Position based in Ethiopia (SNNPR – Kembata-Tembaro Zone)
BACKGROUND
For many rural families of the mountainous Zones of Southern Ethiopia, access to safe water is still very complicated and becomes particularly critical during the dry season. Those families are then forced to travel long distances in order to fetch water (40 minutes round trip, on average), often of poor quality. This distance considerably reduces the amount of water that can be transported and consumed at household level (between 4 to 6l per day per person for all uses). The time devoted to fetch water for domestic consumption and watering animals is considerable, and relies mainly on women. In addition, communities and local institutions face difficulties to properly maintain the existing water supply infrastructures, which quality is highly variable. The number of systems there is already insufficient, but this situation is aggravated by an important number of existing water points that are not kept in working order. As a result, the pressure on functioning water points is enormous and results in long queues for users, some of whom are forced to return to fetch water in the ponds or rivers. The issue of water systems maintenance in mountainous rural areas is an acute challenge with social, technical, economical and logistic stakes.
A survey done by Inter Aide in collaboration with Water Offices in 5 Districts (Woredas) showed that more than half of the existing infrastructures (53% on average) are dysfunctional, while most of them could however be rehabilitated. This shows that the sole focus on developing adapted maintenance mechanisms could potentially contribute to double the existing water coverage. Today paradigm is that priority is given to the construction of new water points without considering i/ the existing infrastructures and ii/ the capacity of local consumers to durably manage the investments. This absence of effective maintenance services is therefore responsible for the severe deterioration of drinking water production, leading to an increase in health risks as well as in women domestic workload.
INTER AIDE SUPPORT TO WATER SECTOR DEVELOPMENT IN ETHIOPIA
Inter Aide has been involved for more than 30 years in Ethiopia and has contributed to the construction of more than 1,500 water points serving around 450,000 users (over 90% of these water points are still functional today).
Inter Aide is today concentrating in 12 mountainous Districts in 4 Zones of the Southern Region and aims at increasing the number of functional water points by:
- Supporting community-based associations to construct durable infrastructures, and to manage and maintain existing infrastructures
- Supporting governmental Water Offices to acquire a good understanding of the situation in their District, allowing to define and implement rational action plans taking into account the water resources and the status of the water points of the District as a whole.
SUPPORTING ETHIOPIAN INSTITUTIONS TO MANAGE THEIR WATER COVERAGE
A general assessment of all water infrastructures and new potential springs have been conducted in the 12 targeted Districts of Inter Aide between 2018 and 2020. The results will be shared with the governmental offices for them to have a clear overview of the situation in their District:
- Mapping of all infrastructures inside the District (springs capped and uncapped, pumps, reservoirs, water points, distribution boxes,…)
- Measurement of the yield of all springs
- Identification of the level of maintenance required for each infrastructure
- Calculation of the water coverage of the District and identification of the areas not supplied with water
- Identification of the areas that can be covered by existing networks through rehabilitation/extension or by new springs
- Identification of all water user associations in charge of each water networks
All those data will help the governmental bodies, in collaboration with Inter Aide, to make a master plan to improve access to water in all the villages of the District and to manage all existing infrastructures. This master plan should then become a reference for all interventions related to water supply in the District.
OBJECTIVES AND METHODOLOGY OF THE INTERNSHIP
This internship aims at doing a master plan for 5 mountainous Districts of Kembata-Tembaro Zone, in which Inter Aide is supporting agriculture and soil and water conservation programs, but not yet water supply programs:
For each District, the internship will be separated into 4 phases:
- Data collection:
- presentation of the project to governmental Water Offices
- meeting with water user association federation of each village – list all water structures and springs
- training and follow up of governmental technicians that will take GPS point, photo, and yield of each water structure
- Data entry:
- Enter data in an Access database that can export data to QGIS
- Correction of the data – critical view of the data exported on QGIS
- Analysis:
- Calculation of the water coverage using QGIS
- First proposition of the master plan: identify technical solutions (construction and maintenance) to fully cover all the inhabited areas of the District
- Master plan:
- Discuss the results with Government Water Office with the support of Inter Aide Senior Engineer – identification of the social constraints to take into consideration
- Finalise the documents of the master plan to hand over to the Governmental Water Office
PROFILE
- Water engineer or equivalent with educational background in water supply and rural development;
- Educational knowledge in hydraulics with specialisation in pressurized water systems and construction
- Good knowledge of Office, Access and QGIS,
- Capable of critical analysis of the data
- Field oriented, tenacity and autonomy, good physical health;
- Able to cope with rough field conditions;
- Rigor, good organizational skills, analytical skills;
- Great interpersonal skills: calm, diplomacy, self-control, respect for values and cultural differences;
- Demonstrate pragmatism and ability to cope with a heavy workload;
- Comfortable to work in remote areas
- Fluent English (including writing skills in English);
CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT
- Duration : 6 months of effective presence
- French Legal Internship Agreement with legal internship gratification (around 560€ per month)
- Translator costs covered by Inter Aide
- Round trip flight / Paris – Addis Ababa
- Complete social insurance + repatriation insurance
Position to be filled by the beginning of December 2020
The selection of the files will be done as and when they are received.
Applications with a CV of more than 2 pages will not be studied.
Thank you for sending CV + Cover letter under ref. ETH/WATER/2020 at recrutement@interaide.org