WASH Technical Consultant

UNICEF together with partners is working to ensure that emergency access to safe water and sanitation is available to children and families across the country, including some of the priority and most affected areas of Dnipro, Kherson, Kharkiv, Izyum, Kryvyi Rih, Balaklia, Mykolaiv and Zaporizhzhia regions, where large scale rehabilitation projects were initiated in 2022 and 2023. Since 2022, a majority of the interventions are focused in the frontline area where UNICEF supports vodokanals (water utilities), municipalities, hospitals, schools and collective centers, restoring water and sanitation services and facilities, providing equipment and essential consumables such as chemicals for water treatment. Since the destruction of the Kakhovka dam and reservoir in June 2023, UNICEF is also implementing large water supply projects in Marhanets, Nikopol, Kryvyi Rih and Kherson. 

Working through field offices, in 2024, UNICEF seeks to reach over 1.5 million people with critical WASH supplies, ensure approximately 4.5 million people access safe water and sanitation services from public utilities, and ensure child-friendly, gender-sensitive and inclusion WASH facilities in 260 social institutions. Additionally, UNICEF coordinates humanitarian and development partners for WASH response and recovery, generates awareness on hygiene and environmental sustainability, supports scalable models for improved WASH service delivery and governance, engages in capacity development, and bases its infrastructure intervention on environmental and social safeguards. 

In 2024, one of the prominent lines of work for UNICEF is towards early recovery with evidence generation and knowledge management to inform legislative and policy works of the Government of Ukraine, in line with EU accession, to coordinate and help inform further investments and interventions by donors and international organizations, and to pilot scalable models, working towards better governance and energy efficiency, also leading to cost recovery for the sector on a whole and specifically for water utilities. To this end, evidence generation, knowledge management and monitoring and reporting of these activities becomes critical. 

Key tasks/responsibilities under the assignment: 

• Under the supervision of the WASH specialist, the consultant will support and closely work with WASH staff for the delivery of shared or contributory results for all or part of the following areas:
• Inform with technical insight and input, technical assessments and reviews, the established coordinative and supportive relationship with Government partners, vodokanals, communal enterprises, local authorities and NGOs/CSOs implementing the WASH programme in Ukraine, focusing on the roadmap for early recovery efforts for the sector.
• Undertake monitoring and data collection exercises and develop or inform monitoring and reporting frameworks for UNICEF WASH programme implementation as well as financial management.
• Undertake specific field missions to assess and document innovative and efficient WASH efforts in the field, with a special focus on sustainable market-based solutions and scalable models.
• Liaise with the WASH and other relevant clusters in representation of UNICEF, to identify sites requiring WASH interventions. 
• Liaise with academia (national and/or foreign) for the development of scalable models, and eventually manage the scientific publication process derived from the obtained results, in order to leverage UNICEF’s recovery progamme position.
• Provide technical support and expertise to supplement UNICEF WASH in different coordination and capacity development forums, when necessary.
• Any other relevant task assigned by supervisor.

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

• Education: Master’s degree or higher in one of the following fields is required: engineering, architecture, public health, or other technical disciplines relevant to the fields of WASH, from an accredited academic institution. MBA and/or a Bachelor’s degree in business administration, marketing, statistics or a related field, will be considered an advantage.

Professional experience:

• A minimum of five (5) years of relevant experience, at the national and/or international levels, in WASH and/or other directly related technical fields is required.
• Experience in planning and implementation of civil design construction and WASH projects will be considered an advantage.
• Experience in development and humanitarian work, especially in emergency response, will be considered an advantage.
• Work experience with other UN agencies in WASH will be considered an advantage.

Languages: 

• Ukrainian: Proficient/Native [C2];
• English: Upper-intermediate [B2].

Source:  https://jobs.unicef.org/cw/en-us/job/570545