Job: Senior Water and Sanitation Specialist

Location: Dakar, Senegal
Deadline: Saturday, 16 November 2013

Background / General description:

Innovation and partnership bond the five institutions of the World Bank Group (WBG): the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA), which together form the World Bank; the International Finance Corporation (IFC); the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA); and the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). The World Bank Group is one of the world's largest sources of funding and knowledge for developing countries. It uses financial resources and extensive experience to help our client countries to reduce poverty, increase economic growth, and improve quality of life. To ensure that countries can access the best global expertise and help generate cutting-edge knowledge, the World Bank Group is constantly seeking to improve the way it works. Key priorities include delivering measurable results, promoting openness and transparency in development, and improving access to development information and data.

The Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) is a global partnership to help government clients improve their capacity to provide improved water supply and sanitation services to the poor. Administered by the World Bank with financial support from several donors, WSP is a decentralized program that operates through offices in Africa, East Asia, Latin America and South Asia. A major thrust of the program is to help its clients prepare for and implement actions towards meeting the water and sanitation (WSS) Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In pursuing their mission, WSP staff provide technical assistance, analysis, and advisory support to projects and policies, help identify and disseminate best practices and lessons from experience across countries, assist clients in the implementation of pilot projects to test out new ideas and facilitate informal networks of practitioners and sector stakeholders. Additional information about WSP can be found on the program website ( www.wsp.org). WSP is part of the World Bank's Transport, Water and Information & Communications Technology Department (TWI) in the Sustainable Development Network (SDN) Vice Presidency.

WSP's FY11-15 Business Plan is based on a global strategy '˜FY2009-2018: Scaling Up Sustainable Services', which articulates WSP's proposed strategic response to identified sector challenges affecting the poor through capacity building, technical assistance and knowledge. The Business Plan identifies six business areas where the program could have the best opportunity to affect large-scale change in sector performance: scaling up rural sanitation and hygiene; creating sustainable services through domestic private sector participation; supporting poor-inclusive WSS sector reform; targeting the urban poor and improving services in small towns; mitigating and adapting WSS delivery to climate change impacts; and delivering WSS services in fragile states. These areas were identified through a process of embedding a results-based framework throughout WSP's country, regional and global work programs.

Note:

If the selected candidate is a current Bank Group staff member with a Regular or Open-Ended appointment, s/he will retain his/her Regular or Open-Ended appointment. All others will be offered a 2 year term appointment.

Duties and Accountabilities:

This Terms of Reference relates to the Scaling Up Rural Sanitation and Hygiene business area in Senegal.

The Government of Senegal has committed to improve sanitation and hygiene in rural areas by achieving the Millennium Development Goals Program for Water and Sanitation (PEPAM). From 2005, through PEPAM, the government implemented a supply driven approach with heavy subsidies of up to 90% for rural sanitation. After seven years, rural sanitation coverage has increased from 26.2% in 2005 to 35.6% in 2012. The country is not on track to meet the MDGs target of 63% by 2015 for improved sanitation, as coverage is growing slowly at 1% per year.

With this background, the Government of Senegal and its partners agreed on revising the implementation strategy for rural sanitation and more specifically for on-site sanitation. As part of these efforts, and on the request of the Ministry of Hydraulic and Sanitation (Directorate of Sanitation), WSP will support the strengthening of the institutional and operational framework for the rural sanitation sub-sector through its theory of change.

WSP's theory of change for at scale rural sanitation includes: Generating demand for improved sanitation, strengthening the supply of sanitation products and services that are affordable and responsive to aspirations of the poor, strengthening the enabling environment for policy and sector reform and, a strong and effective learning process that gathers evidence about what is working and what still needs to be improved.

Experience to date has shown that to create a strong enabling environment capable of sustaining service delivery at scale, technical guidance is needed to strengthen the capacity of sector institutions and local stakeholders across multiple dimensions, including policy, strategy, and direction, institutional arrangements, implementation capacity, availability of products and services, financing and incentives, cost-effective implementation and monitoring and evaluation.

WSP now seeks to appoint a Senior Water and Sanitation Specialist who will lead all the activities in the Scaling Up Rural Sanitation and Hygiene business area.

