County Wash Officer - (Wamba Sub County, Maralal) at Mercy Corps

The Position

The Samburu County WASH Officer will provide program implementation and coordination support to USAID Nawiri’s efforts in improving access to safe drinking water to vulnerable communities and promotion of appropriate sanitation and hygiene practices for improved nutrition outcomes. He/she will collaborate with county government, sub-county water and public health teams, ward level communities, consortium partners, local CSOs and communities to deliver quality, impactful and sustainable WASH systems that contribute to addressing immediate, underlying, and systemic drivers of Persistent Acute Malnutrition (PAM).

S/he will play a pivotal role in implementing existing and novel measures to strengthen the county and communities water governance structures, providing key support in water systems assessments, infrastructure design and implementation, WASH service professionalization processes, supporting performance improvement plans for peri-urban utilities and piloting new technologies that improve water services delivery beyond first-time access to drinking water. He/she will also support strengthening sanitation and hygiene component of USAID Nawiri while ensuring integration with innovative social behavior change strategies.

Essential Responsibilities

PROGRAM PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTATION

• In a joint-planning and agreed upon targeted approach with Samburu County, communities, and other stakeholders, identify suitable locations for implementation of domestic water supply systems.
• Ensure the rural water supply projects conform to sound relevant technical assessments such as hydrogeological and feasibility surveys before implementation.
• In liaison with County WASH Engineer and Water Systems Advisor, develop bill of quantities and specifications for water and sanitation systems.
• Implement projects as planned according to developed technical standards, schedules timelines and budget.
• Ensure stakeholders such as county and communities are involved at all the project cycle phases (identification, design, implementation, and monitoring) for enhanced ownership, accountability, and oversight.
• Ensure Nawiri Water Quality Assurance Plan (WQAP) is applied in all water points developed.
• Provide support linkages for established or existing local water users association by employing the agreed upon contextualized rural water management model.
• Support county public health team in catalyzing demand for sanitation products and services through implementation of community-lead total sanitation (CLTS) approaches in selected villages whilst integrating, layering, and sequencing with other USAID PREG partners activities.
• Implement Nawiri Social, Structural and Behavior Change (SSBC) component related to WASH promotion.
• Ensure SBC concepts and/or messages achieve Nawiri objectives, such as increasing knowledge, changing attitudes, enhancing motivation to change behaviors, and increasing the perceived benefits of new behaviors. Lead in the research design, pretesting, production, and distribution of SBC/IEC materials.
• Pursue other innovative ways to deliver compelling messages such as the use of schools and other culturally sensitive media/channels of communications to reach adolescent girls, women, youths, and men.
• Develop and maintain harmonious relationship with partner organizations, line ministries and audience groups. This includes planning activities and coordinating closely with the greater Nawiri consortium partners and other USAID Programs.
• Monitor project implementation, document processes and achievements to ensure best practices are captured and disseminated.
• Regularly visit field activities to assess progress and provide formal and informal feedback.
• Compile and provide comprehensive project activities report.

COLLABORATION AND PARTNERSHIPS

• Work collaboratively with all key stakeholders
• Work collaboratively with all USAID Nawiri overlapping and cross-cutting thematic areas such SSBC, Gender, Youth and Social Dynamics (GYSD) among others.
• Support collaborative partnerships with other county development partners to identify potential opportunities for leverage and linkages.
• Engage with program quality and monitoring team to ensure CARM is integrated in all Nawiri WASH activities.

INFLUENCE AND REPRESENTATION

• Support the facilitation of planning meetings and workshops with government, NGO, private sector, and community partners to revise plans and promote partner acceptance/buy-in.
• Ensure close coordination and sharing of information with relevant stakeholders.
• Represent Nawiri at county and sub-county level when called upon. 

 Supervisory Responsibility

N/A

Accountability

Reports Directly To: USAID Nawiri’s Samburu County WASH Engineer on technical oversight and with dotted line to Field Director on administrative and coordination oversight.

Works Directly With: Water Systems Advisor, County WASH Engineer, Technical leads/advisors, Senior Environmental Safeguards Officer, health, and nutrition team, learning and monitoring team, Field Director and team, consortium partners’ staff, M&E Coordinator, field level finance and operations teams.

Accountability to Participants and Stakeholders

Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically to our program participants, community partners, other stakeholders, and to international standards guiding international relief and development work. We are committed to actively engaging communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring, and evaluation of our field projects.

Minimum Qualification & Transferable Skills

• A BSc in Engineering, Public Health, Water Systems Engineering, Water Resources Management, or related field.
• Minimum of 3 years of experience in implementation of development programs including rural water supply with integration of sanitation and hygiene promotion (WASH).
• Experience in developing technical water infrastructure design drawings, technical specifications, feasibilities and environmental assessment and bill of quantities.
• Experience sanitation demand creation approaches such as Community-led Total Sanitation.,
• Knowledge of WASH systems strengthening is plus but not a must.
• Excellent and persuasive oral and written communication skills, including report writing.
• Previous working experience in Arid and Semi-arid Land (ASAL) counties.
• Demonstrated attention to detail, ability to follow procedures, meet deadlines and work independently and cooperatively with team members.