Senior Specialist, Climate Health & WASH

The Senior Specialist for Climate Health and WASH leads strategic projects and technical delivery for Climate Resilient WASH and Infectious Disease Prevention within the Crisis Response, Recovery and Development department. The role involves technical leadership, capacity strengthening, strategic business development, and global advocacy to advance IRC's climate and health outcomes.

Responsibilities

• Lead a complex portfolio of strategic projects across CR-WASH, water security, and the water-energy nexus, including anticipatory action and forecast-based response for CR-WASH, WASH systems and finance, and energy access for water and health facilities in fragile and conflict affected settings.
• Drive technical delivery of the Infectious Disease Prevention & Control Impact at Scale priority, focusing on CR-WASH and water-related disease dimensions, including strategy refinement, country prioritization and road map planning.
• Provide intensive remote and in-country technical support to Technical Advisors, Regional Practice Leads and Country Program teams, including development of implementation tools and technical guidance and delivery of specialized capacity strengthening, technical advice and coaching.
• Identify and shape research opportunities in CR-WASH/IDPC, including cost-effectiveness and life-cycle costing, and lead implementation when needed.
• Collaborate with the Emergency Unit on technical quality strengthening for WASH in Emergencies and review technical guidelines for acute emergency contexts.
• Monitor progress on technical program implementation, including budgets and expenditures, and drive course corrections as needed.
• Collaborate effectively on shared priorities within the Health Unit and with other Technical Units and Global Practice Areas.
• Support partner and donor engagement for strategic projects as needed.
• Contribute to global strategy and delivery planning for CR-WASH/IDPC as needed.
• Lead finalization and roll out of the CR-WASH core indicators and Climate Resilient WASH MEAL package and lead ongoing revision of CR-WASH technical guidance and standards.
• Convene and sustain a CR-WASH community of practice for peer exchange across countries and regions.
• Synthesize lessons, strengthen technical guidance and capacity and support strategic work on Anticipatory Action for CR-WASH/IDPC.
• Contribute to the development of the Environment & Climate Health technical competency framework and assessment.
• Synthesize, adapt, and disseminate relevant technical standards, methodologies, and implementation tools for CR-WASH/IDPC.
• Provide technical inputs to MEAL tools and methodologies and support data interpretation and use.
• Proactively disseminate lessons learned across countries and regions for select strategic projects.
• Contribute to shaping, refining and delivering the Environment & Climate Health Learning Agenda.
• Collaborate with policymakers, implementing partners, humanitarian responders, and UN agencies to advance guidance, outcomes, research, implementation, and documentation on CR-WASH/IDPC.
• Represent IRC in priority external forums including technical, policy, and advocacy workshops.
• Contribute to global prioritization and agenda-setting efforts to advance IRC’s strategy and agendas for fragile and conflict affected settings.
• Work with the Policy and Communications Teams to develop and advocate IRC’s and global policies on CR-WASH/IDPC.
• Lead strategic business development opportunities in partnership with relevant technical and business development teams and regional and country colleagues.
• Provide Technical Advisors and Country Programs with specialized support on program design in relevant technical areas of CR-WASH and IDPC.
• Serve as technical lead on large, complex and high value business development opportunities.

Requirements

• Master’s degree in public health engineering, environmental management and/or related fields or equivalent professional experience required.
• Minimum of 6-8 years of progressive experience designing and leading programs relevant to Climate Resilient WASH in fragile and conflict affected settings and/or across the humanitarian-development nexus.
• Demonstrated experience developing and delivering new strategies to advance ambitious goals, with strong ability to connect WASH infrastructure development to service models, sustained operations, financing, policy and systems strengthening.
• Experience collaborating across health, nutrition, climate resilience and related domains, with ability to clearly communicate the contribution of WASH and water security to health, climate resilience and other outcomes.
• Knowledge of and ability to use and integrate data, including climate forecasts, epidemiological data, and geo-spatial data to inform program targeting and intervention design.
• Demonstrated ability to use data and research evidence for programmatic decisions and rigorous analytic skills.
• Strong track record of driving uptake of evidence-based practice, including technical skills in coaching, mentoring, and capacity strengthening.
• Ability to design technical approaches for proposals and identify new business development opportunities.
• Ability to work, manage, and meet deadlines in a fast-paced, highly matrixed environment.
• Outstanding business acumen, critical thinking, problem solving and decision-making skills required.
• Superb inter-personal, written and verbal communication skills with ability to collaborate across countries, cultures, and departments.
• Excellent communication, influencing, and storytelling skills.
• Proficiency in English and French required; knowledge of Spanish or Arabic an asset.
• Ability to travel globally up to 30% of the time, occasionally on short notice.

Skills

• Climate-resilient WASH
• Public Health Engineering
• Environmental Management
• Program Design
• Project Leadership
• Humanitarian Development Peace Nexus
• WASH Infrastructure
• Service Model Design
• Operations Financing
• Policy Strengthening
• Systems Strengthening
• Cross-sector Collaboration
• Health and Nutrition Integration
• Climate Resilience
• Data Integration
• Climate Forecasting
• Epidemiological Analysis
• Geo-spatial Data Analysis
• Evidence-Based Practices
• Coaching and Mentoring
• Capacity Strengthening
• Technical Proposal Design
• Business Development
• Strategic Programme Management
• Global Advocacy
• English
• French

Languages

English, French