Specific responsibilities for the Sr. Water and Sanitation Specialist will include:

a) Strengthen the enabling environment at national and regional level by implementing the Enabling Environment action plan already developed. This specifically focuses on:

Support government in maximizing the effectiveness of its public spending:

• Organize a sector wide '˜whole system in a room' process around key building blocks such as demand creation, supply strengthening, and enabling environment, financing, etc. in order to stimulate reflection, discussion, understanding and buy-in to the theory of change.
• Oversee a Public Expenditure Review/Cost-effectiveness analysis and share the results with PEPAM, Directorate of Sanitation (DS) and other stakeholders.
• Support effective and greater engagement of local government in rural sanitation:
• Work with PEPAM, DS, Direction des Collectività©s Locales (DCL) and sector partners to define the role of local government in rural sanitation.
• Assess the Local Water and Sanitation Plan (PLHA) against this revised role and propose enhancements including potential inclusion in their overall planning process.
• Identify sanitation champions at local government level to support WSP Theory of Change efforts.
• Jointly with partners do a '˜learning by doing' sanitation marketing pilot project to strengthen selected local governments and share results and recommend for large scale up.
• Help sector coordination and mobilize greater involvement of other sectors:
• Support this area by doing the following: Work with DS, PEPAM, Technical Committees to be set up, and development partners to organize coordination of activities. Identify and explore sectors that need to get involved (National Nutrition Program, Health, Education, and DCL) whether through promotion/behavior change, cash transfers or other contributions.
• Identify useful Knowledge Products to complement current activities. Support, if appropriate, the development of a MOU between the various ministries/programs. Pursue with WBG TTLs opportunities to insert Rural Sanitation (Nutrition, Livelihoods) or enhance data analysis (mapping of poverty with PREM).

b) Improve the supply chain and Generate demand: This support will include the followings:

• Change the paradigm of affordability: Conduct a situation analysis on what financing options (formal and informal) exist, collect and share promising practices from projects and implementing partners and provide practical guidance (a how-to manual) on how to ease affordability and how to administer subsidies where necessary based on best practice.
• Develop low-cost product options using human-centered design (such as has been done in Laos and Kenya) and a business model that can be tested in collaboration with partners that could lead to further replication and scaling up.
• Carry out a retrofitting pilot project using sanitation marketing strategy in villages that are declared Open Defecation Free with Global Sanitation Fund.

c) Work closely with the Global business area leader and senior regional sanitation specialist for Africa to promote globally consistent learning and evidence;

d) Contribute to results monitoring and reporting progress internally within WSP and with donors and partners;

e) Generate documentation, publications and disseminate lessons of large scale sanitation and hygiene interventions, including use of an online knowledge sharing platform;

f) Facilitate and provide professional presentation of material on sanitation and hygiene issues at national, regional and international meetings as necessary;

g) Provide cross support to World Bank operations in designing new rural sanitation programs and assist Bank staff and their clients in preparing and implementing sanitation and hygiene programs and in delivering analytical work.

Supervision: The Senior Water and Sanitation Specialist will:

a) Formally report to the Principal Regional Team Leader for WSP-Africa on all substantive and professional matters.

b) Operate under the authority of the Country Director for Senegal and report to relevant staff of the country office on all matters concerning administration and the World Bank's relationship with Senegal. (S)he will follow all the policies and guidelines applicable to the staff of the World Bank Country Office. (S)he will be provided with an office, PC and telephone connection in the World Bank Country Office;

c) Observe all rules and regulations governing staff conduct and employment.

Note:

If the selected candidate is a current Bank Group staff member with a Regular or Open-Ended appointment, s/he will retain his/her Regular or Open-Ended appointment. All others will be offered a 2 year term appointment.

Selection Criteria:

• Masters or higher-level degree(s) in a field relevant to the WSP, such as, social science, public health, sanitation, business/marketing, social communication, environmental health, epidemiology, community development, engineering or other relevant field. Fluency in English and French is
• Have at least eight years of relevant experience in developing country work, including specific experience in the water supply and sanitation sector, preferably focused on sanitation or hygiene development.
• Strong background in sanitation marketing and behavior change and/or business development, both at national and regional levels; familiarity with sanitation marketing concepts and their application at national level; and expertise in scaling up sanitation services desirable.
• Strong communication skills. Ability to lead and work with multi-disciplinary teams. Fluency in English and French is essential.

COMPETENCIES:

Shown below are the competencies linked to this job:

• Knowledge and Experience in Development Arena - Understands policy making process; distills operationally relevant recommendations/lessons for clients.
• Policy Dialogue Skills - Identifies and assesses policy issues and plays an active role in the dialogue with the government and/or other stakeholders.
• Integrative Skills - Works to develop an integrated view across all facets of current sector.
• Client Orientation - Takes personal responsibility and accountability for timely response to client queries, requests or needs, working to remove obstacles that may impede execution or overall success.
• Drive for Results - Takes personal ownership and accountability to meet deadlines and achieve agreed-upon results, and has the personal organization to do so.
• Teamwork (Collaboration) and Inclusion - Collaborates with other team members and contributes productively to the team's work and output, demonstrating respect for different points of view.
• Knowledge, Learning and Communication - Leads in the sharing of best practice, trends, knowledge and lessons learned across units and with clients and partners, articulating ideas verbally and in writing in a clear and compelling way across audiences of varied levels. Fluency in English and French is required.
• Business Judgment and Analytical Decision Making - Analyzes facts and data to support sound, logical decisions regarding own and others' work.

More Info and Application