Location: Berlin, Germany
Duration: Initially 2 years with prospect of extension
Years of Experience: 5+ years
Please send your application to Janek.hermannfriede@cewas.org.
Change how water works in developing economies. Are you ready?
The world’s water and sanitation systems are under pressure. The solutions exist. What’s missing is the people, the organisations, and the partnerships to make them real at scale. That’s what we work on.
Cewas and seecon impact are entrepreneurial organisations at the frontier of water, sanitation, and sustainable development. We don’t just study problems — we design ventures, build partnerships, and implement projects that shift how systems work. Our work spans business model innovation, public-private collaboration, utility strengthening, and climate resilience. We are a small, international team of people who chose this work because we believe it matters and because they enjoy the challenge of making complex things happen in difficult contexts.
We are, at our core, a home for stubborn optimists. People who look at broken water systems and believe realities can be changed. People who energise rather than wait to be energised. If that resonates, read on.
Your Role
We are looking for a coordinator who will initially help us run two projects in Kenya – one working with small water utilities on operational and organisational strengthening, the other facilitating public-private collaboration between WASH enterprises and public utilities to build climate resilience in water supply. With time additional projects will complement this portfolio. In the initial projects, our senior team carries the technical and strategic lead. You carry everything else: making sure partners are supported, reports are solid, trips are well-prepared, and the work actually moves. Critically, you bring enough WASH grounding to make genuine sense of the support our local partners provide to programme participants; not just log it, but assess it. You will gradually take on a more active role in guiding coaching processes that combine technical and implementation support. And when something looks off, you flag it.
This is an 80% position based in Berlin, complemented with frequent trips to the project countries. Initially for two years, with real potential to grow with us beyond Kenya as the organisation evolves.
Description of Tasks
1. Be the engine behind day-to-day project delivery. Project management with us includes, but is not limited to, tracking timelines, managing reporting cycles, following up with partners, and making sure project objectives are achieved with the available resources – we are experts in this and will support you but cannot start with you from zero.
2. Review outputs from coaching sessions and capacity building activities with local implementing partners, engage critically with what they report, and brief with senior colleagues to jointly establish the next steps and to align on calls and field visits.
3. Provide and document impact of coaching support to implementing partners and WASH enterprises.
4. Organise and coordinate field missions to Kenya: from logistics, over partner scheduling, to buying cookies for workshops (we all do this – even the directors).
5. Draft, consolidate, and quality-check project documentation, project deliverables, publications and donor reports.
6. Coordinate and facilitate workshops and stakeholder events; manage knowledge and derive lessons-learned / insights.
7. Support communication outputs – project stories, updates, and the occasional piece that makes our work visible to funders and partners.
8. Contribute to new business development over time – proposal support, partner due diligence, capacity statements.
9. As you grow into the role, take on coordination, management and lead responsibilities across other projects and geographies.
Requirements
1. Experience working in projects and with implementing partners in developing markets, ideally in East Africa.
2. A proactive, self-directed working style. You manage your own workload, follow-up without prompting, and if you notice something needs to happen you take initiative.
3. Strong English, written and spoken; Other language that people speak in the countries we work in are an advantage.
4. Experience organising events and ease with facilitation and public speaking.
5. Some experience in or genuine interest in entrepreneurship, innovation, or new venture development in development contexts.
6. Background in water/sanitation, environmental engineering, or development studies with a WASH focus.
7. Familiarity with PPP or private sector engagement in water/sanitation is an advantage.
8. Experience in managing donor-funded projects.
9. Ability and flexibility for regular travels to Kenya and other locations.
Who you are
You are driven. Not in the sense of producing yourself on LinkedIn with this type of phrase but in the sense that you find this kind of work genuinely energising and you want to do it well. You take ownership of your corner of a project without needing to be managed. You are curious and care whether your work is useful. You can work with partners across time zones and cultures with patience and persistence in equal measure.
We want to be honest: This role is not for everyone. The work is demanding, sometimes unpredictable, and calls for someone who brings flexibility and initiative rather than waiting for a task list and routine days.
What we offer in return is something harder to find than a comfortable job: work that genuinely matters, real responsibility from day one, deep learning and network building, and a place in an organisation that is trying to do something meaningful in the world.
How to Apply
Send us your CV and a short two-minute video (no production required, just you talking) telling us why this work and why now. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis.
Please send your application to Janek.hermannfriede@cewas.org.
