USAID KIWASH Project Environmental Sustainability Specialist Job in Kenya

Environmental Sustainability Specialist

The Kenya Integrated Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (KIWASH) Project is a five-year, USAID-funded project to improve lives and health through the development and management of sustainable water, sanitation, and hygiene services in Kenya. 

Its purpose is to institutionalize catalytic models of sustainable service delivery for accelerated water and sanitation access in nine specific target counties and to improve complementary hygiene behaviors.

Summary of Primary Duties: The Environmental Sustainability Specialist will design and lead activities to incorporate climate change adaptation planning into source water monitoring and quality protection. 

He or she will use geospatial data to track trends around flooding and drought, promote innovations to adapt and track climate changes, and promote real-time water source monitoring. 

He or she will support the KIWASH team, county governments, Water Service Providers (WSPs), and Water Resource Users Associations (WRUAs) to carry out water safety and security analyses and to integrate these analyses into business plans and broader land and watershed management plans.

Essential Duties

• Provide technical assistance and mentoring to County Water Boards, WRUAs, and WSPs to develop and monitor County Water Security Plans;


• Design and lead activities to expand source water quality protection and utilize climate change data for adaption planning;


• Support utilization of geospatial data to track trends around flooding and drought, promote innovations to adapt and track climate changes, and promote real-time water source monitoring;


• Support county governments, WSPs, and WRUAs to incorporate climate change data into planning and monitoring efforts;


• Assist with the development of the KIWASH Learning Platform and provide training and mentoring to county governments, WSPs, and WRUAs to incorporate climate change data into planning and monitoring efforts;


• Promote holistic attention to the natural resource base upon which water supply services ultimately depend to promote the sustainability of the services themselves;


• Assist with the examinations of options for safe re‐use of human waste in agricultural or agro‐processing applications (for fertilizer, energy, etc.), and possibly to create synergies with other Mission investments;


• Increase climate change resiliency in drinking water source planning, development and design of systems/services; Make presentations of findings, lessons learned of the proposed climate change adaptation plans to USAID and KIWASH partners;


• Contribute to the KIWASH bi-weekly, quarterly, annual and final reports as well as annual work plans;


• Coordinate input for KIWASH monitoring and evaluation, specifically for tasks related climate change adaptation;


• Write occasional articles and/or essays on KIWASH achievements in climate change adaptation work;


• Other tasks as required

Supervisory Responsibilities

• No supervisory responsibilities.

Qualifications

• A minimum of 5 years of professional experience in fields related to environmental sustainability and climate change mitigation;


• Experience and knowledge of working with Kenyan WSPs, WRUAs, and County Water Boards, and NGO’s/ Associations;


• An advanced graduate degree in a related field of study preferred, e.g. environmental science, sustainable design, public health, governance, engineering, etc.;


• Knowledge of Kenyan water supply and sanitation and environmental legislation and issues preferred;


• Familiarity with Government of Kenya structures and reporting systems required for the monitoring of water quality (Water Services Regulatory Board (WASREB), Water Resources Management Information System (WRMIS) and Water Regulation Information System (WARIS), desirable;


• Familiarity of the WHO Water Safety Planning Methodology desirable;


• English language written and verbal fluency essential.

Base of Operations: Nairobi, Kenya with frequent travel to KIWASH activity counties.

Reporting: The Environmental Sustainability Specialist will report to the Water/Sanitation Advisor.

Qualified candidates should e-mail their CV to KIWASH_Recruitment@dai.com by November 12, 2015, indicating position of interest in the subject line.