UNICEF is supporting health, nutrition, HIV prevention, education, access to safe drinking water, sanitation and protection for children and families caught in the conflict.

UNICEF works across 190 countries and territories to reach the children and young people who are most at risk and most in need. We work to save their lives. To protect their rights. To keep them safe from harm. To give them a childhood in which they are protected, healthy, and educated. To give them a fair chance to fulfil their potential, so that someday, they can build a better world.

The full-scale war in Ukraine has caused widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure, including water supply, wastewater treatment and district heating systems, particularly in frontline and border oblasts such as Kharkiv and Sumy. Recurrent missile and drone attacks, prolonged power outages, population displacement and winter conditions have severely affected the continuity, safety and quality of essential services, increasing public health risks for children and vulnerable populations.

In response, UNICEF Ukraine’s WASH programme has transitioned from short-term emergency interventions toward a hybrid humanitarian–resilience model. The programme combines urgent repairs and winterization with medium-term investments in system resilience, energy efficiency, decentralization and utility capacity strengthening. In Kharkiv and Sumy oblasts, UNICEF supports municipal water and heating utilities, local authorities and implementing partners to restore and sustain services for households, health facilities, schools and collective centres.
The scale, technical complexity and geographic dispersion of WASH and heating interventions require strong field-level assessment, monitoring, quality assurance and reporting capacity. To support this, UNICEF Kharkiv Field Office seeks to engage a UNV National Specialist – Local WASH Expert to provide hands-on technical support for assessments, implementation monitoring and completion reporting of WASH and heating projects.

Under the supervision of the WASH Manager, UNICEF Kharkiv Field Office, the UNV National Specialist – Local WASH Expert will carry out the following tasks:

1. WASH and Heating Assessments:

• Conduct field-based assessments of water supply, wastewater, sanitation and heating infrastructure in conflict-affected communities, institutions and utilities.
• Assess technical condition, functionality, risks, winterization needs and energy dependency of systems.
• Support preparation of technical scopes of work, Bills of Quantities (BoQs) and cost estimates in coordination with UNICEF engineers and partners.

2. Implementation Monitoring and Quality Assurance:
• Carry out regular monitoring visits to project sites in Kharkiv and Sumy oblasts.
• Verify compliance of works with approved designs, technical specifications, safety standards and environmental safeguards.
• Monitor contractor and implementing partner performance, construction progress and material quality.
• Identify technical risks, delays or quality issues and propose corrective actions to the UNICEF WASH team.

3. Accountability, Verification and Documentation:
• Collect and verify field-level evidence, including photographs, measurements, checklists and test results.
• Support commissioning, completion and handover processes of WASH and heating facilities.
• Ensure proper technical documentation and site records in line with UNICEF quality and accountability requirements.

4. Reporting and Knowledge Management:
• Prepare clear and timely field monitoring reports, assessment summaries and project completion reports.
• Provide technical inputs to donor reporting, management briefs and internal updates.
• Maintain organized technical files and contribute to knowledge sharing within the WASH team.

5. Coordination and Field-Level Support:
• Liaise with local authorities, municipal utilities, contractors and implementing partners at the field level.
• Support facility managers and utility staff in understanding operation and maintenance requirements of rehabilitated systems.
• Participate in coordination meetings, joint missions and technical discussions as required.