SENIOR WASH OFFICER
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misconduct;andcommittedtopromotingthewelfareofchildren,youngpeopleand adults. Oxfam expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment through our code of conduct.Weplaceahighpriorityonensuringthatonlythosewhoshare and demonstrate our values are recruited to work for us.
Job Title – Senior WASH Officer – Water, Sanitation and Hygiene
Annual Salary and Benefits – Based on skills and experience
Internal Job Grade – 5B
Contract type – 9 Month – Renewable based on performance and funding
Reporting to – Country Director
Staff reporting directly to this post – WASH Officers, WASH Assistants, Field Engineers, project support staff (as per organigram)
Key relationships/interactions – Oxfam Technical Advisors, Oxfam Base Manager, MEAL Team, Funding and Finance Coordinators, UNHCR, Local Authorities, INGOs, Donors
Location – Rabouni and the five Sahrawi Refugee Camps, Tindouf – Algeria
Shaping a stronger Oxfam for people living in poverty.
Oxfam in Algeria – Sahrawi Refugee Camps
Oxfam has been present in the Sahrawi refugee camps near Tindouf since 1975, standing as one of the most committed and enduring humanitarian actors in the region. Over the years, the organisation has progressively transitioned from providing emergency relief to implementing a holistic response that integrates humanitarian aid, resilience-building, and influencing systemic change.
Since 2016, Oxfam’s work in the camps has focused primarily on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) and Food Security, while actively promoting local leadership, accountability, and the strengthening of community-based systems. In an increasingly complex and underfunded context, Oxfam continues to adopt its approach to ensure more effective, inclusive, and sustainable responses to long-term displacement.
To address key WASH challenges, particularly limited water access, deteriorating infrastructure, and weak service management—Oxfam has developed and implemented a multi-year strategy aimed at enhancing access to WASH services, with a primary focus on improving water supply systems across the camps. This strategic roadmap is built around four key pillars: infrastructure upgrades, governance strengthening, technical capacity building, and enhanced community engagement.
Recent WASH interventions have included:
- Comprehensive design and technical planning for WASH infrastructure improvements.
- Capacity strengthening at both institutional and community levels for effective WASH management; Tailored training for local actors on system operations, maintenance, and quality assurance.
- Support to improve overall WASH conditions, including water storage and hygiene practices at both household and production levels.
- Coordination with partners to ensure harmonized approaches and efficient service delivery.
Today, Oxfam’s WASH programme stands at a critical turning point. The focus is not only on addressing immediate needs, but also on shaping a locally owned, climate-resilient, and forward-looking WASH system. This requires bold leadership, strategic thinking, and a commitment to collaboration across sectors and communities.
Job Purpose
To lead and coordinate WASH activities across Sahrawi refugee camps, contributing to programme strategy, quality, and innovation. The Senior WASH Officer will act as a technical and managerial leader within the senior management team, ensuring operational excellence and acting as a key representative of Oxfam in sectoral and institutional coordination. This position is pivotal to promoting local leadership, accountability, and the long-term transformation of WASH systems in the camps.
Key Responsibilities:
Strategic & Technical Leadership
- Lead the co-creation and revision of WASH programme strategies, ensuring alignment with Oxfam’s regional, global and sectoral trends and local needs.
- Guide the technical design and strategic direction of projects, fostering innovation in WASH governance, service delivery, and climate-resilient infrastructure.
- Ensure systematic integration of conflict sensitivity, gender equity, and local ownership across the WASH portfolio.
Programme Development and Management
- Contribute to programme development, including the continuation and expansion of ongoing initiatives, as well as the design and implementation of upcoming emergency humanitarian programmes (if any).
- Oversee planning, budgeting, implementation, and monitoring of all WASH interventions, ensuring quality delivery on time and within budget.
- Coordinate with internal departments (e.g. food security, logistics, finance, MEAL) for efficient operational support.
- Maintain high-quality reporting and ensure compliance with donor requirements.
