Chief WASH, P-5, East Jerusalem, State of Palestine, Fixed Term (post no. 51526)

UNICEF works in over 190 countries and territories to save children’s lives, defend their rights, and help them fulfill their potential, from early childhood through adolescence.

At UNICEF, we are committed, passionate, and proud of what we do. Promoting the rights of every child is not just a job – it is a calling.

UNICEF is a place where careers are built, we offer our staff diverse opportunities for personal and professional development that will help them develop a fulfilling career while delivering on a rewarding mission. We pride ourselves on a culture that helps staff thrive, coupled with an attractive compensation and benefits package.

Visit our website to learn more about what we do at UNICEF.

For every child, hope

UNICEF in the State of Palestine works to uphold the rights of children to access essential services and protection, from early childhood through adolescence. Our objective is to ensure that every child in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, irrespective of background or circumstance, has an equal chance to fulfil their potential. Following the escalation of hostilities in the Gaza Strip, UNICEF is responding at scale with WASH, Nutrition, Health, Child Protection and Multi-Purpose Cash, while preparing for return to learning for children across the State of Palestine to respond to the most critical needs of children, while supporting the restoration of essential services.

The Chief WASH reports to the Deputy Special Representative for general guidance and direction. The Chief is responsible for managing and supervising all stages of the WASH programme from strategic planning and formulation to the delivery of the WASH outcome and output results.  The Chief is also responsible for leading and managing the CO WASH team. The Chief WASH is accountable for ensuring that the WASH outcome and output results are achieved according to plans, allocations, results based-management approaches and methodology, UNICEF’s Strategic Plan, standards of performance and accountability framework.

Your key functions/accountabilities

1. Managerial and technical leadership

– Establish the annual work plan, determining priorities and performance measurements. Monitor workplan implementation, to ensure that WASH output results are achieved to schedule and performance standards.  Report critical issues to the Deputy and Representative or Associate Director for timely action.

– Establish the annual workplan outputs, activities and developmental priorities of the WASH section staff.  Provide timely guidance to enable the WASH section staff to perform their duties responsibly and efficiently.

– Manage WASH team building and motivation.  Signal potential conflicts and take preventive action, in coordination with Human Resources staff.

2. Strategic guidance in programme development and planning

– Oversee the preparation of the WASH inputs for the situation analysis.  Ensure that comprehensive and current data is used to inform WASH policy and programme development, planning, management and implementation. Keep abreast of global, regional and national WASH sector developments, for maximum efficiency and effectiveness in WASH programme design, management and implementation.

– Collaborate with colleagues and partners to discuss national WASH priorities, resources, strategies and methodologies to ensure the most strategic use of the collective resources of external support agencies.

– Lead the development of the WASH outcome and output results of the country programme (or CCPD), along with related background, strategic analysis and delivery strategies, ensuring alignment with the UNICEF’s Strategic Plan, UNICEF’s global WASH strategy and the country programme as well as government plans and priorities, and the role of other WASH external support agencies.  Lead the development of output-related indicators, baselines, targets and means of verification.  Lead the development of the WASH content of the CPAP.

– Ensure the development and management of a fund-raising strategy for WASH, aligned with the WASH output results in the country programme, and lead interactions with senior staff of donor agencies.

– Support the development and modification of UNICEF WASH policy and strategy instruments based on WASH programming monitoring, studies and assessments, and UNICEF field experience and lessons learned.

3. Efficiency in programme management, monitoring and quality control of results

– Prepare documentation for programme reviews and analytical statements on progress and constraints of WASH outcome and output results.

– Provide technical and operational support throughout all stages of programming processes for the achievement of the WASH output results.  Ensure effective collaboration with other UNICEF sectors, where needed.

– With other external support agencies, analyze national government WASH sector programmes and projects, with a focus on WASH outcomes (behaviors), using bottleneck analysis tools available in the sector (WASH-BAT, CSOs, SDAs).

– Manage monitoring and evaluation of the WASH programme and its components, programme reviews and annual sectoral reviews with government and other partners and prepare reports for CO management and WASH sector coordination bodies.

– Monitor, report and certify the use of sectoral programme resources (financial, administrative and other assets), verify compliance with approved allocations, organizational rules, regulations/procedures and donor commitments, standards of accountability and integrity.

– Ensure timely donor reporting, negotiate any changes required to agreements with donor in a timely manner.  Ensure systems are in place for HACT compliance.

4. Advisory services and technical support

– Participate in strategic discussions to influence national WASH policies and strategies, including the reduction of inequalities, contributing to global sector learning.

– Advise senior officials in government, NGOs, UN agencies and WASH sector donors on WASH policies, strategies and best practices.

– Lead the preparation of policy papers, reports, briefing notes and other strategic materials for use by management, donors, UNICEF regional offices and headquarters.

– Coordinate the use of technical experts from the Regional Office and HQ, as and where appropriate in the WASH programme, through remote support and on-site visits.

