Advisor for Social Studies and Environmental Health Interventions in the Water Sector Zimbabwe / Harare

Advisor for Social Studies and Environmental Health Interventions in the Water Sector

JOB-ID: 11230

Field of activity

The programme aims to restore and secure the population’s access to safe drinking water, sanitation and regular waste collection services in six chosen cities by carrying out emergency repairs and implementing rehabilitation measures. Relevant programme components include:
1. Advising on carrying out emergency repairs, implementing rehabilitation measures, and operating water and sanitation systems and regular waste collection services;
2. Capacity development and advising management on institution-building in selected local government administrations in the fields of accounting, collection and finances;
3. Advising on the strategic planning of short-term rehabilitation measures and preparing medium-term investment decisions.
Starting points and working levels are the national and the local level in the chosen cities. The experience gained in these cities will be used when shaping a new legal and institutional framework for urban water supply and sanitation systems.

Your tasks

You will advise and support the administrations in the six chosen cities. You will be responsible for the conceptual design, conducting and managing sociological studies in urban areas. Together with the staff on the programme you will coordinate the tasks, work packages and measures you have planned. You will independently develop adapted environmental health interventions for urban areas, design the required tendering documents and control implementation of the measure. You will ensure internal and external networking across teams. You will be responsible for preparing and presenting the experience the cities gain from the interventions and for incorporating it into sector policy decision-making processes. You will organise learning within the city administrations and documentation of lessons learned and will prepare best practices for replication in other cities.

Your profile

You have a degree in sociology and several years of experience in the conceptual design, conducting and managing sociological studies in urban areas, preferably in the water sector. You are well acquainted with recent findings on the significance of environmental health interventions for the cooperative management of urban water supplies. You have proved in the past that you are able independently to develop adapted environmental health interventions for urban areas, to design the required tendering documents, and to implement and control the measures. You have excellent intercultural skills and are able to establish successful working relationships with staff in partner organisations under demanding conditions. You are used to carrying out your tasks in a difficult environment due to your patience, sense of humour and expertise, which you have already proved during previous assignments in sub-Saharan Africa. Given the particularly volatile political situation in Zimbabwe, you are able to deal sensitively with various political actors. You are business fluent in written and spoken English.

Assignment period

November 2012 until December 2013

What we offer you

With an international remit and a multicultural working atmosphere, we are successful because we share knowledge across disciplinary frontiers. Your professional and personal development is important to us. Whether it is the multifacetted day-to-day challenges in one of our partner countries or the considerable scope for applying creativity in your work – there are plenty of good reasons to join our motivated team.

Other information

Please note that we basically can only receive and process applications sent via our e-recruiting system. Should you not be able to do so, please contact the person named in the job advertisement.

To enable us to assess your existing skills and qualifications as part of our internal selection procedure, please complete the questionnaire on your competences when you apply online.

After submitting an application, please check your spam/junk folder regularly for incoming messages, as emails from our e-recruiting system are treated as spam by some providers.

We welcome job applications from people with disabilities.

If you are interested, please do not hesitate to apply until August, 22nd 2012.

Contact department:
Gabriele Mueller
++49 - (0)6196 - 79 - 2164

Advisor for Social Studies and Environmental Health Interventions in the Water Sector

Zimbabwe / Harare