Team & Talent Management
- Supervise and mentor national staff and junior officers, supporting career growth and leadership development.
- Foster a performance-oriented team culture, ensuring clear responsibilities, regular feedback, and staff empowerment.
- Promote internal learning and reflection, facilitating after-action reviews and cross- team exchanges.
Interdepartmental & Regional Coordination
- Act as focal point for coordination between Oxfam Algeria’s WASH programme and relevant Oxfam MENA regional teams (including WASH advisors, humanitarian coordination, and influencing units).
- Ensure coherence and alignment with Oxfam’s global WASH strategies, guidelines, and innovation frameworks.
- Participate in regular exchanges, technical working groups, and knowledge-sharing initiatives across the MENA region and beyond.
- Actively contributes to lesson learning by documenting best practices and challenges and feeding them into regional/global learning platforms.
- Promote harmonization of methodologies, tools, and indicators in collaboration with Oxfam affiliates and technical units.
Representation & External Engagement
- Represent Oxfam in WASH coordination mechanisms, donor meetings, and bilateral engagements with government and humanitarian stakeholders.
- Build strategic partnerships with local and international actors to enhance programme reach and effectiveness.
- Support fundraising efforts by contributing to technical inputs, context analysis, and innovation components in proposals.
Other
- Work flexibly and take on additional tasks as may be delegated to meet programmatic objectives.
- Participate in team and internal coordination meetings and in workshops organized at country level.
- Take necessary actions to ensure that WASH activities adhere to Oxfam’s principles and values as well as the promotion of gender justice and women’s rights.
- Ensure that WASH activities adhere to equity, diversity, gender, child safety and staff health and wellbeing principles.
Job Requirements
The ideal candidate will combine strong technical expertise in the WASH sector with strategic foresight, political acumen, and proven experience in managing complex programmes across humanitarian and development settings. This person will be expected to contribute actively to Oxfam’s strategic direction, foster cross-departmental collaboration, and support the empowerment of national staff and systems.
Essential
Technical Competence
- Advanced university degree (Master’s or equivalent) in a relevant field such as Environmental Engineering, Public Health, Water Resources Management, Hydrology, or a closely related discipline.
- Minimum 5 years of progressive WASH experience, with a solid understanding of both infrastructure design and public health promotion.
- Proven experience in leading the design, implementation, and monitoring of WASH programmes in humanitarian and/or protracted refugee contexts.
- Demonstrated familiarity with international WASH standards (Sphere, WHO, WASH Cluster, etc.), and ability to adapt technical approaches to local contexts.
- Experience with data analysis tools, reporting systems, and MEAL frameworks related to WASH.
Strategic Leadership and Innovation
- Demonstrated ability to develop and implement long-term WASH strategies, aligning with broader organizational goals (e.g. climate resilience, locally led development, nexus programming).
- Experience in contributing to or leading the elaboration of country strategies, sectoral roadmaps, or multi-stakeholder action plans.
- A track record of introducing innovative approaches or solutions in WASH delivery, governance, or infrastructure design, ideally in constrained or remote settings.
- Capacity to anticipate risks and opportunities and navigate politically sensitive or complex institutional environments.
- Experience working in cross-border, multi-country, or regional WASH initiatives is a strong asset.
Management and Coordination
- At least 3 years of experience in senior or middle-management roles, with responsibility for direct supervision, team development, and budget oversight.
- Excellent team leadership skills, with a demonstrated ability to inspire, support and manage diverse, multicultural teams, especially in fragile or low-resource settings.
- Capacity to build and maintain effective coordination with multiple stakeholders (Oxfam affiliates, partners, UN agencies, donors, national authorities, and civil society actors).
- Familiarity with donor procedures and requirements, particularly ECHO, UNICEF, UNHCR.
Soft Skills and Communication
- Outstanding written and oral communication skills in English or Spanish (at least one fluent – spanish most relevant); strong working knowledge of Arabic is required; French is an asset.
