WASH Operations Manager
World Vision Ethiopia
With 75 years of experience, our focus is on helping the most vulnerable children overcome poverty and experience fullness of life. We help children of all backgrounds, even in the most dangerous places, inspired by our Christian faith.
Come join our 33,000+ staff working in nearly 100 countries and share the joy of transforming vulnerable children’s life stories!
Employee Contract Type:
Local - Fixed Term Employee (Fixed Term)
Job Description:
Leadership and Team Building
- Foster a collaborative team environment, providing mentorship and supporting professional development for staff.
Capacity Building
- Support and mentor local institutions (CBOs, FBOs, etc.) and smaller NGOs to enhance their capabilities and ensure compliance with project standards.
Resource Stewardship
- Enforce accountability by ensuring efficient resource utilization, adherence to internal controls, and achieving satisfactory financial and operational audit results.
Leadership & Oversight of WASH Program
- Provide day-to-day operational oversight of all WASH projects and Project Managers.
- Set clear targets, deliverables, and timelines for each project.
- Monitor progress against work plans, budgets, and donor requirements.
- Facilitate integration, learning, and adaptation across projects.
- Engage with the Local Partnerships Specialist to implement the Localisation Roadmap, strengthening local partner capacity through targeted training and mentorship.
- Ensure cross-cutting themes (nexus approach, gender-lens, conflict sensitivity, safeguarding, do no harm, faith & development) are systematically applied
Performance Management of WASH Project Managers
- Supervise, coach, and mentor WASH Project Managers.
- Conduct regular performance reviews and provide constructive feedback.
- Identify and address capacity gaps through training, mentorship, and partnership learning.
- Promote a culture of accountability, excellence, collaboration, and inclusion.
- Encourage documentation and sharing of most significant change stories to highlight impact and motivate teams
Programme Quality & Compliance
- Ensure projects meet WV, donor, and government WASH technical and operational standards.
- Oversee monitoring, evaluation, learning, and reporting processes in collaboration with MEAL.
- Capture and share innovations and best practices with Technical, MEAL, and RAM teams for scale-up and stakeholder engagement.
- Address project implementation challenges promptly and effectively.
- Ensure compliance with safeguarding, safety, environmental, and conflict-sensitive standards
Financial & Resource Management
- Monitor and approve WASH project budgets.
- Track expenditure and ensure cost-effective use of resources.
- Work with Finance and Supply Chain teams to address budget, procurement, and resource bottlenecks.
- Support timely and accurate donor financial reporting.
- Contribute to resource acquisition efforts by providing WASH technical input for proposals in collaboration with RAM and Marketing teams
Stakeholder Coordination & Reporting
- Maintain regular communication with donors, government agencies, and sector partners.
- Represent WV Ethiopia in WASH coordination forums and clusters.
- Support advocacy for WASH priorities at national and regional levels.
- Ensure timely submission of accurate donor and internal reports.
- Capture and share success stories and programme learnings with external stakeholders to strengthen WV’s positioning
Humanitarian WASH Response Management
- Oversee WASH emergency response projects during crises.
- Ensure rapid mobilisation and coordination of emergency teams.
- Integrate anticipatory action, resilience-building, and early recovery into humanitarian WASH responses.
- Ensure inclusive, conflict-sensitive, and locally partnered approaches in emergency programming.
- Document and share lessons learned and innovations for future response improvement
Required Education, training, license, registration, and/or Certification
- Bachelor’s degree in Civil/Water Engineering, Public Health, Environmental Engineering, or related field (Master’s preferred).
Required Professional Experience
- Minimum 5 - 10 years of experience in WASH project management, with at least 3 years in a leadership/operations management role.
- Proven ability to manage multiple projects and teams simultaneously.
- Strong skills in budget oversight, project monitoring, and donor compliance.
- Strong understanding of Ethiopian WASH sector policies, strategies, and regulatory requirements.
- Excellent interpersonal and leadership skills, with the ability to motivate and manage diverse teams.
- Strong report writing, analytical, and presentation skills in English.
Required Language(s)
Required travel and/or work environment accommodations
- Based in Addis Ababa with 30–40% travel to field sites, including fragile and humanitarian contexts.
- Requires occasional travel to remote and insecure locations with basic living conditions.
- May involve extended working hours during emergency responses or major donor deadlines.
Preferred Experience, Knowledge and/or Key Competencies
- Be Safe and Resilient
- Build Relationships
- Learn and Develop
- Partner and Collaborate
- Deliver Results
- Be Accountable
- Improve and Innovate
- Embrace Change
- Experience in both humanitarian and development WASH programming.
- Experience managing large-scale, multi-donor WASH portfolios.
- Familiarity with climate-resilient WASH solutions and digital monitoring systems.
World Vision is a child-focused organization that is committed to safeguarding all children as well as adult beneficiaries, and has zero tolerance for incidents of violence or abuse against children or adults, including sexual exploitation or abuse, committed either by employees or others affiliated with our work. Therefore, World Vision does not hire staff whose background is not suitable for working with children or vulnerable adults, even if their role does not interact directly with them.
Disclaimer: World Vision Ethiopia is a reputable organization that values transparency and fairness in its recruitment process and does not solicit any money for any job application. We encourage all job seekers to be cautious of any job ads that require payment or personal information upfront. If you have any questions or concerns about our job ads or recruitment process, please do not hesitate to contact us directly.
Applicant Types Accepted:
Local Applicants Only