Global WASH Adviser CWA

What we are looking for:

NRC Central & West Africa (CWA) is seeking a Global WASH Adviser to shape and strengthen WASH programming across the region. In this role, you will provide strategic advice, technical oversight, and capacity building to Country Offices and Regional teams, ensuring effective strategies, systems, and tools are in place to deliver high-quality WASH responses.

You will also support proposal development, identify funding opportunities, and ensure donor compliance, while contributing to global initiatives and sharing expertise across NRC’s WASH community. This is a unique opportunity to combine technical leadership with hands-on support, driving impact at country, regional, and global levels.

The ideal candidate must be fluent in both English and French languages. 

What you will do:

Here are some of your generic responsibilities

Policy, Strategy and programme development

• Responsible for ensuring compliance and adherence to NRC policies, guidance and procedures in relation to the WASH area while contributing to the development of policies, strategies, tools and new approaches with a focus on innovation and piloting.
• Responsible for supporting the development of country/regional core competence strategies and implementation plans in line with global policies and global and regional strategies.
• Work within the Global Programme Section to contribute to specific areas of innovation and development, including piloting and learning from experiences at the country office and regional level.
• Contribute to the resource mobilization and fundraising for country, multi-country and regional programme development related to WASH.

Technical development, support, and capacity building

• Technical supervision of Country and Regional Office Specialists and Programme Development Managers, including providing strategic advice, technical support, capacity building, staff training, and contributing to recruitment.
• Ensure that (named core competency, or elements of) based programming approaches contribute to integrated response and analysis.
• Contribute to the NRC global development of the WASH, through collaborative working with and contribution to the NRC Global WASH development, and by sharing learning and expertise with the Global level and Regional and Country Offices.
• Facilitate and stimulate an environment conducive to innovation. Keep informed on innovation insights and analysis of relevance to their WASH. Ensure this knowledge is integrated into the systems and culture of the organisation at country and regional levels. 

Quality standards, data analysis and MEL

• Provide strategic advice, technical support, and capacity building to Country and Regional Offices to ensure quality programming of core competencies, including Safe and Inclusive Programming.
• Lead the institutionalization, roll-out, and capacity building of sector-specific MEL tools at Country Offices, ensuring effective planning, implementation, and data utilization.
• Support and monitor compliance with the Response Policy and ensure quality oversight of core competency-related MEL, including data quality checks, Theory of Change reviews, and sign-off on evaluations and research.
• Promote and document learning activities, contributing to strategic evaluations and research, and disseminating sector-specific learning and good practices at all levels, including direct support to Country Offices.

Networking, representation and relationships

• Responsible for identification, development and maintenance of relationships with relevant stakeholders (e.g., donors, Clusters/Working Groups, UN agencies, NGOs, research- and educational institutions, private sector) related to programmes in general and more specifically as related to NRC’s Core Competencies.
• Work in partnership with the regional and country office advocacy leads to identify and develop regional advocacy issues related to the core competence.

Here are some of your specific responsibilities

• As Global Adviser, responsible for providing technical support and guidance to country offices in all of the WASH workstream outlined in the Global WASH Programme Development Strategy.
• Gather and analyse relevant evidence and learning from country offices relevant for answering the main learning questions included in the global learning agenda for WASH.
• Lead specific technical areas in WASH for NRC globally, becoming the technical focal point.
• Ensure compression and application of the Global WASH Safety SOP in county offices.
• Ensure COs have read, understood and are implementing the NRC Water Quality Testing guidance/SOP. Provide support where there are gaps or challenges.
• Encourage and support uptake of Changing Behaviour training among COs and follow up to ensure practice and compliance with NRC Response Policy.
• Support on the development of CO capacity building plans focused on identified WASH competencies, utilising resources on WASH Learning Page on Kaya.
• Roll-out of WASH SIP training either in CO during visits, remotely on-line or via ToT.

Please download the detailed job description to learn more about the position. 

What you will bring:

• Minimum 5 years of relevant professional experience in a similar position within the humanitarian field or similar.
• In-depth knowledge of and experience with NRC’s specialised areas of expertise
• Proven experience in programme quality and strategic approaches to programme development.
• Experience of developing practical tools and resources.
• Experience of programme quality assessments, programme development and delivery.
• Experience of delivering learning and development as part of quality improvement and capacity building.
• Experience from different countries from across more than one NRC region.
• Extensive experience in programming in complex and volatile contexts.
• Willingness to travel to high-risk COs (including area offices and field offices).
• Willingness to keep HEAT training valid.
• Fluency in English and French, both written and verbal.
• Understanding of and commitment to organisational learning, and the role and contribution of Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning to quality management and development.
• Understanding of, and commitment to working collaboratively with technical and operational colleagues within a matrix structure, including capacity building.
• Understanding and experience of the specific demands of WASH within (named Region, Country) contexts
• Understanding of and commitment to integrated response approaches.

What we offer:

• Duty station: Dakar, Senegal. 
• Contract: 2 years.  
• Travel: up to 40% including up to 30 days deployment at a time.
• Salary/benefits: grade 9 on NRC’s salary mobile scale, with accompanying terms and conditions. 
• NRC is an equal opportunities employer. We are committed to diversity without distinction to age, gender, religion, ethnicity, nationality, and physical ability.
• We think outside the box, encourage ideas, and give responsibility to all employees at all levels. You will have many opportunities to be heard and take the initiative.

Find out more about the benefits of working for NRC

Important information about the application process

• For Internal candidates: To apply as an internal candidate, log in with your official email or click on Opportunity MarketPlace.
• When creating your profile, include your full name as given on your passport. Complete all the system-required fields for experience, employment history and education.
• Submit your application and CV in English, taking care to attach your latest CV.
• Applications that do not meet the minimum standards in terms of experience or qualifications will generally not be considered. Unsolicited applications not related to this specific job advertisement will not be considered.
• We receive many applications for each vacant position and so only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

If you have any questions about this role, please email ho.recruitment@nrc.no with the job title as the subject line.

Why NRC?

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) is an independent humanitarian organisation helping people forced to flee. Our 15,000 staff work in crises across 40 countries, providing life-saving and long-term assistance to millions of people every year.

Watch this short video to see NRC in action.

We are looking for people who are passionate about helping refugees and people forced to flee. Are you one of those people? If you are, NRC offers you the opportunity to:

• do demanding and professional work, often in challenging contexts.
• join a work culture that empowers every employee to share ideas and take responsibility.
• be part of a welcoming and supportive community committed to human dignity.