Business area:
Development Consulting
Country:
South Sudan, East Africa
Qualifications required:
A Master’s Degree in Water Resources Engineering, Hydrology, Water Management, or a related field. A PhD will be an added advantage.
Professional experience required:
• Mimum 15 years of relevant professional experience. • Expertise in carrying out strategic level studies and masterplans, as well as feasibility, preliminary design, and detailed design studies for water resources development projects, with demonstrated project management skills with at least Experience in integrating nature and built solutions to complex water challenges at a system scale. • Experience in water resources planning and in development projects. • Proven experience of managing multinational teams and operating within multi-sectoral, multi-cultural, multi-skilled teams. Demonstrate flexibility in working style. • Experience in data limited environments and in Fragile, Conflict and Violence (FCV) environments. Experience in decision making under uncertainty.
Position length:
>Temporary
Position length:
150 WD
Commencement:
August 2024 (Tentative)
Deadline:
Evaluations on an ongoing basis
BACKGROUND:
South Sudan is a global hotspot of flood risks, ranking 7th in the world for share of population exposed to riverine floods. Floods in 2019 to 2021 affected between 800,000 to 1.2 million people and displaced more than 300,000 people. Economic damages are estimated to be around US 671 million. While a National Disaster Risk Management (DRM) Policy was developed in 2021 and a DRM bill was drafted, institutions in charge are challenged by severe capacity constraints, lack of information and limited physical infrastructure. The country lacks forecasting and early warning systems as well as systematic data management tools; the hydrometric monitoring network is extremely weak.
OBJECTIVES:
NIRAS is currently looking for a Team Leader and a team of Senior Experts for the consultancy opportunity to prepare a climate-resilient National Water Resources Master Plan (NWRMP) for South Sudan.
The NWRMP shall take into account the country’s socio-economic needs, environmental considerations, freshwater availability, and demand for various sectors – including their transboundary dimension. The development of the NWRMP shall be in line with the policy, legal and institutional frameworks, and standards/guidelines relating to water resources management (WRM), including WRM infrastructure. The NWRMP development is to build on an early engagement with multiple stakeholders to outline strategies and create a shared vision. Moreover, it shall follow the principles of adaptive and integrated water management as well as of spatial adaptation, acknowledging the impact of local vulnerability to climate change on the effectiveness of measures. It will also have to consider the fragile socio-economic environment of South Sudan, the reality of a nascent water resources management sector.
The scope of services is divided into three (3) tasks:
- Development of a regulatory framework for watershed management to support flood risk management, such as land zoning, riparian buffers, conflict-sensitive and gender-sensitive approaches to resettling communities living in highly flood-prone areas.
- Undertake basin-wide strategic studies to develop a NWRMP that addresses integrated water resources management, including for mainstreaming climate considerations. And
- Facilitate stakeholder consultations on revision to the 2015 Water Bill and accompanying legislation to enhance coordination across governance levels for WRM and align the water sector policy and regulatory framework.
