Advisor, Water Resource Management

Summary

Are you an expert in water infrastructure, governance, and water resource management (WRM)? Do you thrive in a fast-paced setting, collaborating with various partners across the globe to coordinate and deliver learning events, technical assistance, and training? If yes, apply for the WRM Advisor position at PRO-WASH & SCALE!

The Practices, Research, and Operations in Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene and the Strengthening Capacity in Agriculture, Livelihoods, and Environment (PRO-WASH & SCALE) Activity seeks a WRM and Water Infrastructure Advisor to lead on water related capacity strengthening and learning efforts for PRO-WASH & SCALE.

This role involves designing and conducting activities to enhance partner capacities, such as capacity strengthening workshops (both in-person and remote), creating high-quality technical guides, and sharing implementation experiences with USAID/BHA and the broader humanitarian and development community.

You will collaborate with development and emergency partners to support drinking and productive water supply and quality, operations, maintenance, service provision models, water management committees, and water governance, following USAID’s guidelines. As an implementer-led activity, you will demonstrate responsiveness—listening first to partners and then responding with appropriate, contextualized, and tailored technical assistance, support, collaboration or coordination.

What You’ll Be Doing (Essential Duties)

Technical Leadership and Support (60%)

Serve as the technical lead for PRO-WASH & SCALE in sustainable WRM, including watersheds, multiple uses of water, small scale irrigation, water governance, service provision, operations, maintenance, life cycle costing, water systems strengthening, water quality, and infrastructure.
Lead water related activities, such as planning webinars, peer learning events, technical workshops, developing, customizing, and pilot testing training resources, and holding site visits on priority topics.
Follow up after trainings and after providing technical assistance to support partners to apply skills and knowledge; provide additional support and/or refreshers.
Identify and manage complementary external experts contributing to activities/topics under the WRM & Water Infrastructure theme (e.g., WRM, water governance, service provision, operations, maintenance, life cycle costing, water systems strengthening, water quality).
Collaborate on cross cutting topics with colleagues in agriculture, sanitation, markets, behavior change, gender, climate change, nutrition, and natural resource management to deliver support to integrated activities.
Co-lead a peer learning group on water and contribute regularly to the natural resource management and climate information service peer learning groups.
Develop and distribute tools, training, and materials focused on WRM, aligned with USAID WASH guidelines and strategies, using various formats such as in-person and remote sessions.
Identify research needs and documentation gaps in WRM and support partners to carry out their own relevant research and learning projects.
Conduct literature reviews on specific water/WRM related topics.
Support partners to tailor and customize technical resources to their own contexts as well as elevate local resources to a regional or global audience.
Support USAID/BHA and other relevant partners in documenting learning, including designing methodologies and data tools, analyzing, and interpreting data, and writing up learning briefs, organizing webinars, or other knowledge dissemination modalities (stories, social media, videos etc.).
Support other non- PRO-WASH & SCALE water/WRM related activities within the Save the Children portfolio as time allows.

Coordination (30%)

Actively monitor new developments, approaches, innovations, and evidence within the water/WRM sector to share with partners through emails, newsletters, and the FSN Network website.
Build and strengthen partnerships with relevant organizations, networks, and other USAID investments such as Millenium Water Alliance, USAID REAL Water, Rural Water Supply Network, IRC WASH Systems Academy, Groundwater Relief, SADC, WRC, among others.
Represent PRO-WASH & SCALE at water related working groups, forums and events and collaborate with relevant communities of practice as needed to identify key evidence gaps and sector priorities.
Work with communication and knowledge management team members to enhance participant learning for events/ webinars (e.g., adding interactive elements; reviewing PPTs) and sharing as needed with relevant technical stakeholders through listservs and websites.
Identify and amplify local and regional partners and platforms.

Program Management and Admin (10%)

Coordinate with communications and logistics teams to ensure successful implementation of events and activities.
Contribute to donor and Save the Children’s regular reporting requirements, as well as strategic and operational planning.
Record all water-related activities by completing M&E forms, maintaining participant lists, writing brief reports, and preparing and presenting post-event briefings.
Keep the team updated on activities through project management tools like Monday.com and regular team meeting updates.
Update WRM strategies, engagement plans, and annual workplans based on partner feedback from various contexts.

Required Qualifications

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent, plus at least five years of experience in various aspects of WRM, including watershed management, water infrastructure, governance, life cycle costing, service provision, O&M, and water quality.
Skilled in both remote and in-person training and support across diverse contexts.
Experience implementing multi-stakeholder processes.
Ability to adapt quickly to changing priorities and be responsive to partners’ needs.
Ability to work independently and as part of a diverse team.
Prior experience with USAID-funded programs, including contracts, is a desirable advantage.
Professional proficiency in MS Office suite.
Professional proficiency in spoken and written English.
Demonstrated ability to communicate and collaborate effectively with individuals and teams at all levels, both internally and externally.
Demonstrated commitment to fostering and maintaining and environment of diversity, inclusion, and belonging.
Ability and willingness to travel 10-15% of the time, primarily to international locations.
Willingness to flex time to work early or late hours to accommodate partners’ time zones across the globe.

Preferred Qualifications

Prior experience providing technical assistance to multiple organizations as part of a cluster, working group, consortium, network, coordination body, etc.).
Understanding of USAID’s guidance and position on water related topics.
Background in multi-sectoral programs.
Good understanding of adult education and communication principles.
Experience in climate adaptive WRM in emergency and development settings.
Proficient in online collaboration tools like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Monday.com.
Professional proficiency in French, Arabic, or Spanish.

Compensation

Save the Children is offering the following salary ranges for this position, dependent on candidate location:

Geo 1 – NY Metro, DC, and other locations with labor costs significantly above national average: Target Salary for this position is $84,150 – $94,050 base salary
Geo 2 – Locations around the US National Labor Cost Average: Target Salary for this position is $76,500 – $85,500 base salary
Geo 3 – Locations significantly below the US National Labor Cost Average: Target Salary for this position is $68,850 – $76,950 base salary

The salary ranges listed above are for US based candidates. For candidates located outside of the US, salary ranges will be based on the salary scales of the local employer of record.

Actual base salary may vary based upon, but not limited to, relevant experience, base salary of internal peers, business sector, and geographic location (more information on job structure is available here). Employee may be eligible for an incentive program. Save the Children US also offers outstanding benefits that include health, dental, vision and life insurances, short-term and long-term disability coverage, an Employee Assistance Program, a retirement savings plan with employer contribution, paid vacation leave, safety & wellness leave, family leave, parental/adoption leave, caregiver leave, and much more.

About Save the Children

Save the Children believes every child deserves a future. In the United States and around the world, we give children a healthy start in life, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm. We do whatever it takes for children – every day and in times of crisis – transforming their lives and the future we share.

Our work for children and their families requires that we commit—at every opportunity—to work together to identify and dismantle persistent systemic and structural racism, inequality, and any other forms of discrimination in this country and beyond. As an anti-racist organization, Save the Children will not tolerate discrimination in any form—in our employment practices, amongst our staff, in our leadership or toward the people we serve. We stand in solidarity with all people to fight for equal rights, justice, inclusion, and belonging.

Save the Children is committed to conducting its programs and operations in a manner that is safe for the children it serves and helping protect the children with whom we are in contact. All Save the Children representatives are explicitly prohibited from engaging in any activity that may result in any kind of child abuse.

Save the Children is committed to minimizing safety and security risks for our valued employees, ensuring all are given training, support and information to reduce their risk exposure while maximizing the impact of our programs for children and families. Our shared duty, both agency and individual, is to seek and maintain safe working conditions for all.