Emergency Manager

Role Overview

This position leads emergency preparedness and response programming focused on water, sanitation, and hygiene in Kenya. The Emergency Manager will coordinate the full project cycle—from rapid needs assessments and technical design through implementation, monitoring, and reporting—while building partnerships with communities, local authorities, and humanitarian actors. This role matters because it directly determines whether crisis-affected people receive reliable, safe water and dignified sanitation services in a timely and accountable way.

Key Responsibilities

• Conduct rapid field assessments and baseline surveys during emergency activations to identify the most contextually appropriate water supply and sanitation interventions.
• Develop technical specifications, standard operating procedures, bills of quantities, drawings, and terms of reference for emergency WASH projects, and review tenders before contractor and supplier approval.
• Lead project implementation by managing budgets, timelines, and work plans, and supervise technical teams to keep activities aligned with project objectives and donor requirements.
• Ensure disaster risk reduction, community participation, and accountability mechanisms are embedded in every phase of the project, including safeguards for women, children, youth, people with disabilities, and other vulnerable groups.
• Oversee contracts for contractors, consultants, and suppliers, maintain working relationships with partners and government offices, and ensure payments and deliverables are processed on schedule.
• Collaborate with monitoring, evaluation, accountability, and learning staff to track progress against indicators, maintain activity tracking tools, and document lessons learned and best practices.
• Prepare and submit timely progress reports for monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, and end-of-project milestones, and provide regular updates on emergency response activities and work plan status.
• Supervise, mentor, and train emergency response staff, including conducting appraisals, identifying capacity gaps, and facilitating team meetings that encourage information sharing and feedback.

Requirements & Qualifications

• A degree in environmental health science, public health, nursing, community development, social development, or a closely related field.
• At least three years of professional experience in emergency response, humanitarian programming, or development work, with demonstrated experience in WASH or public health interventions.
• Strong working knowledge of humanitarian standards and protocols, including experience related to disease outbreaks and emergency health responses.
• Proven ability to conduct community humanitarian needs assessments and to lead program planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation in emergency settings.
• Experience using participatory and community engagement approaches, including negotiation with communities and local stakeholders.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with strong interpersonal abilities to build and sustain effective working relationships within a multidisciplinary team.
• Proficiency in MS Office applications and the ability to manage project documents, data tracking tools, and financial forecasts.