Regional Director WASH, Environmental Sustainability and Climate Adaptation

World Vision (WV)

Dakar, Senegal 🇸🇳

With over 70 years of experience, our focus is on helping the most vulnerable children overcome poverty and experience fullness of life. We help children of all backgrounds, even in the most dangerous places, inspired by our Christian faith.

Come join our 33,000+ staff working in nearly 100 countries and share the joy of transforming vulnerable children’s life stories!

Employee Contract Type:International Assignment – Fixed Term (Fixed Term)

Job Description:

Locations: Dakar – Senegal, other remote locations possible

Purpose of the position:

The role of the Regional WASH, Environmental Sustainability and Climate Adaptation (WASH & ESCA) Director is to provide strategic leadership and technical guidance to World Vision West Africa region sectoral programming in WASH & ESCA to contribute to the World Vision’s child wellbeing objectives. This position will define the technical guidance, and standards for sector technical approaches to enhance ministry performance in alignment with the WVI’s global strategy. Responsible for WV’s reputation in the sectors, create partnerships and innovative approaches and strengthens and mobilizes WV’s sectors’ community of practice (WASH & ESCA) to execute excellence in programming that demonstrates evidence of impact. Positions and brands WV as a leading child-focused organization and represents WV at high-level regional platforms and other external engagement forums. This role will work closely with other regional functional directors, the Global Technical Lead for ESCA, and the Senior Director of Global WASH operations, Support Offices, and National Offices to effectively scale up WASH & ESCA activities in West Africa region.

Major Responsibilities:

1. Strategic Priorities & Technical oversight – 30%

  • Ensure WASH & ESCA programming is in alignment with the Core Project Models, Global WASH Business Plan, ESCA partnership policy, and global sector standards (SDGs, etc.).
  • Ensure National Offices (NO) technical approaches for WASH & ESCA focus on child well-being.
  • Coordinate implementation of the technical guidance, WASH business plan and conduct regular performance review of the targets set as part of the Global Business plan and WASH & ESCA sector scorecard.
  • Coordinate the measurement of impact of interventions of WASH & ESCA on Child Well-Being Outcomes(CWBO) and targets
  • Engage and support in regional priority implementation and measurement processes for WASH & ESCA
  • Engage and support SOs in regional investment allocation decisions for WASH and define ESCA resource needs in collaboration with the Global Technical Excellence Lead and the SDO.
  • Ensure that support to National Offices is included in the Organizational Capacity Building Plans (OCP).
  • Define WV West Africa Region Environmental Stewardship and Climate Adaptation vision, regional sectoral approach, and targets in alignment with the Partnership strategy.
  • Provides thought leadership in their respective area of expertise both within and outside World Vision
  • Develops WV brand and reputation through quality programming, evidence of impact, policy and advocacy-related work
  • Contribute in the development of sectoral policy and guidance in alignment with Partnership strategy.
  • Lead innovations and research initiatives in sector programming

2. Resource Development (Prepositioning work, programs development & grants management) – 25%

  • Sustainably growing an innovative portfolio through new business development including grants, contracts, and strategic partnerships.
  • Technically back-stop grant acquisition and strengthen and track GAM acquisition rates for grants and mainstream the departments across grant-funded programming in the region.
  • Support prepositioning and donor engagement as regional lead and where necessary participate in regional networks raising the profile of World Vision.
  • Establish networks and alliances with external partners (research institutions, universities, other NGOs, etc) for the purpose of enhancing program quality.
  • Work with NOs and SOs to develop a sustainable pipeline of grants,
  • Work with Regional Resource Development & National Offices to maintain strong donor relationships at regional level, developing sector engagement strategies for each donor or a group of donors
  • Provide technical support to Regional Resource Development Unit and in NOs during prepositioning meetings with bilateral, multilaterals, foundations and Public Private Partners
  • Monitor the donor competitive landscape; provide support and guidance to NOs in development of capacity statements aligned to Technical Approaches (TAs) and Technical Programmes (TPs) to be utilized during prepositioning meetings with donors.

     3. Evidence and Learning – 15%

  • Measure the extent to which resourcing opportunities meet ministry needs and impact CWB.
  • Ensure accountability by using evidence and learning, analysis, and interpretation of data to provide regional evidence of impact for the sector.
  • Coordinate the documentation, publication and dissemination of promising practices
  • Promote adoption and scale up of promising practices, project models and innovations
  • Facilitate cross learning between NOs, learning from Support Offices (SO), other regions and peer organizations
  • Engage research institutions and universities in mission critical /operational research to solve key problems/issues identified in communities
  • Conduct operations research studies and pilots, documentation and ensure dissemination of lessons learned to members of the Communities of Practice (CoP), regional and international forum.
  • Organize annual forum as a learning and innovation event
  • Contribute to the development of annual regional impact reports in collaboration with SEL, Communications and the other sector leads.

