International Consultant Team leader for a Country-led Formative Evaluation of Safely Managed Sanitation Assistance Program

Indonesia is the largest archipelago nation in the world. With a population of 270.2 million (National Statistics Agency, 2020) from 360 ethnic groups, Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world. It stretches 5,150 km between the Australian and Asian continental mainland, divided the Pacific and Indian Oceans at the Equator. The country comprises of five main islands: Sumatra, Java, Kalimantan, Celebes and Papua. It has a total of 17,508 islands, among which 6,000 are inhabited. The population of Indonesia can be divided into two major groups: in the western region, most from the Malay ethnicity, while in the eastern region there are the Papuans originating from the Melanesian Islands.

Since the year 2000, Indonesia has made remarkable progress in accelerating access to basic water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services to most of its population, spreading across different islands of the archipelago. Since 20001, Indonesia has succeeded in expanding access to improved water sources to about 110 million citizens and improved sanitation facilities to 148 million citizens. At the same time, Indonesia also managed to significantly reduce its open defecation rate from 30% in 2000 to 5.6 % in 2021 (National Statistics Agency, 2021). As of 2021, 90.7% of Indonesia’s population have access to improved drinking water – a significant increase from 61.29% drinking water access in 2018. Similarly, 80.29 percent of the population has access to improved sanitation in 2021 (National Statistics Agency, 2021). Nevertheless, challenges and issues linked to water quality and sanitation-related diseases are still a concern. A recent survey (2021) by the Ministry of Health showed that Escherichia coli (E. coli) was found in 70% of the groundwater samples from the surveyed households, indicating that water pollution due to poor sanitation is a major issue of concern.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) inspires countries to improve the access and quality of sanitation services. It is no longer considered sufficient to only have access to adequate sanitation, countries now must introduce and increase access to safely managed sanitation, which offers better health and environmental protection for children and their families. Safely managed sanitation is an upward shift of the interventions focused in reducing open defecation.

The level of access to safely managed sanitation in Indonesia is still low – around 10% in 2023 – which is slight increase from 7% in 2022 (National Statistics Agency, 2022 & 2023). Several initiatives have been conducted by the government to increase access to safely managed sanitation, including improving fecal sludge management (FSM) and access to sewerage system (e.g., city-scale or decentralized wastewater treatment system, particularly for high densely urban areas). In the area of on-site sanitation, the government through the Ministry of Public Works and Housing has supported local governments in improving fecal sludge management by providing technical assistance to strengthen institutional capacity, development of guidelines and standards, conducting training and sharing knowledge, etc. In addition, the Ministry of Public Works and Housing has provided support to vulnerable households to acquire sealed septic tanks to contain domestic wastewater and reduce risk of pollution. On-site systems that are not properly sited, designed, installed, and maintained pose an unacceptable risk to public health.

Government of Indonesia (GoI) has set new target by committing to provide access to safely managed sanitation to 30% of Indonesians by 2030 and 70% by 2045. To achieve these targets, the GoI with technical support from UNICEF has developed a safely managed sanitation roadmap, which serves as a basis for the preparation of the next national development plans – National Medium-Term Development Planning (RPJMN) 2025-2029 and National Long-Term Development Planning (RPJPN) 2025-2045. The roadmap sets out the key policies, strategies, interventions, budget, priority programs and line ministries accountable for the implementation of the safely managed sanitation roadmap

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

• Strong team leadership and management track record and commitment to delivering timely and high-quality evaluation outputs.
• Extensive evaluation expertise (at least 10 years) of comprehensive scope with strong mixed-methods evaluation skills and flexibility in using non-traditional and innovative evaluation methods.
• Background in WASH, particularly specializing in sanitation programme development, including sound knowledge of policy and system aspects; institutional development; familiarity with other sectors, namely health, education, and social protection, including the role of the UN system, partnerships, results-based management, planning and monitoring; policy, advocacy, upstream programming, and sustainable development issues.
• Demonstrated experience in engaging with government stakeholders in a participatory manner throughout the evaluation process.
• Familiarity with development programming, policy and advocacy work and experience in evaluating multi-sectoral programmes or initiatives would be an asset (familiarity with the socio-economic context of Southeast Asian countries is preferred).
• Knowledge of the UN’s human rights, gender equality and equity agendas and experience in applying these to evaluation.
• Good interpersonal and communication skills; ability to interact with various stakeholders and to concisely express ideas and concepts in written and oral form.

Language proficiency:

• Fluency in English is mandatory.

Source: https://jobs.unicef.org/cw/en-us/job/574006