- Strong interpersonal and negotiation skills; capable of representing Oxfam in high- level coordination spaces and building consensus in multi-actor platforms.
- Excellent analytical skills, with the ability to synthesize technical data into strategic insights and present them to both technical and non-technical audiences.
- Demonstrated diplomatic maturity, calmness under pressure, and a solution-oriented mindset.
Desirable:
- Previous experience working in Sarawi camps, Algeria or the wider Maghreb/MENA region.
- Demonstrated engagement with sectoral innovation platforms or academic research networks.
- Experience in leading emergency preparedness or rapid response interventions.
- Familiarity with Oxfam’s internal systems, values, and strategic priorities.
Key Attributes:
- Visionary leadership: able to articulate and drive transformative agendas within humanitarian constraints.
- Innovation mindset: actively seeks new approaches, technologies, or partnerships to improve impact.
- Results-focused: strong sense of accountability, efficiency, and ability to deliver under pressure.
- Empowering approach: commitment to developing local talent and promoting inclusive leadership.
- Cultural sensitivity: respectful, adaptable, and able to work in diverse teams and communities.
Organisational Values:
- Accountability – Owns decisions and encourages responsibility at all levels.
- Empowerment – Supports others to lead and succeed.
- Inclusiveness – Respects and values difference in all its forms.
Key Behavioral Competencies
(based on Oxfam’s Leadership Model)
Competencies
Description
Decisiveness :
We are comfortable to make transparent decisions and to adapt decision making modes to the context and needs.
Influencing :
We have the ability to engage with diverse stakeholders in a way that leads to increased impact for the organization We spot opportunities to influence effectively and where there are no opportunities we have the ability to create them in a respectful and impactful manner.
Humility :
We put ‘we’before ‘me’ andplace an emphasis on the powerof the collective, nurture the team and play to the strengths of each individual. We are not concerned with hierarchical power, and we engage with, trust and value the knowledge and expertise of others across all levels of the organization.
Relationship Building :
We understand the importance of building relationship, within and outside the organization. We havethe ability to engage withtraditional and non-traditional stakeholders in ways that lead to increased impact for the organization.
Listening :
We are goodlisteners who can see wheredeeper levels of thoughts and tacit assumptions differ. Our messages to others are clear and consider different preferences.
Mutual
Accountability :
We can explain our decisions and how we have taken them based on our organizational values. We are readyto be heldto account for what we do andhow we behave, as we are also holding others to account in a consistent manner.
Agility,
Complexity, and Ambiguity :
We scan the environment, anticipate changes, are comfortable with lack of clarity and deal with a large numberof elements interacting in diverse andunpredictable ways.
Systems Thinking :
We view problems as parts of an overall system and in theirrelation to the whole system, rather than reacting to a specific part, outcome or event in isolation. We focus on cyclical rather than linear cause and effect. By consistently practicing systems thinking we are awareof and managewell unintended consequences of organizational decisions and actions.
Strategic
Thinking and Judgment :
We use judgment, weighing risk againstthe imperative to act. We make decisions consistent with organizational strategies and values.
Vision Setting :
We have theability to identify and lead visionary initiatives that arebeneficial for our organization and we set high-level direction through a visioning process that engages the organization and diverse external stakeholders.
Self- Awareness :
We are ableto develop a high degreeof self-awareness aroundour own strengths and weaknesses and our impact on others. Our self-awareness enables us to moderate and self-regulate our behaviors to control and channel our impulses for good purposes.
Enabling :
We all workto effectively empowerand enable othersto deliver the organizations goals through creating conditions of success. We passionately investin others by developing their careers, not only their skills for the job. We provide freedom; demonstrate belief and trust provide appropriate support.
How to apply
How to apply
If you believe your qualifications meet the requirements, please send a CV and a covering letter explaining your suitability against the essential criteria in the job profile to :
algeria.jobs@oxfam.org before the 24th of July 2025;
