Senior WASH Manager - North Darfur

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) responds to the world's worst humanitarian crises, helping to restore health, safety, education, economic wellbeing, and power to people devastated by conflict and disaster. Founded in 1933 at the call of Albert Einstein, the IRC is one of the world's largest international humanitarian non-governmental organizations (INGO), at work in more than 40 countries and 29 U.S. cities helping people to survive, reclaim control of their future and strengthen their communities. A force for humanity, IRC employees deliver lasting impact by restoring safety, dignity and hope to millions. If you're a solutions-driven, passionate change-maker, come join us in positively impacting the lives of millions of people world-wide for a better future.

***THIS ROLE IS ONLY OPEN TO INTERNALS AND RECENT FORMER IRC STAFF***

The Senior WASH Manager for North Darfur provides technical, managerial, and strategic leadership for emergency and early-recovery WASH interventions across North Darfur. The role drives the planning, implementation, monitoring, and scale-up of lifesaving WASH services in a highly fluid conflict environment marked by mass displacement, access constraints, and recurring cholera risks. The Manager oversees water supply (including water trucking, borehole rehabilitation, and solarization), emergency sanitation (communal and health-facility latrines), hygiene promotion, IPC improvements in health facilities, and coordination of community structures such as CHVs, WMCs, and VPMs. The role also ensures all interventions meet Sphere standards, align with the WASH Cluster, and support integrated programming with Health, Protection, and Economic Recovery teams.

Dimensions of the role
•    Manages multi-disciplinary WASH teams including Engineers, Senior WASH Officers, Hygiene Promotion Officers, Assistants, CHVs/CHPs, and VPMs, as well as oversight of contractors and partner organisations.
•    Oversees significant operational resources, including water trucking contracts, construction materials, borehole rehabilitation and solarisation assets, hygiene kit distributions, and IPC infrastructure upgrades.
•    Ensures all WASH infrastructure and latrine designs meet Sphere standards and integrate gender, protection, accessibility, disability inclusion, lighting, and safety considerations.
•    Regularly resolves complex technical and operational challenges in rapidly evolving humanitarian environments, often requiring engineering judgement, field troubleshooting, and adaptive planning.

•    Makes high-impact decisions with limited or incomplete information, including activity prioritisation during influxes, cholera alerts, access constraints, and supply chain delays.
•    Leads data-driven programming, collecting and analysing water production data, FRC results, latrine utilisation data, contractor performance, activity trackers, and qualitative feedback to inform reporting and strategic adjustments.
•    Ensures quality and timeliness of all donor and cluster reporting, making complex technical concepts understandable to non-specialist audiences such as health teams, partners, and authorities.
•    Creates opportunities to expand or adapt interventions, including introducing solarisation, scaling emergency sanitation, tailoring hygiene promotion to outbreaks, and enabling cash-based alternatives for hygiene materials when needed.
•    Requires broad, multidisciplinary technical knowledge, covering civil works, water systems, HP methodologies, IPC, environmental considerations, supply chain limitations, and community-based management.
•    Maintains regular communication with internal teams (Health, Protection, Supply Chain, MEAL) and external stakeholders (WASH Cluster, WES, MoH, community leaders, NGOs), ensuring coordinated and safe programming.
•    Actively involves communities in site selection, maintenance systems, WMC formation, hygiene promotion, and feedback loops, while influencing staff and partners to strengthen community ownership and accountability.

1. Program Planning & Strategic Leadership
•    Lead development of North Darfur WASH workplans, strategies, and area-specific implementation approaches informed by needs in North Darfur.
•    Interpret influx-related trends, rapid assessments, and cholera alerts to prioritise field activities (emergency latrines, water trucking scale-ups, bladder installations).
•    Ensure alignment with Sphere standards, WHO guidance, WASH Cluster directives, and national MoH/WES requirements.
•    Support proposal development, budgeting, procurement planning, and technical inputs into donor reports.

2. Technical Oversight – Water Supply
•    Coordinate daily/weekly water trucking operations, ensuring adequate volumes, queue reduction, FRC compliance, and transparent tracking (trip logs, volume delivery verification).
•    Oversee rehabilitation of handpumps, diesel- and solar-powered mechanised boreholes, GI risers, pipelines, tank stands, and tap-stands.
•    Manage solarisation works for priority water systems, including loading calculations, array sizing, pump selection, and quality assurance.
•    Provide oversight for bladder installations (10–20 m³) including construction of sandbag platforms, fitting of taps, and fencing.
•    Supervise water quality monitoring (daily FRC, monthly bacteriological testing, corrective dosing).

3. Technical Oversight – Sanitation & IPC
•    Oversee construction of communal latrine blocks at IDP sites (Tawila, Korma, reception areas), ensuring Sphere ratios, protection considerations, accessibility, and desludgeable pit designs.
•    Manage construction of health-facility latrine blocks with integrated bathing shelters and handwashing stations.
•    Identify and implement IPC infrastructure improvements in supported clinics (waste zones, placenta pits, sharps boxes, drainage, lighting).
•    Guide desludging operations, desludging contractor management, and safe waste disposal plans.

