WASH Advocacy Advisor: Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH)

WASH Advocacy Advisor: Wa ter, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH)

This position is contingent upon funding.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises and helps people to survive and rebuild their lives. The IRC has been working with communities in Ethiopia since 2000, providing greater access to water and sanitation, improving hygiene, and developing sustainable livelihoods for victims of drought and conflict-affected communities.

Position Summary:

The IRC is seeking a WASH Advocacy Advisor for an anticipated USAID-funded Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) project in Ethiopia, which will focus on WASH interventions for enhanced resilience, including a natural resource management (NRM) component. The WASH Advocacy Advisor will work with stakeholders from local and regional government to build capacity, influence opinion and facilitate change in the productive use of water. This includes working with key opinion leaders such as administration officials, technical bureau department heads, woreda technical officers, community leaders to build consensus within the target regions on developing new solutions to water challenges. The successful candidate will demonstrate her/his capacity to constructively engage local government and to facilitate a community led process to achieve increased access to sustainable WASH services.

Specific WASH Advocacy Advisor responsibilities include the following:

• Engage and maintain effective relationships with community and regional stakeholders to shape opinions and develop buy-in from local leadership on WASH programming technical approaches.
• Provide overall leadership and strategic direction to community advocacy campaigns, providing guidance and structure for effective planning and quality assurance, while ensuring activities are and appear to be community driven.
• Keep opinion leaders (including administration officials, technical bureau department heads, woreda technical officers, and community leaders) engaged and aware of program successes and activities through regular, informative communications.
• Conduct ­­­­periodic multi-stakeholder meetings in order to build consensus within target regions on developing new solutions to water challenges they face.
• Maintain active engagement with other local partners, including local and international NGOs, implementing partners, and other development sector stakeholders.
• Ensure that cross-cutting themes such as safe programming, multiple use water services (MUS), and climate change are effectively integrated into community campaigns.
• Facilitate and document lessons learned and best practices generated by community-run activities, and organize learning and sharing opportunities between project-based and external stakeholders on a regular basis as appropriate.
• Use problem-solving and consensus-building skills to promote coordination among diverse interests and institutions.

Required Skills:

• Demonstrated experience managing complex advocacy initiatives in developing or conflict prone contexts similar to Ethiopia.
• Demonstrated experience with capacity building of local organizations and government leaders to support their design and implementation of community driven advocacy campaigns.
• Knowledge and prior application of participatory methodologies.
• Strong leadership, analytical and organizational skills. Demonstrated ability to quickly assess priorities and effectively manage a variety of activities at a time while paying appropriate attention to detail.

• Excellent interpersonal skills and ability to interact professionally with donor, project stakeholders, in-country collaborators and staff at all levels of the organization. Proven ability to convene/chair high profile meetings and ability to productively interact with a wide range organizations (e.g. government, private sector, NGOs, and research institutions).
• Technical familiarity with WASH program design and implementation preferred.

Experience/Qualifications

• At a minimum: Bachelor’s Degree in business, economics, social sciences, or a relevant field.

• A minimum of five (5) years of practical experience working on community development projects with demonstrated assessment, analytical and planning skills, and an ability to translate analysis into recommendations for practical action.
• Minimum three (3) years of experience implementing USAID-funded programs in East Africa; experience in Ethiopia preferred.
• Experience with USAID program implementation and grant management is preferred.

• Fluent in English.