Regional WASH Humanitarian Technical Advisor, Asia At Save the Children

The Opportunity

Asia is one of the most disaster prone regions of the world, but also one with a lot of experience and capacity at peparing for and responding to humanitarian crises. As the regional humanitarian Technical Advisor, you will be responsible for ensuring quality humanitarian responses and supporting development-humanitarian continuum in education in the Asia Pacific region. The TA is a member of the Asia Pacific Humanitarian Technical Team (HTT), a team mandated to support country offices to prepare for and respond to emergencies; enabling a quality humanitarian response and reducing children’s vulnerability in order to uphold Save the Children’s global ambition to be the humanitarian agency for children.

Their primary focus of the HTT is threefold:

• Embedding Quality in Humanitarian Preparedness – working with country offices and the Asia regional office to ensure technical quality across our humanitarian preparedness interventions. This includes working on emergency preparedness plans, participating in preparedness training, taking an iterative approach to learn from previous responses and other regional experience. Ensure knowledge of technical capacity is shared with the HTT and ARO so it spans cross-sectoral preparedness.
• Overseeing Sectoral Quality in Humanitarian Response – ensure WASH technical quality in all our humanitarian responses, by maintainining an overview of all categorized responses in the region. This also includes deployment to new or existing emergency responses; backstopping responses; and mobilizing additional regional surge capacity so we have the right people, with the right skills, in the right place at the right time to ensure we deliver, meeting not only our minimum standards but aim for the best quality interventions for children.
• Driving Sectoral leadership from an Asia regional perspective – building and leading regional ‘communites of practice’ in WASH, in order to facilitate learning and sharing of best practice and operational realisities between country offices and responses; engaging with internal ‘Save the Children’ sectoral forums incluinging the Humanitarian Working Group (HTWG) and Global Themes; and finally but not least ensuring sustained quality external engagement with key stakeholders, including the UN, Cluster system and donors.

Key Responsibilities

Embedding Quality in Humanitarian Preparedness

• Work with country offices in Asia Pacific and the Asia regional office to ensure WASH technical quality across our humanitarian preparedness interventions.
• Work with the Humanitarian Director and Operations Advisors to maintain a knowledge of and build the regional capacity to backstop Category 1 and to lead Category 2 and 3 emergency responses; and country level capacity to lead Category 4 responses
• Maintain a knowledge of current and potential national staff who demonstrate strong technical capability; work with HR to maintain updated regional rosters of these people
• Provide dedicated mentorship and training of key regional staff who have the potential to increase their capability
• Support on the development and review of emergency preparedness plans, to include integrated, quality WASH interventions
• Support the development of and participate in in-country preparedness training, taking an iterative approach to learn from previous responses and other regional experience; and ensuring minimum thematic internal quality standards and quality benchmarks are met.
• Ensure knowledge of technical capacity is regularly shared with the HTT and ARO.

Overseeing Sectoral Quality in Humanitarian Response

• Actively engage in the response Management in all categorized responses; working with SCI centre on Cat 1 humanitarian responses; leading on Cat 2 and Cat 3 emergency responses; and supporting Country Offices to lead on Cat 4 humanitarian responses.
• Ensure technical quality in all our humanitarian responses by maintainining an overview of all categorized responses in the region, flagging areas of concern and proactively looking for solutions to support the response to improve and maintain minimum quality standards.
• Backstopping or ensuring an allocated backstop for all categorized responses in Asia Pacific
• Mobilizing additional regional surge capacity, including deploying to new or existing emergency responses as required.
• Ensure knowledge of technical capacity in current responses is regularly shared with the HTT and ARO

Driving Sectoral leadership from an Asia regional perspective

• Building and lead regional internal ‘communites of practice’, aligned with the Education Safe from Disaster regional initiative, in order to facilitate learning and sharing of best practice, challenges, and operational realities between country offices and response teams; ensuring participation as much as possible from national staff
• Engaging with internal sectoral forums incluinging the Humanitarian Working Group (HTWG), WASH Sub-Thematic Working Group; and Global Themes, ensuring learning and experience; tools and policies from Asia is translated ot the global level, and vice-versa
• Ensuring sustained quality external engagement with key stakeholders, including the UN, Cluster system and donors.
• Proactively look for opportunities to engage with and develop regional strategic partnerships for effective implementation, innovation, research and funding.

Actively participating in the HTT

• Work with your colleagues in the HTT on cross-sectoral teamwork, including the ‘Integration Project’ to develop tools and guidance for response teams for integrated, quality emergency responses
• Deploy with your colleagues as part of a first phase response team, as lead for SC WASH response
• Participation in regional forums and meetings on behalf of the HTT

Other:

• Business Development and specific Grant-funded project support TA as required by country offices or Members (cost recoverable)

The Organisation

We employ approximately 25,000 people across the globe and work on the ground in over 100 countries to help children affected by crises, or those that need better healthcare, education and child protection. We also campaign and advocate at the highest levels to realise the right of children and to ensure their voices are heard.

We are working towards three breakthroughs in how the world treats children by 2030:

• No child dies from preventable causes before their 5th birthday
• All children learn from a quality basic education and that,
• Violence against children is no longer tolerated

We know that great people make a great organization, and that our employees play a crucial role in helping us achieve our ambitions for children. We value our people and offer a meaningful and rewarding career, along with a collaborative and inclusive workplace where ambition, creativity, and integrity are highly valued.

Application Information

Please apply using a cover letter and up-to-date CV as a single document. Please also include details of your current remuneration and salary expectations. A copy of the full role profile can be found at www.savethechildren.net/careers

Closing Date for Application: 14 March 2023

We need to keep children safe so our selection process, which includes rigorous background checks, reflects our commitment to the protection of children from abuse.

All employees are expected to carry out their duties in accordance with our global anti-harassment policy.