| Job # | 111801 |
| Job Title | E T Consultant |
| Job Family | Other |
| Location | New Delhi, India |
| Appointment | Local Hire |
| Job Posted | 22-Sep-2011 |
| Closing Date | 10-Oct-2011 |
| Language Requirements | English [Essential]; Hindi [Essential] |
| Appointment Type |
Background / General descriptionThe Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) is an international partnership that uses technical assistance to improve policies, practices and capacities in the water and sanitation sector (www.wsp.org). In rural sanitation, WSP is supporting the National, State and District Governments in implementing the Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC), a national program to increase access to rural sanitation. Additional information on the TSC can be found at http://ddws.nic.in and http://nirmalgrampuraskar.nic.in
WSP support for TSC includes the promotion of community led approaches to create demand and supply for sanitation, and which envisages the creation of open defecation free rural areas by empowering communities to change their own sanitation status. Under these interventions, support is provided at the national and state levels for creating an enabling policy, institutional and incentive framework, and at district levels for creating capacities for mobilizing communities using participatory approaches. Various activities like stakeholder workshops, orientation programs, cross visits, training of trainers, and follow up handholding support is provided to states and districts, some of which are undertaken by outsourcing to other resource agencies. This is based on a demand from national, state and district levels and is currently underway in states like Rajasthan, Bihar, Jharkhand and Meghalaya and may expand to other states based on demand. At present, a vacancy exists for State Coordinator (Extended Term Consultant) for Bihar and Jharkhand based at Patna. An Extended Term Consultant Appointment is a full-time appointment for a minimum of one year.
Purpose of assignment
WSP endeavors to support the reform agenda with technical assistance. This technical assistance includes policy support (advocacy at state level), implementation support (capacity building & training), and knowledge management (evaluation & sharing of experiences). A state coordinator (Extended Term Consultant) is proposed to be engaged for supporting this initiative.
The state coordinator works closely with the government departments responsible for the delivery of sanitation services. The state coordinator acts as advisor to the concerned departments and local governments, entrusted with the responsibility of supporting the sanitation sectors.
Duties and Accountabilities
Duties and Accountabilities
The key responsibilities of the State Coordinator are as follows.
• Advocacy : Work with stakeholders at state and district level to promote participatory principles and approaches, at policy, strategic and operational levels, to achieve and sustain Total Sanitation status at scale
• Capacity Building: Provide capacity building and implementation support at state and districts based on demand, for adopting Community Led approaches and strategies. These may include orientation of stakeholders, facilitating cross visits within the state, nationally or internationally, training events, follow up handholding visits, support in developing monitoring systems and identifying lessons learnt.
• Research, documentation and dissemination: Facilitate studies and research into the process and impacts of implementation of sanitation projects. Documentation of best practices at various levels on social and institutional processes and also on impacts of the intervention. Support the sharing of information across districts, states and the region.
Activities
• Support the state and districts to develop strategies to achieve total sanitation status
• Advocate and support state and districts to develop appropriate institutional models for implementation of total sanitation
• Support advocacy through state, divisional and district workshops, exposure visits to best practices and other events for implementation of total sanitation in rural areas. This will require organization of the workshops, preparation of workshop agenda, preparing presentations, and lead the discussion during the workshop.
• Develop modules and advocacy notes that provide guidance to district/block level officials to plan and implement a total sanitation coverage approach.
• Facilitate the conduct of training and other capacity building events at district levels – coordinate with district on organizing various types of training programs, ensuring appropriate selection of participants, selective participating in training programs to ensure quality control and facilitating documentation and reporting.
• Peer review and provide technical inputs to project design, monitoring and evaluation and performance benchmarking plans.
• Facilitate studies and research into the process and impacts of implementation of rural sanitation projects. Documentation of best practices at various levels on social and institutional processes and also on impacts of the intervention. Support the sharing of information across districts and states.
Throughout the assignment, the Consultant will be required to hold discussions with the clients, policy makers and other relevant professional groups apart from the key staff in WSP-SA and the World Bank.
Outputs Expected
• Reports on workshops, meetings, interactions with clients and partners
• Input to strategy documents of state level sanitation strategies, reports of situation assessments.
• Peer review and provide technical inputs to project design / monitoring and evaluation plans.
• Reports and presentations of research studies, documentation of case studies, best practices and field notes.
• Other reports as required by project to help the team to deliver the sanitation agenda to the clients and in meeting the program objectives
Work Relationships
1. Report to the Task Team Leader and coordinate with other members of the team as required.
2. Liaison with governments, private sector, NGOs and other institutions.
• Education: Postgraduate degree or higher qualifications in a relevant discipline.
• Experience: Minimum of 5 years of experience working on rural developmental issues, with some experience in rural sanitation; interacting with government programs is an advantage.
• Language skills: Fluent in speaking, reading and writing in English and Hindi
Essential skills/knowledge/competencies
• A sound understanding of key operational and institutional issues in the Indian rural sanitation sector
• Strong Project Management skills, and in particular the skills of strategic planning, management, coordination
• Understanding of the administrative systems of government and ability to operate within these
• Strong relationship building skills, specially with regard to forming and maintaining relationships with government officials and civil society personnel involved with the WSS sector
• Ability to coordinate between state governments and districts
• Good organization and communication skills
• Strong understanding and competence in participatory training methodologies
• Strong analytical and quantitative skills, methodological rigor and problem-solving ability
• Ability to work independently, seeking guidance on complex projects/issues from senior specialists
• Ability to function effectively in multi-disciplinary teams within a matrix management environment;
• Ability to deal sensitively in multi-cultural environments and build effective working relations with clients and colleagues;
• Ability to produce quality work under pressure and adhere to deadlines
• Appropriate level of office information technology skills
• Able to travel extensively within the state and if required, outside the state
