

Task 1: scoping of innovative WASH solutions that respond to Sustainable WASH Innovation hub Portfolio problem statements.

This task will involve:

• Scoping of WASH Innovation solutions in alignment with the Sustainable WASH problem statements and innovative solution selection criteria matrix.
• Outlining how these approaches could be developed by the WASH innovation hub to reach scale and the potential impact, highlighting those with most potential and probability to succeed.

Task 2: Support identification, implementation of sustainable WASH innovative solutions with specific highlights on Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) solutions.

This task will involve:

• Standardization and contextualization of MAR in UNICEF programme countries.
• Provision of technical support in preparation of concept notes on MAR.
• Provision of technical support for implementation of MAR as an innovation in programme countries.
• Provide capacity building on MAR design and implementation that can be scaled into programme countries

Task 3: Provide technical support for portfolio projects for groundwater sourcing and implementation.

This task will involve:

• Provision of technical support in the implementation and scaleup of innovative groundwater initiatives relating to groundwater sourcing including More Water More Life (MWML).
• Provision of technical support in the review of research and studies related to sustainable groundwater assessment and development.
• Provide technical support to scale groundwater sustainability and monitoring innovations.
• Provide capacity building on groundwater monitoring innovation for scale

Task 4: Provide technical support in the implementation, scaling and replication of groundwater mapping innovative solutions.

This task will involve:

• technical advice on hydrogeology in a variety of contexts, including water sourcing, hydrogeological assessments, groundwater sustainability, aquifer mapping, design /installation of test pumping and groundwater monitoring.
• Technical support to provide technical guidance on the establishment of groundwater monitoring networks for water levels and water quality, and the analysis and interpretation of the data, as well as advice on early warning systems

Task 5: Provide capacity building on hydrogeological capacity needs to UNICEF County Offices and stakeholders.

This task will involve:

• Supporting the development of capacity building resources (such as technical Notes and webinar packages) on innovative solutions responding to problem statements, Including but not limited to managed Aquifer recharge, assessment of water resources, groundwater development, ground water management and monitoring and the analysis and interpretation of the data including establishment of sustainable yields.

Task 6: Provide technical support and capacity building on hydrogeological capacity needs to UNICEF COs, ROs and stakeholders for innovation projects as required.

This task will involve:

• Support to country offices as required on hydrological needs for innovative approaches, this could include but is not limited to, uptake of programmatic solutions supported by the WASH innovation hub or defining specific country level issues for solution development.

Please see here the complete ToR attached ToR Hydrogeologist WASH Hub.pdf

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…

• An advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) in the fields, hydrogeology, geophysics or appropriately similar qualifications with significant experience in drilling works *A first University Degree in a relevant field combined with 2 additional years of professional experience may be accepted in lieu of an Advanced University Degree.
• A minimum of 5 years of relevant professional experience in water resources management, groundwater works/specifically drilling, pump testing, hydrogeological/geophysical assessment, and related fields.
• Demonstrable experience, knowledge and understanding of supporting hydrogeological programmes in UN contexts remotely (essential)
• Demonstrable knowledge and understanding of managing innovation projects with teams who have competing priorities (essential)
• Able to explain complex technical information and concepts to UNICEF country staff and partners so they can understand the implications for their projects (essential)
• Previous experience with the UN, National and Regional entities, as well as with donors is desirable.
• Developing country work experience and/or familiarity with emergency is considered an asset.
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.

Travel:

In the financial proposal include travel costs for:

• 8 trips from your home to Copenhagen for one week at a time, include DSA rate
• 2 trips to Nairobi for one week at a time, include DSA rate
• 1 trip to Timor Leste for 1 week, include DSA rate
• 1 trip to Djibouti for 1 week, include DSA rate

The consultant is responsible for arranging his/her own travel, including visa and travel insurance.

How to apply:

● Interested applicant is required to submit a financial proposal with all-inclusive fee. Please see the financial proposal template. ● Financial proposal must include travel costs (economy class) and daily subsistence allowance, if travel is required as per TOR and any other estimated costs: visa, travel/health insurance. Interested applicants are required to submit a financial proposal with all-inclusive fee. Please see the financial proposal template Consultancy Financial Offer template.docx ● Interested applicant is required to submit a technical proposal

Applications without a financial and technical proposal will not be considered.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF's values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability (CRITAS).

To view our competency framework, please visit here.

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.

UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants/individual contractors with disabilities. This may include, for example, accessible software, travel assistance for missions or personal attendants. We encourage you to disclose your disability during your application in case you need reasonable accommodation during the selection process and afterwards in your assignment.

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.

Remarks:

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.

Individuals engaged under a consultancy or individual contract will not be considered “staff members” under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures, and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants and Individual Contractors. Consultants and individual contractors are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws.

The selected candidate is solely responsible to ensure that the visa (applicable) and health insurance required to perform the duties of the contract are valid for the entire period of the contract. Selected candidates are subject to confirmation of fully-vaccinated status against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) with a World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed vaccine, which must be met prior to taking up the assignment. It does not apply to consultants who will work remotely and are not expected to work on or visit UNICEF premises, programme delivery locations or directly interact with communities UNICEF works with, nor to travel to perform functions for UNICEF for the duration of their consultancy contracts.

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Added 3 days ago - Updated 1 hour ago - Source: unicef.org