Utility Operations and Management Specialist

Chemonics seeks a Utility Operations and Management Specialist for the USAID Lagos Urban Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Activity (LUWASH) in Nigeria. The project aims to increase availability and sustainable management of safe and climate-resilient water and sanitation services in Lagos, Nigeria. LUWASH will increase the availability, quality and use of safe water and sanitation services and improve the governance and sustainable management of associated sector institutions in Lagos. The activity’s objective is to expand and improve urban WASH service delivery and infrastructure through strengthened governance, increased accountability, and improved financial and technical capabilities of public water utilities and private sector providers. The project has four components as follows: governance and institutional arrangements strengthened to deliver improved WASH services, public and private service provider performance improved, access to safe and sustainable water services increased, access to safe and sustainable sanitation increased and the quality of source water improved.

The Lagos Urban Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Program (LUWASH) activity aims to rebuild the social contract around WASH services in Lagos through contributing to the following objectives 1) reliable data on water resources and services and 2) change management for institutional development across objectives to catalyze sector transformation, generating WASH service improvements for at least 4 million people in LICs and building a foundation for continued progress beyond LUWASH.

Reporting:

The Utility Operations & Management Specialist reports to the DCOP/Service Strengthening

Job Summary:

Embedded in LWC and leads capacity building efforts of public and private service providers in operations, maintenance, and overall management (Task 3.1, 3.2). Contributes to activity support for the restructuring of the LWC, advising on recruitment and training requirements (Task 2.1). Provides timely advisory on non-revenue water, billing systems, and performance improvement.

Principle Duties and Responsibilities:

The main objective of this position is to build capacity of the Lagos Water Corporation (LWC) in general utility operations including commercial, HR, managerial, and operational aspects with the aim of improving their operational viability. In this respect the position will support the LWC to have adequate capacity for administrative, HR Management, Sales, reporting, billing, non-revenue water mitigation and other revenue generation ventures. This means developing accurate, transparent accountability systems and strengthening performance management across critical departments of the utility. The position will also support in routine performance management processes and support the creation and operation of a pro-poor unit. Other functions will include:

• Facilitate the development of appropriate organizational structures and other HR related functions for the organizational transformation of the LWC.
• Facilitate the implementation of Customer Engagement Strategy, Core Ideology and Corporate Culture plans.
• Facilitating the development and execution of incentives and performance-based contracts including defining performance monitoring and assessment approaches with clearly defined KPIs and implementation of the PIP’s.
• Support in the design of memorandum of understanding between Government and public service providers; and also between the service providers and non state providers.
• Support in development and collation of relevant utility operations data for the purpose of pro-poor tariff restructuring.
• Support the Pro-poor Unit of the LWC/LSWMMO
• Facilitate the development and implementation of effective sales and commercial business processes and Billing center management strategies.
• Support prioritization and use of private sector partnerships to improve delivery of water supply services. Identify innovative cost recovery mechanisms and service delivery models.
• Support prioritization and use of local, own-source revenue to improve delivery of water supply services.

Qualifications:

• At least a master’s degree in finance, commercialization, economics, organizational development, HR or any of the accounting qualifications or such related fields.
• A minimum of Master’s degree and 6 years of experience or Bachelor’s Degree and 10 years of experience post qualification experience in any of the above areas.
• Expertise in utility performance improvement and specific expertise in the following areas including HR management, strategic planning, training and capacity building, financial management, and/or customer satisfaction and engagement is critical.

Duration

This is a long-term assignment. The expected duration is at least one year. This position will be based in Lagos, Nigeria.