Advisor, Inclusive and Resilient WASH Systems Strengthening (Madesh Province)

Advisor, Inclusive and Resilient WASH Systems Strengthening (Madesh Province)

Janakpur, Nepal

Contract

Contract type: National Contract

Company Description

SNV is a mission-driven global development partner working in more than 20 countries across Africa and Asia, including Nepal since 1980. Building on 60 years of experience and grounded in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, we work on the core themes of gender equality and social inclusion, climate adaptation and mitigation, and strong institutions and effective governance. Together with our team of over 1,600 people, our mission is to strengthen capacities and catalyse partnerships that transform the agri-food, energy, and water systems, which enable sustainable and more equitable lives for all. For more information on SNV, visit our website: https://snv.org

Background

Through its Water Sector, SNV’s aims to contribute to improving water security for all, namely the reliable availability of an acceptable quantity and quality of water for health, livelihoods, ecosystems and production, coupled with an acceptable level of water-related risks. Under the water sector SNV supports sustainable and inclusive water uses for domestic and productive proposes, sanitation, pollution and waste management, as well as an urban integrated water cycle approach and water resource management.

The work in the water sector touches upon three human rights: the human right to water and sanitation, and the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. Governments are the duty-bearers of progressive realisation of these rights in their areas. Therefore, SNV works with governments to develop and implement sustainable water governance systems which engage private sector and civil society in a way that rights for all are realised, even for those areas that are less profitable or have less political weight.

SNV has a track record in facilitating structural change at different levels (national, sub-national, local), bringing together relevant stakeholders and creating conditions for change at scale. Our work is evidence based and promotes learning among peers in and across countries. Gender equality, social inclusion, and climate resilience are universal themes across all our work.

About the WASH Systems for Health Programme- Nepal

WaterAid and SNV have formed a strategic consortium for the Implementation of WASH Systems Strengthening in Bangladesh and Nepal under FCDO's WASH Systems for Health Programme (WS4H). Water Aid Bangladesh leads the project in Bangladesh and SNV Nepal leads the project in Nepal.

In Nepal, the project aims to support the Government of Nepal in improving access to inclusive, resilient, and sustainable sanitation and hygiene services in rural areas. This improvement is achieved by strengthening systems for decentralised WASH service delivery and enhancing understanding of gender, disability and social inclusion, climate resilience, and sustainable sanitation and hygiene service delivery. The project engages at the federal level, with two target provinces and one target district and its rural municipalities (RMs) in each province. The provinces are 1) Madhesh Province, lagging on a majority of human development indicators and anecdotal evidence of low political commitment for WASH; 2) Koshi Province, with few development actors, local governments (LGs) lagging on NWASH-MIS, and the MoWS's recommendation.

The project’s approach proposes interventions organised in four intermediary outcomes (see TOC) that address bottlenecks in the building blocks of 'Policy and Legislation', 'Institutions', 'Planning', 'Monitoring', 'Finance', and 'Regulation and Accountability' at the relevant tier of government. The project will promote collective and adaptive learning through action research to achieve the programme's outcome and support sector knowledge and learning at national and provincial levels. At the federal level, the approach aims to strengthen the MoWS Department Water Supply and Sewerage Management (DWSSM) and its training centre (NWSSTC) to support capacity building, communication, and advocacy at the national and sub-national levels. The capacity-building themes supporting the outcomes will include evidence-based WASH planning, safe sanitation and hygiene service delivery models, public finance flows, gap analysis, GESI mainstreaming, and climate risk-informed programming.

The project will assist provincial governments in establishing a legal framework in the two target provinces. This framework, aligned with the national one and guided by the new policy, will mandate and enable RMs to serve as duty-bearers and service authorities while respecting their constitutional autonomy. The project will focus on capacity building of provincial governments as enablers of LG.  The project will also support advocacy organisations (FEDWASUN, NARMIN, NFDN, NDWA) to conduct strategic political advocacy at all levels to influence decision-making on sector priorities, public financing, and legal framework development, bridging the political and administrative dissonance and fostering mutual accountability between the three tiers.

Job Description

Overview of the Role:

The Advisor for Inclusive and Resilient WASH Systems Strengthening (Province) will support all project activities at provincial and local level requiring technical support, coordination, and influencing for gender, disability, and socially inclusive and climate resilient WASH systems strengthening.

The key roles for the Advisor for Inclusive and Resilient WASH Systems Strengthening (Province) will be:

(I) Providing technical support, coordination, and influencing for gender, disability, and socially inclusive and climate resilient WASH systems strengthening through the four outcomes below:

• Development of provincial WASH legal framework supported in two provinces, ensuring inclusive, resilient, and sustainable, safely managed sanitation and hygiene service delivery in rural areas
• Institutions strengthened for supporting LGs in two provinces in preparing evidence/MIS-based WASH plans and budgets and improving public finance flows, and using them to make progress on inclusive, resilient, and sustainable, safely managed sanitation and hygiene service delivery inrural areas
• Mutual accountability strengthened between three tiers of government through political advocacy for prioritisation, commitment, and financing for WASH, focusing on inclusive, resilient, and sustainable, safely managed sanitation and hygiene service delivery in rural areas
• Knowledge, learning and evidence from the programme used to inform practice related to WASH systems strengthening, with a focus on inclusive, resilient, and sustainable, safely managed sanitation and hygiene service delivery in rural areas.

(II) Creating enabling environment for project activities with all relevant government, civil society, private sector, and development partner stakeholders in province, and strong vertical (federal, local government) and horizontal collaboration at provincial level.

(III) Contributing to project data collection and reporting as per project requirement.

(IV) General- Assignments agreed mutually with Project leader or assigned by the Project leader for achieving the project deliverables and outcomes from the perspective of inclusive and climate resilient WASH systems strengthening.

The Advisor reports directly to the Project Leader of WS4H and collaborates closely with all other Project, Sector and SNV Nepal team members.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent
• Minimum 7 years’ experience in technical support, coordination, and influencing in rural WASH sector.
• Basic understanding of climate change adaptation and experience with Gender, Disability and Social Inclusion in development sector.
• Core competency of engaging with senior government officials, government stakeholders, civil society, private sector, and development partner organisations for creating enabling environment for systems strengthening
• Desirable to have experience in political advocacy for influencing commitment for WASH
• Willingness and ability to travel to remote rural municipalities
• Good communication and teamwork skill
• Proficiency in Nepali for official verbal and written communication and observance of protocols.
• Adequate English for communicating verbally and written for internal project communication purposes.

Additional Information

Duty station: Janakpur, with frequent field visits to project areas in Madhesh Province and other parts of the country (as per requirement).

Duration: up to December 2025 (with possibility of extension as per need of project and performance)

Contract Type: National Employment Contract

How to apply

If you believe that your credentials meet the outlined profile, we invite you to apply by uploading your CV (not more than 3 page) highlighting similar work experience with motivation letter (not more than 2 page) by clicking on the "I'm interested" button before 19 January 2025.

I'm Interested