A. BACKGROUND
The Millennium Water Alliance and the RAPID+ project
The Millennium Water Alliance (MWA) is a permanent global alliance of leading humanitarian and private organizations that convenes opportunities and partnerships, accelerates learning and effective models, and influences the WASH space by leveraging the expertise and reach of its members and partners to scale quality, sustained WASH services. The Resilient Arid Lands Partnership for Integrated Development+ (RAPID+) program is convened and led by the Millennium Water Alliance with primary funding from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) alongside match and investment funds from private sector actors, facilitating partners and participating county governments. The program is set to be implemented from November 2021 to November 2026.
RAPID+ will provide first-time or improved access to water and rangeland services for more than 200,000 people in Garissa, Isiolo, Marsabit, Turkana, and Wajir counties. RAPID+ builds on the successes and lessons learned from the initial phase (2015-2021) of the program to combine the opportunities presented by the national and devolved water sector institutions. The goal of RAPID+ is improved access to safe and sustainably managed water and rangelands in RAPID+ counties that will contribute to resilient livelihoods for communities in a peaceful environment. This incorporates two objectives:
- Pastoralist communities will have increased access to sustainable and safe water for multiple uses.
- Pastoralist communities will have improved access to safe and ecologically healthy rangeland resources that promote greater integrity, social cohesion, and gender equity.
The Sector Forum for Water
One of the core activities being executed under the first outcome of the RAPID+ program is supporting the Frontier Counties Development Council (FCDC) to develop a Sector Forum for Water (SFOW). The FCDC is the regional coordination body for 10 frontier counties in Kenya including Lamu, Tana River, Samburu, West Pokot, Turkana, Marsabit, Mandera, Wajir, Garissa, and Isiolo Counties. Its core mandate is to promote cooperation, coordination, and information sharing between the 10 counties in view of strengthening devolution, enhancing socioeconomic development, and promoting peaceful coexistence among its members. One of the mechanisms that FCDC uses to achieve this is the formation of topical/thematic Sector Forums. The forums act as instruments to enhance cooperation, coordination, and information flow between counties on issues related to priority thematic issues. They are composed of County Executive Committee Members (CECs) for the respective sectors, who meet regularly. Sector Forums are supported by Coordinators based at the FCDC secretariat. The FCDC has active sector forums around Agriculture and Livestock, Peace & Cohesion, Land and Physical Planning. It has also established forums on Health, Education, the MCA Women’s Caucus and Innovation and E-governance.
The RAPID+ program in collaboration with ACDI/VOCA supported FCDC to conduct inaugural meetings for the technical water leads from the counties as well as the CECs of water in each of the 10 counties. The key outputs from these meetings were i) A draft concept note outlining some of the key activities that need to be conducted by the Sector Forum and ii) Buy-in from the CECs for the establishment of the Forum.
Following this meeting, several activities need to be undertaken to get the SFOW up and running. These include but are not limited to:
- Signing of the SFOW Memorandum of Understanding by the 10 CECs in the FCDC counties.
- Fleshing out and finalizing the SFOW concept note for it to be used as a resource mobilization tool.
- Developing flagship activities to be undertaken by the forum and the FCDC secretariat
- Mobilizing funding from donors to support the SFOW flagship activities as well as support quarterly meetings for the technical water directors from the counties and the water CECs.
- Designing an anchor program that can be conducted by the SFOW to ensure that it is functional and sustainable.
Due to the nascency of SFOW, part of the support the RAPID+ program will be offering in addition to facilitating the quarterly meetings for the forum, will be to strengthen the FCDC secretariat to drive and run the SFOW.
B. TOR PURPOSE
It is against this backdrop that RAPID+ is recruiting the services of a facilitator to support the FCDC secretariat in establishing and running the SFOW for at least two years. The facilitator will be instrumental in working with the FCDC to prepare the initial documentation required to kick-start the forum. They will also be key in ensuring that the forum conducts a meeting every quarter to discuss progress on activities and to plan for future work. Finally, the facilitator will partially support resource mobilization efforts by supporting the FCDC secretariat to prepare concept notes for donors they identify to support the SFOW.
C. SCOPE OF WORK OF THE FACILITATOR
The facilitator is expected to:
- Polish and finalize the Sector Forum for Water (SFOW) concept note to include:
- Flagship activities to be undertaken by the forum and the FCDC secretariat.
- A tentative budget for each of the SFOW activities.
- A workplan providing timelines for when the activities should be executed.
- A responsibility matrix outlining the institutions/entities in charge of carrying out the activities.
- Support preparations for quarterly meetings with the technical water directors from the counties and the water CECs.
- Capture the minutes and resolutions from each of the SFOW quarterly meetings.
- Support the drafting of resource mobilization concept notes to various donors to support the SFOW. This activity will however be led by the team from the FCDC secretariat.
The facilitator will be engaged on a part-time basis for up to a maximum of 15 days every quarter. Three of the days will be slated for the quarterly SFOW meeting. Prior to delivering on work, the facilitator will send a quarterly work plan to the FCDC secretariat, which will be reviewed by MWA to determine the Level of Effort (number of days) required per quarter as well as the required deliverables for that quarter.
E. The Role of the FCDC secretariat
The FCDC secretariat will support the facilitator as outlined below:
- Provide a staff email for purposes of legitimizing communication.
- Provide a staff contact card.
- Provide working space on an as needed basis.
- Provide access to contact people for purposes of coordinating the sector forum work.
F. EXPERTISE REQUIRED FOR THE ROLE
We expect the facilitator to possess the following skills.
- A master’s degree in any professional field with more than 5 years of working experience.
- Demonstrated knowledge in policy and research work, with evidence of reports written and workshops facilitated.
- Previous experience and interaction with the Kenyan water sector or working in water sector institutions is mandatory.
- A proven record of accomplishment of professional execution of similar activities and demonstrable capacity to deliver high quality outputs within a short
- Previous work experience and knowledge of the context of the ASAL areas is preferred but not necessary.
- Excellent English report writing, and communication skills are mandatory and will be assessed during the interview stage.
- Excellent analytical skills necessary to craft activities to be undertaken by the SFOW are required.
- This opportunity is only open for individual applicants based in Kenya.
G. DURATION OF THE ASSIGNMENT
The facilitator will be engaged on a part-time basis for up to a maximum of 15 days every quarter. The number of days the facilitator will be required to work per quarter will vary depending on the amount of work to be delivered prior to the quarterly meetings. This will be a performance-based contract to be renewed annually for a period of 2 years.
How to apply
Submission Details
Interested individuals should submit their applications by Friday 14th April 2023 at 5:00pm EAT. All applications should be submitted electronically to the following email address: mwa.jobs@mwawater.org. The email subject should be clearly titled “FCDC Sector Forum for Water Facilitator Position.”
Each application should consist of:
- A cover letter- 1 page
- A Curriculum Vitae (CV) detailing expertise and similar assignments carried out.
- Contact details of 3 organizations that have contracted the applicant to carry out similar assignments in the last 3 years.
- The financial proposal or expected daily charge rate**– 1 page.**