     4. External Engagement – 15%

  • Represents and builds World Vision’s influence, advocacy, partnerships and reputation externally.
  • Collaborates with Faith and Development actors externally as we seek to integrate faith into all our programming to address spiritual of causes of child well-being
  • Participates in high-level regional and international meetings, forums, and conferences as required.
  • Actively positions WV as an NGO of choice with global 2030 Agenda platforms, and with potential and key partners, donors and stakeholders, businesses and donors
  • Provides technical support to regional and Global Campaigns
  • Establish and strengthen linkages and networks with leading institutions, governments and other organizations to establish formal or informal partnerships
  • Support significant NO-level donor and technical partner engagements
  • Effectively communicate program impacts, successes and challenges with stakeholders, donors and partners to increase the visibility of WASH & ESCA within the region.

5. Collaboration and cross-functional working – 10%

  • Participate in the global WASH & ESCA community of practice and major sector networks in the region.
  • Mobilize technical expertise across the region, ensuring effective knowledge management, learning and continuous improvement of programming in the region.
  • Collaborate with regional Disaster management/HEA to monitor situations and make recommendations for ESCA activities and WASH in emergencies or related actions
  • Collaborate with key regional entities on defined collaboration matrix and joint projects
  • Participate in Regional disaster management team (RDMT) and support NO technical teams’ participation in National disaster management teams (NDMTs)
  • Collaborate with HEA for joint actions in early warning, emergency preparedness and response.

6. General Responsibilities – 5%

  • Contribute and support Christian activities that enrich and develop mutual growth in Christ in a way that promotes holistic and integrated witness in our life and work and impacts the poor and vulnerable.
  • Perform any other tasks assigned by the Senior Director of Operations.

Qualifications:  Education/Knowledge/Technical Skills and Experience

The following may be acquired through a combination of formal or self-education, prior experience, or on-the-job training:

Essential:

  • A Master’s degree in Water or Civil Engineering, Environmental Management, Climate Change, Natural Resource Management, Resource economics or other related disciplines with at least 10 years of relevant experience in a developing country environment.
  • A minimum of 10 years’ experience developing, leading, and managing complex, large-scale WASH and Environment and Climate Change initiatives.
  • Knowledge and experience in Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation programming, Environmental Assessments, as well as integration of Climate change across sectors in the international development context both in emergencies as well as development contexts is key to this position.
  • Demonstrated experience in WASH, Environment and Climate Change program documentation, program monitoring, donor report writing, networking, and partner development for resource acquisition.
  • Experience in policy influence and Environment and Climate Change policy development.
  • Demonstrated ability to mobilize stakeholders into partnerships and alliances, lead and facilitate collaborative processes.
  • Demonstrated experience working in cross-functional and remote teams for the purpose of program implementation, development of technical standards, and resource acquisition.
  • Excellent facilitation skills, strong interpersonal communication skills, both verbal and written, strong negotiation, diplomacy, strong leadership and team work skills.
  • Strong written and oral communication skills in both English and French are highly desirable for this position.
  • Also required are analytical skills for synthesis of materials, evaluations, and preparation of presentations/articles for publication as well as experience in a PC environment and the MS Office suite of software.
  • Experience in working with faith organizations, faith actors and faith-related issues in development
  • Experience of HEA and fragile contexts. 
  • Recent and extensive experience living and working in sub-Saharan Africa.
  • Effective in written and verbal communication in French and English.  Additional languages representative of the countries WV serves in an advantage.
  • Fluent in both French and English

Preferred:

  • Master’s degree in Water or Civil Engineering, Environmental Management, Climate Change, Natural Resource Management, Resource economics or other related disciplines with a strong preference for relevant doctoral-level degree.
  • Proven experience developing WASH and Climate Change Adaptation products and growing Environmental Management and Climate Action programs in a variety of contexts. 
  • Experience working with and managing large grants in sector programming for major bilateral and multilateral donors.
  • Experience growing a diverse global portfolio through new business development, strategic positioning, grants, contracts and partnerships.
  • Previous experience working in a Country Office/National Office or Regional Office setting will be advantageous.
  • Experience working in fragile, conflict, post-conflict and/or difficult operating environments is preferred.
  • West Africa experience preferred. Female applicants are encouraged to apply.
  • Strong preference for multi-lingual candidates, language skills representative of the countries WV serves is an advantage. Strong preference for French-speaking candidates (bilingual and or multi-lingual candidates will be advantageous). 

Working Environment / Conditions:

  • The position requires the ability and willingness to travel domestically and internationally up to 30% of the time.
  • This role involves being part of a virtual, geographically dispersed team (Remote working is highly encouraged).

Applicant Types Accepted: Local and International Applicants (IA’s) Accepted


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