5. Advocacy, networking and partnership building

– Build and strengthen strategic partnerships with government counterparts, UN agencies, donor agencies, WASH institutions, NGOs, research institutes and the private sector to stimulate coordination and collaboration.

– Oversee the analysis of national budgets for WASH, cost analysis and value-for-money studies, to advocate for improvements in sector efficiency.

– Produce materials for WASH programme advocacy to promote awareness, establish partnerships and support fund-raising.

– Represent UNICEF in inter-agency discussions, ensuring that UNICEF’s position, interests and priorities are fully considered and integrated in planning and agenda setting.

– Interact with global and regional initiatives and partnerships for WASH and support / assume UNICEF leadership in key global/regional WASH platforms

6. Quality, timeliness and predictability of humanitarian WASH preparedness and response

– Ensure the annual preparation/revision of UNICEF’s preparedness for WASH in emergencies.

– Ensure that WASH cluster coordination arrangements are in place to support a coherent, strategic, coordinated, effective and efficient system of partnerships to maximize reach, with limited resources, to ensure that those in need are well served, at sufficient standard, by WASH partners.  Key cluster activities will include sector strategy development, needs assessments, monitoring, reporting, advocacy, resource mobilization and capacity building, inter-cluster coordination amongst others.

– Ensure that all UNICEF WASH staff are familiar with UNICEF’s procedures for responding in an emergency.

– In case of an emergency, ensure that UNICEF meets its commitments for WASH in the response and early recovery.

– Support government to strengthen WASH emergency preparedness.

7. Innovation, knowledge management and capacity building

– Organize and lead the development, implementation, monitoring and documentation of WASH action research and innovation (technical or systems), ensuring rigorous monitoring and wide sharing of results.

– Determine priorities for learning/knowledge products, covering innovative approaches and good practices, to support overall WASH sector development.

– Systematically plan, support and monitor the professional development of UNICEF WASH staff, to ensure our sector capacity remains up-to-date with latest developments.

– Organize the systematic assessment of WASH sector capacity gap analysis, in collaboration with government and other stakeholders, and support the design of initiatives to strengthen capacities systematically.

– Ensure regular updates of the UNICEF knowledge sharing platforms (Communication or collaboration SharePoint sites) with WASH learning / knowledge products in support of the organization wide Enterprise Content Management (ECM) initiative, including support in the feedback and use of the knowledge products and learnings.

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

Education:

An advanced university degree in one of the following fields is required: public health, social sciences, health and hygiene behavior change communication, environmental or public health, water resource management or another relevant technical field.

Additional relevant post-graduate courses that complement/supplement the main degree are required.

Experience:

A minimum of ten years of professional experience in WASH-related programmes at the national and international levels in a mix set of country context (including humanitarian, fragile, developing) is required.

Proven ability to effectively lead a team to deliver results is required

Emergency field experience working in humanitarian situations, including deployment missions (with UN-Govt-INGO) is required.  Experience working in multiple geographic regions is strongly desirable.

Language Requirement:

Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language, in particular Arabic, is considered as an asset.

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

The 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 (8) Nurtures, leads and manages people.

Familiarize yourself with our competency framework and its different levels.

This position has been assessed as an elevated risk role for Child Safeguarding purposes as it is: a role with direct contact with children, works directly with children, or is a safeguarding response role. Additional vetting and assessment for elevated risk roles in child safeguarding (potentially including additional criminal background checks) apply.

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 does not hire candidates who are married to children (persons under 18). 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 promoting the protection and safeguarding of all children. All selected candidates will 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.

UNICEF appointments are subject to medical clearance. Issuance of a visa by the host country of the duty station is required for IP positions and will be facilitated by UNICEF. Appointments may also be subject to inoculation (vaccination) requirements, including against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid). Should you be selected for a position with UNICEF, you either must be inoculated as required or receive a medical exemption from the relevant department of the UN. Otherwise, the selection will be canceled.

Remarks:

As per Article 101, paragraph 3, of the Charter of the United Nations, the paramount consideration in the employment of the staff is the necessity of securing the highest standards of efficiency, competence, and integrity.

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

Mobility is a condition of international professional employment with UNICEF and an underlying premise of the international civil service.

This is required for all posts requiring a higher education degree. “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/

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

The VA is open to all (internal and external candidates)

Government employees who are considered for employment with UNICEF are normally required to resign from their government positions before taking up an assignment with UNICEF. UNICEF reserves the right to withdraw an offer of appointment, without compensation, if a visa or medical clearance is not obtained, or necessary inoculation requirements are not met, within a reasonable period for any reason.

UNICEF does not charge a processing fee at any stage of its recruitment, selection, and hiring processes (i.e., application stage, interview stage, validation stage, or appointment and training). UNICEF will not ask for applicants’ bank account information.

All UNICEF positions are advertised, and only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process. An internal candidate performing at the level of the post in the relevant functional area, or an internal/external candidate in the corresponding Talent Group, may be selected, if suitable for the post, without assessment of other candidates.

Additional information about working for UNICEF can be found here.