Job Vacancy: Deputy Chief of Party / Private Sector Specialist for the Kenya - RAPID Program
Job Location: Nairobi
(MWA Kenya office) with occasional travel to the program’s focus counties.
Aqua for All seeks a Deputy Chief of Party (DCOP) for a 5-year WASH & livestock program in Kenya. In day to day activities the DCOP will take the specific responsibility of Private Sector Specialist.
The DCOP will need to understand the
overall program activities and progress, to be able to represent the program
and replace the Chief of Party during absence.
S/he will work closely together with
the Chief of Party (COP), with other technical leads/specialists in the program
and with Aqua for All colleagues in the Netherlands.
The DCOP / Private Sector Specialist
is a full time position.
Background: The Kenya Resilient Arid Lands Partnership for
Integrated Development (Kenya-RAPID) mobilizes financial and technical
resources from development partners, national government, county government and
the private sector to support sustainable and resilient livelihoods by
improving water availability and water service delivery to people and
livestock, and improve rangelands in Kenya’s Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASAL’s).
Over the next five years (2015-2020) the Kenya RAPID program focuses on five Northern counties with high poverty rates, chronic food and water insecurity and low access to basic services: Garissa, Marsabit, Isiolo, Turkana and Wajir.
The Kenya RAPID program will
facilitate a process that supports the growth and capacity strengthening of
public, civil society, community and private sector institutions to increase
access to water for people and livestock and rebuild a healthy rangeland
management ecosystem.
The Kenya RAPID program rejects the
‘business as usual’ approach to development. All five counties and every one of
the program partners is a co-investor.
There are three Strategic Objectives
that will guide the program toward its goal:
1. A responsive and accountable
governance framework in place at county level
- Supporting the establishment of a responsive
and accountable governance framework is in place and operational at county
level that ensures sustainable provision of WASH and pasture
2. Replicable and scalable business
models for sustainable WASH and livestock service delivery
- Strengthening replicable and scalable business
models for sustainable WASH and livestock service delivery have been
developed and operationalized
3. Increased access to sustainable
WASH services
- Facilitating communities to have increased
access to sustainable WASH services and improved rangeland management
Aqua for All’s role in the program
Aqua for All, a Dutch not-for-profit
organisation, focusses on innovative, scalable, replicable public-private
partnership programs in integrated WASH.
We stimulate and strengthen Public
Private Partnerships among businesses, funding/financing actors, governments,
NGOs and knowledge institutes while engaging private sector participation.
Aqua for All supports innovation and
local entrepreneurship while reaching as many people as possible.
Facilitating the financial
engineering of programs within their value chain - from innovation to full
implementation of a program - is a unique selling point of our
organization.
For more information see
www.aquaforall.org.
Aqua for All will serve as the lead program partner in coordinating activities under strategic objective 2.
The public private partnership
specialist will be employed by Aqua for All and be appointed as DCOP and
private sector coordinator within the Program Coordination Unit (core team)
based in Nairobi.
Role of the DCOP and Private Sector
Specialist
Next to DCOP responsibilities
(overseeing and co-managing the program, replacing the COP when needed), the
private sector specialist will serve as the primary link between communities,
the county governments, the private sector resource partners at national level
and other value chain actors/small medium enterprises at the county level.
S/he will lead initiatives to
catalyse investment in the water and livestock sectors, identify innovative
opportunities & business models, employ market driven strategies for both
product and service upgrading, facilitate relevant linkages, align incentives
of the key partners and facilitate innovative upgrade across the WASH and
livestock sector in the 5 target counties.
Activities and responsibilities
- Overall program management, complementary to
the activities of the Chief of Party.
- Overseeing, coordinating and aligning the
contribution of private sector resource partners in the Kenya RAPID and
assessing their deliverables
- Linking pin within the program’s governance
structure between private sector resource partners, the Program Management
Unit and the County Coordination Units (CCU’s) in each of the
counties
- Oversee and coordinate activities of
consultants/(temporary) staff hired to support business development at
county level
- Work with county governments to ensure strong
incentives such as appropriate laws, financial incentives and reduce
barriers for entrepreneurs that enter the sanitation market or public
private partnerships
- Support the development of value chain
analyses on WASH and livestock in the 5 ASAL Counties through effective
research and designing interventions; determine the key demand and supply
side constraints in the value chain and opportunities that the project can
leverage on.
- Work with the private sector partners to
identify information collection nodes across the demand and supply chains
and development of sustainable and effective information collection and
dissemination mechanisms
- Design and implement a market-driven strategy
that creates incentives for commercial investment in the WASH and
livestock sector resulting to private-sector led solutions to myriad
market constraints (in collaboration with the private sector resource
partners, MWA implementing partners, county government and local
communities)
- Come up with appropriate strategies for
creating economy of scale in rural areas; mobilizing private sector
financing and other creative commercially oriented strategies for O&M
of WASH facilities, and meeting capital costs of water and sanitation
services
- Work with key stakeholders in government,
civil society and private sector to develop new (PPP) models of for
improved water supply and sanitation services
- Help identify (local) entrepreneurs that can
play a role in creating cost recovery mechanisms for sustainable WASH and
livestock service delivery
- Identify capacity building needs of value
chain actors (e.g. small enterprises) and provide technical assistance to
existing and emerging enterprises, and support the development of new
innovative ones
- Coordinate linkages with financial
institutions and facilitate a range of financial instruments or credit
services to facilitate access to water and sanitation products and
services by stimulating the necessary push-pulls between supply of
hardware and credit services and community demand for the same.
- Facilitate, document and share lessons learned
and best practices within the consortium. Promote learning and innovation
among stakeholders.
Qualifications
- At least 10 years demonstrated experience and
skills in project management, planning, implementation, and monitoring and
evaluation (M&E) in multi-partner and cross-sectorial development
programs
- A minimum of a Master’s degree in a relevant
discipline such as Development -Agricultural Economics, Agribusiness,
and/or Business management / Entrepreneurship Development
- Minimum of 8 years’ experience in private
sector or providing technical assistance to improve private sector
performance, like regional/international value chain development, Water
and Sanitation Supply Chain Advisory capacity, business development of
(micro-)enterprises and/or (rural micro-) finance
- Preference will be given to candidates with
considerable working experience in ASAL areas
- Entrepreneurial attitude – opportunity thinker
- Innovative and creative in solving problems,
no business-as-usual attitude.
- Experienced in successful cooperation with and
network in the (inter)national private sector working on development
topics, either from Corporate Social Responsibility perspective or from
core business perspective.
- Good understanding of and experience in
working with local communities and government agencies at national,
provincial, and local levels in Kenya
- Ability to work independently and with the
team;
- Excellent organizing skills and interpersonal
skills; facilitation, communication and negotiation skills
- Kenyans are encouraged to apply
Application Procedure
Interested candidates are requested
to apply before 14 December 2015 by sending a cover letter, CV and a list of 3
professional references to: m.batterink@aquaforall.org.
Only shortlisted candidates will be
contacted.
Job interviews will be held in
Nairobi.
More information on the position and on the Kenya RAPID program can be obtained by contacting Doris Kaberia – Chief of Party Kenya RAPID (doris.kaberia@mwawater.org) / +251 728272279.
