WASH Specialist (Climate Resilience Emergency), NO-C, Fixed Term, Lilongwe, Malawi, REQ, Open to Malawian Nationals Only

Contract

This is a NO-3 contract. This kind of contract is known as National Professional Officers. It is normally only for nationals. It's a staff contract. More about NO-3 contracts.

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, a champion

UNICEF Country Programme aims to support the Government of Malawi in meeting the rights of the child through the provision of promotional, preventive, and curative interventions, including in emergencies. This contributes to young children, as well as adolescents and women of reproductive age, having improved health, nutrition, and an enabling early childhood environment to enable them to survive, thrive, and realize their full potential. Addressing these deprivations enables the UNICEF Malawi Country Programme to align very strongly with UNICEF Strategic Plan (2022-2025) as well as contribute to the strategic results of UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) . The UNICEF Programme is therefore aligned with national development priorities outlined by the Vision 2063 first 10-year implementation plan.

The WASH programme aims to provide safely managed water, sanitation, and hygiene service to all children. It focuses on scaling up climate-resilient WASH service and package interventions at community and institutional levels to maximize impact on children. In collaboration with the private sector, the WASH programme is also influencing markets to ensure affordable WASH goods and services are available where they are most needed. As the section’s WASH Specialist, you will be at the forefront of all WASH emergency response and coordination.

How can you make a difference?

The Malawi Country Office offers an exciting and rewarding career opportunity to join our dynamic WASH team, where you will be responsible for climate-resilient WASH and emergency response. Under the supervision of the Chief WASH, you will support WASH Cluster coordination and risk-informed programming integrating development, humanitarian, and climate adaptation/mitigation efforts to improve the long-term sustainability of WASH services and the effectiveness of the humanitarian response. You will be collaborating with the other team member in charge of the integrated water service provision, sanitation, and hygiene service provision in communities and institutions ( schools and health centers).

This job, therefore presents a unique and significant opportunity for a qualified, vibrant, motivated, and committed person to contribute to the overall achievement of transformative results for children with professional excellence by delivering on the following key responsibility areas, but not limited to:

1. Provide support to the UNICEF WASH program, the Ministry of Water and Sanitation, and partners on policy, programme development, planning, and implementation and ensuring integration, coherence, and harmonization of WASH with other sectors;
2. Work closely and collaboratively with colleagues and partners to support programme management, monitoring, and delivery of results through leading evaluation exercises, reviews, and preparing reports on results for required action/interventions.
3. Provide technical and operational support to program implementation through field visits, surveys, and exchange of information with partners to assess progress, identify bottlenecks and potential problems, and make timely decisions to resolve issues and/or refer to relevant officials for timely interventions. This includes drafting policy papers, briefs, and other strategic materials for use by management, donors, UNICEF regional offices, and headquarters
4. Support the Humanitarian WASH preparedness and response through preparedness actions, coordination, and effective service delivery in case of an emergency
5. Build and sustain effective close working partnerships with WASH sector government counterparts and national stakeholders
6. Contribute to innovation, knowledge management, and capacity building for implementing partners at national and district levels.

You are encouraged to download the detailed job description Generic Job Description_WASH Specialist Level 3_26Oct23.pdf in order to view the full role and its requirements.

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

Education:

• An advanced university degree in one of the following fields is required: Water and sanitation, public health, climate change, social sciences, sanitary engineering, or another relevant technical field
• *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)

Experience:

• A minimum of five years of relevant professional work experience is required in WASH Response in Emergency, Cluster coordination, WASH programmes and project design. An experience in Climate change is an asset
• Experience working with national and sub-national WASH coordination and governance structures is a requirement
• Experience in a developing country is required
• Experience in WASH programme/project development within a UN system agency is an asset
• Experience in the WASH programme in emergency is considered as an asset

Technical knowledge and skills:

• Knowledge of the WASH sector in Malawi is required.
• Knowledge of rural water supply and sanitation, including sustainability (required)
• Humanitarian WASH response and coordination (required)
• Technical skills in programme planning, support and implementation are required
• Knowledge of Climate change and climate-resilient WASH (as an asset)
• Knowledge in WASH-in-Schools and Health Centres (as an asset)
• Proven networking and partnership-building skills are an asset.

Language:

• Fluency in English, both strong verbal and written skills, is essential.

For every Child, you demonstrate...

UNICEF’s Core Values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust and Accountability and Sustainability (CRITAS) underpin everything we do and how we do it. Get acquainted with Our Values Charter: UNICEF Values

UNICEF competencies required for this post are…

(1) Builds and maintains partnerships (2) Demonstrates self-awareness and ethical awareness (3) Drive to achieve results for impact (4) Innovates and embraces change (5) Manages ambiguity and complexity (6) Thinks and acts strategically (7) Works collaboratively with others.

During the recruitment process, we test candidates following the competency framework. Familiarize yourself with our competency framework and its different levels: competency framework 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. We offer a wide range of benefits to our staff, including paid parental leave, breastfeeding breaks and reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities. UNICEF strongly encourages the use of flexible working arrangements.

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 is committed to promote the protection and safeguarding of all children. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks, and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles. 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:

The position is not considered an elevated risk role. However, UNICEF reserves the right to conduct further vetting/assessment within the scope of child safeguarding as appropriate.

UNICEF’s active commitment towards diversity and inclusion is critical to deliver the best results for children. For this position, eligible and suitable female are encouraged to apply.

UNICEF appointments are subject to medical clearance. Appointments may also be subject to inoculation (vaccination) requirements, including against SARS-CoV-2 (COVID).

Government employees that are considered for employment with UNICEF are normally required to resign from their government before taking up an assignment with UNICEF.

UNICEF reserves the right to withdraw an offer of appointment, without compensation, if medical clearance is not obtained, or necessary inoculation requirements are not met within a reasonable period for any reason.

UNICEF only considers higher educational qualifications obtained from an institution accredited/recognized in the World Higher Education Database (WHED), a list updated by the International Association of Universities (IAU) / United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The list can be accessed at http://www.whed.net/.

The vacancy announcement is open to all candidates – both internal UNICEF staff holding permanent, continuing, and fixed-term appointments and external candidates.

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

In order to deliver results for the children of Malawi, UNICEF Malawi Country Office works in a fast-paced but impactful environment where creativity, innovation, collaboration, teamwork, a safe space and professional development are supported and encouraged. We are therefore seeking individuals who are motivated to make a real difference and serve the children of Malawi with resourcefulness, resilience, creativity, and professional excellence.