4. Hygiene Promotion & Community Engagement
•    Oversee CHV and CHP networks, ensuring regular HP campaigns on cholera prevention, safe water handling, and menstrual hygiene management.
•    Lead distribution planning for hygiene kits/MHM kits or cash-based alternatives.
•    Support formation and training of Water Management Committees, Village Pump Mechanics, and CHV groups.
•    Ensure IEC materials are appropriate, translated, and context relevant.

5. Staff Leadership & Capacity Strengthening
•    Directly supervise WASH Officers, Engineers, and Hygiene Promotion Officers.
•    Mentor teams on engineering standards, construction supervision, IPC, water safety planning, and community-based system management.
•    Lead technical induction for new staff and partners.
•    Promote positive team environment, duty of care, and adherence to IRC policies.

6. Procurement, Administration & Contractor Management
•    Lead technical specifications and procurement requests (PRs), ensuring realistic timelines.
•    Oversee contractor selection, mobilization, and supervision for borehole works, civil works, and water trucking suppliers.
•    Ensure contract compliance, quality assurance, payment verification, and documentation of works completed.

7. Monitoring, Reporting & Learning
•    Establish and oversee M&E systems including weekly reporting, 5Ws, dashboards, and real-time activity trackers.
•    Conduct field monitoring of WASH infrastructure, latrine utilisation, water system performance, and CHV outreach.
•    Support KAP surveys, post-distribution monitoring, and beneficiary feedback loops.
•    Produce high-quality donor reports, sitreps, assessment summaries, and program learning notes.

8. Coordination, Representation & Partnerships
•    Represent IRC in the WASH Cluster (SI-led), locality coordination forums, ERR coordination, and interagency missions.
•    Coordinate closely with MoH, WES, locality authorities, and community leaders on site selection and access.
•    Lead operational coordination with IRC Health teams to align water delivery with clinic hours, IPC needs, and cholera preparedness.
•    Work with partners to jointly oversee hygiene promotion, outreach, and community mobilization activities.
•    Support multi-organisation assessments (and site visits.

9. Safety, Risk Management & Compliance
•    Ensure team adherence to security protocols in volatile areas.
•    Identify risks related to access, contracting, waterborne disease trends, and propose mitigation measures.
•    Uphold safeguarding, PSEA, and Do No Harm principles.

Reporting and communication:
•    Contribute to donor reporting, budgeting and new proposals when required
•    Supervise others to monitor and report against key WASH and health indicators
•    Support on the regular program reporting adhering to IRC reporting formats at intervals to be decided by the line manager
•    Document meeting minutes for any community meetings or partner meetings
•    Document and disseminate good practice examples from program deployment
•    Support line manager on coordinating with MEAL team to ensure key information management documents including 4Ws, gap analyses, trackers and contingency stock lists are kept up to date by IRC and other WASH agencies on a regular basis

Required Qualifications, Experience and Skills

Education
•    Degree in Civil Engineering, Water/Environmental Engineering, Public Health, or related field.
•    Master’s degree preferred.

Experience
•    Minimum 5 years of progressively responsible experience in humanitarian WASH programming.
•    At least 2 years in managerial or supervisory roles in emergency contexts. Experience working in a low resource environment is required.
•    Strong program management background with experience in program planning, design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation across a range of donor-funded grants.
•    Demonstrated experience in:
o    Borehole rehabilitation, solarisation systems, and pipeline layouts.
o    Water trucking management and water quality surveillance.
o    Emergency and semi-permanent latrine design and construction.
o    Cholera preparedness and outbreak-response WASH activities.
o    Managing contractors and community-based maintenance systems (WMCs/VPMs).

Technical Skills
•    Strong command of Sphere standards, WHO Guidelines, IPC principles.
•    Practical skills in BOQs, site supervision, pump and solar sizing, and desludging planning.
•    Familiarity with hygiene promotion methodologies and IEC development.
•    Proficiency in MS Office; EPANET/AutoCAD desirable.

Soft Skills
•    Strong leadership, mentorship, and team-building abilities.
•    Excellent communication, analytical, and problem-solving capacity.
•    Ability to work under pressure, manage multiple priorities, and adapt to rapid changes.
•    Willingness to work in and travel to remote or insecure areas with basic living conditions.

Languages
•    Fluency in English required.
•    Arabic strongly desirable.
 

PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS

All International Rescue Committee workers must adhere to the core values and principles outlined in IRC Way - Standards for Professional Conduct. Our Standards are Integrity, Service, Equality and Accountability. In accordance with these values, the IRC operates and enforces policies on Safeguarding, Conflicts of Interest, Fiscal Integrity, and Reporting Wrongdoing and Protection from Retaliation. IRC is committed to take all necessary preventive measures and create an environment where people feel safe, and to take all necessary actions and corrective measures when harm occurs. IRC builds teams of professionals who promote critical reflection, power sharing, debate, and objectivity to deliver the best possible services to our clients.

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