MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES AND TASKS

The key functions are aligned with the IASC Cluster Coordination functions and minimum requirements (MRs) for coordination at country level. The MRs are designed to provide a light-approach mechanism to monitor WASH humanitarian platforms (clusters or sectors) at the country level.

1.  Inclusion of key humanitarian partners:

Coordination

• Provide a platform that ensures service delivery is driven by the Humanitarian Response Plan and strategic priorities.
• Developing mechanisms to eliminate duplication of service delivery.
• Ensure the inclusion of key WASH humanitarian partners in a way that respects their mandates and programme priorities, as well as national and local authorities, other governmental actors, civil society and other actors working and related to the WASH sectoral response.

Needs assessment, analysis and strategy development

• Ensure effective and coherent WASH assessment, analysis and feedback involving all relevant partners, including the identification of gaps and conceptualize how sectoral needs can be met through collective delivery, involving all relevant partners and ensuring complementarity of their actions.
• Identify and find solutions for (emerging) gaps, obstacles, duplication and cross-cutting issues.
• Formulate priorities based on analysis.

2.  Participatory and community-based approaches:

Ensure utilization of participatory and community-based approaches in WASH related assessments, analysis, planning, monitoring and response.

 Accountability to Affected Population

Ensuring that women, men, girls and boys of all ages and diversity backgrounds, affected by a crisis have equitable and meaningful access to:

• Appropriate, relevant and timely information
• Two-way communications channels that facilitate feedback and complaints and provide redress for complaints.
• Means to participate in decisions that affect them, including fair and transparent systems of representation; and active involvement in the design, monitoring and evaluation of the goals and objectives of programmes.

3.  Attention to priority cross-cutting issues:

• Ensure integration of agreed priority cross-cutting issues in WASH assessments, analysis, planning, monitoring and response (e.g. age, diversity, environment, gender, HIV/AIDS and human rights).
• Ensure specific cluster/sector focal points for cross-cutting issues identified, are equipped, and capacitated to lead on the cross-cutting area.

4.  Emergency preparedness:

• Ensure adequate WASH related contingency planning and preparedness for potential significant changes in the nature of the emergency and for high risk or recurring disasters (for example Floods).
• Identify hazard, assessment and monitoring of risk is undertaken as part of the Humanitarian Programme Cycle or on a needs basis and reflected into the national WASH Cluster contingency plans.
• Ensure that core pipeline is adequately replenished, gaps managed.

 5. Planning and strategy development:

• Develop sectoral plans, objectives and indicators that directly support realization of the overall response’s strategic objectives.
• Apply and adhere to common standards and guidelines.
• Clarify funding requirements, help to set priorities, and agreeing cluster contributions to the HC’s overall humanitarian funding proposals.

6.  Application of standards:

• Ensure that WASH cluster/sector participants are aware of relevant policy guidelines, technical standards and relevant commitments that the Government/concerned authorities have undertaken under international human rights law.
• Ensure that WASH responses are in line with existing policy guidance, technical standards, and relevant Government human rights legal obligations.
• Ensure critical WASH issues are identified and brought to the attention of the relevant stakeholders

7.  Monitoring and reporting:

• Ensure adequate monitoring mechanisms are in place to review impact of WASH interventions and progress against implementation plans.  This specifically needs to include an analytical interpretation of best available information to benchmark progress of the emergency response over time.
• Measure progress against the cluster strategy and agreed results and recommend corrective action where necessary.
• Ensure mechanisms are in place to monitor the quality of WASH services delivered to the affected population against established standards (relevance, quantity, quality, continuity of WASH services)

8.  Advocacy and resource mobilization:

• Identify core WASH advocacy concerns, including resource requirements, and contribute key messages to broader advocacy initiatives of the HC, UNICEF and other actors.
• Act as the media spokesperson for the sector.
• Advocate for donors to fund WASH actors to carry out priority WASH activities in the sector concerned, while at the same time encouraging WASH actors to mobilize resources for their activities through their usual channels.

9.  Training and capacity building:

• Identify capacity gaps and needs of the WASH cluster/sector partners, including government and development capacity development action plan and initiative.
• Promote and support training of WASH humanitarian personnel and capacity building of humanitarian partners, based on the mapping and understanding of available capacity.
• Support efforts to strengthen the WASH capacity of the national/local authorities and civil society.

10. Transition planning

• Lead on the design of appropriate transition strategies for the cluster to ensure continuity between the humanitarian response, recovery and development phases and disaster risk reduction initiatives.  Ideally this will involve working closely with national counterparts and development actors to ensure a resumption of national ownership of cluster activities.  It will also involve consideration of how coordination mechanisms and cluster membership should change as the humanitarian emergency subsides.

11.  Advocate for provision of assistance or services as a last resort:

Where critical gaps in addressing WASH priorities are identified the WASH Cluster Coordinator will:

• Lobby for implementing humanitarian partners (including UNICEF) to address the gaps.
• With advice/support from the HC and support from other humanitarian partners will advocate, as appropriate, on the adequate provision of resources and safe access.
• If persistent gaps remain then with the full support of the UNICEF Country Representative will specifically request that the UNICEF take action to fill the critical gaps through direct implementation action, where funds and access allow.

Minimum requirements:

Education:

Advanced university degree qualification desirably in subjects/ areas of WASH e.g. Health Promotion or Education, Civil or Public Health Engineering, Public Health (MPH), Environmental Health.

Work Experience:

Eight years relevant professional experience in the WASH programmes which should include:

• At least five years direct WASH emergency experience at least four of which would be based in the field at a Team Leader/WASH programme management level.
• A minimum of 2 years’ experience of responding to first phases of an emergency.
• A minimum of 5 years’ experience with either the UN and/or NGO.

Language Requirements:

• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.