Background

The Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) is a partnership of the 10 Nile Basin riparian states with a shared vision objective to promote sustainable socio-economic development through the equitable utilization of and benefit from the shared Nile Basin water resources. NBI has three programs, namely, the Basin-Wide Program implemented by the NBI Secretariat (NILE-SEC) located in Entebbe, Uganda, the Eastern Nile Subsidiary Action Program (ENSAP) implemented by the Eastern Nile Technical Regional Office (ENTRO) located in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and the Nile Equatorial Lakes Subsidiary Action Program (NELSAP) implemented by NELSAP Coordination Unit located in Kigali, Rwanda.

The Nile Basin’s ecosystems are of fundamental importance to the wellbeing of its 270 million inhabitants and comprise the backbone of national economies as they provide numerous socioeconomic benefits. Services provided by rivers, lakes, wetlands and other water-related ecosystems range from replenishing groundwater over controlling floods to providing fishery-based diets. In the Nile Basin, as in many other parts of the developing world, a great share of people directly depends on these services, i.e. they constitute most of their day-to-day subsistence and income. Environmental pollution causes habitat degradation which results in loss of capacity of ecosystems to generate these services thereby threatening millions of livelihoods and inhibiting economic growth.

Nile Basin countries continue to face challenges with their water quality data management programs. Some of these could be addressed within the framework of a basin wide water quality program. The challenges/ gaps include, (i) limited or non-existent national water quality or sediment monitoring programs, (ii) nonexistent stations for monitoring water quality at key hotspots or stations that are outdated and out of service due to lack of funding and personnel for operations, maintenance, and upgrades (including for equipment calibration), (iii) lack of adequate or modern data acquisition and management systems for receiving, processing, storing, disseminating, and transmitting water resources data and information, (iv) insufficient number and qualifications/training of staff for field measurement, field equipment maintenance, and data management system operation, (v) lack of demonstrated practices and procedures for transboundary sharing of operational water resources observations, among others.

Many of the challenges exhibit a transboundary character and addressing them challenges requires a coordinated approach with countries working together to identify risk areas and design and implement joint responses. It is within this context that a program is proposed for supporting riparian countries to cooperatively address the ever-increasing water quality and pollution control challenges in the basin.

The Nile-Sec is interested to hire a suitable qualified Water Quality Specialist to support the implementation of the project.

Project scope

The Nile Basin Initiative has received funds from World Bank through the Nile Cooperation for Climate Resilience (NCCR) project to cooperatively address the ever-increasing water quality and pollution control challenges in the basin. The program shall support improved water quality management at national and regional levels to address the growing threats of degradation of water resources. Specifically, the program shall (i) support member states to improve their water quality monitoring systems and ensure effective participation in the regional water quality program; (ii) improve availability of water quality data and information at national and regional levels; (iii) develop a Nile Basin water quality database that can support development of measures for addressing pollution and quality degradation at national and regional levels; (iv) prepare models assessing critical sections of the basins (hotspots) and providing critical information for designing intervention measures (v) prepare and disseminate information products aimed at improving awareness of countries on the water quality challenges in the basin and measures that can be taken to address them; (vi) improve capacity of key stakeholders with tools and models for designing/implementation of water quality interventions.

Overall scope of service

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Based at the Nile-SEC headquarters in Entebbe, Uganda, the Water Quality Specialist will support implementation of the water quality programme in a dual role of technical expert and project management. The specialist shall ensure that water quality project is delivered to the standards of NBI. The specialist shall be responsible for ensuring that the project satisfies NBI’s obligations as implementing agency.

The Water Quality Specialist shall report to the Nile-SEC Deputy Executive Director/Head of the Basin-Wide Program and Water Resources Management or his designate for all of the Project’s substantive and administrative issues. The Water Quality Specialist will perform a liaison role with stakeholders including national governments, regional agencies, NGOs, CSOs and project partners, including NELSAP, ENTRO, and LVBC.

How to apply
Interested and Suitably qualified individuals are invited to visit the NBI website at www.nilebasin.org to download the full job description/TORs for the preferred position and should submit their applications electronically to the Executive Director at: recruitment@nilebasin.org.Application/cover letters clearly indicating the title of the position and accompanied by detailed curriculum vitae should reach the Executive Director not later than 17th September, 2021 at 2:00pm Local Time in Entebbe, Uganda).

Your CV should and must clearly indicate full contacts of Three (3) referees and two (2) former employers excluding the current employer. Only short listed candidates will be contacted and women candidates are encouraged to apply.

Job Email id: recruitment(at)nilebasin.org