The national Short-term Consultant to support the development of a Circular on rural Water Safety Plan on technical aspect

1. Background:

On November 24, 2021, the Prime Minister has endorsed Decision No. 1978/QD-TTg approving the national strategy on rural water supply and sanitation to 2030, with a vision to 2045, in which one of the targets has been set to be by 2045, 100% of rural people will have access to safe water and sanitation. This sets out the task of continued maintenance and roll-on of rural water safety plan at the national scale.

The National Program for Water Safety has been approved by the Prime Minister for the period 2016-2025 in accordance with Decision No. 1566/QD-TTg dated August 9, 2016, in which the target has been set by 2025, the coverage of rural WSP implementation is 50%. According to that, one of the tasks to be performed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) is "Review and finalize mechanisms, policies, standards and technical regulations on water safe supply in rural areas, including supervising the implementation".

The Program results and achievements at local level in the last five years (2016-2020) showed that, many provinces have implemented good water safety plans (Hanoi, Ha Nam, Vinh Phuc, Hai Duong, Bac Ninh, Thua Thien Hue, Ba Ria Vung Tau, Binh Thuan, Can Tho, Tra Vinh, Ben Tre, An Giang and so on), in particular by the end of 2020, about 530/1,600 (5%) piped rural water supply systems have established and implemented water safety plans and it is expected that in the period of 2021-2025, other 2,090 (13%) rural water supply systems will continue to set up and implement water safety plans.

However, up to now, many provinces have not yet implemented WSP since it is not mandatory or required by a law or an equal legal basis. If they implemented WSP, their implementation was not in line with WHO recommendations because they did not follow a national guideline on Water Safety Plan as they should be guided officially One of the main reasons for this situation is that there has been no legal document regulating the formulation and implementation of a rural WSP at both national and provincial levels. The National Program on Water Safety (2016-2025) set out the targets for coverage of rural Water Safety Plan; however, it did not stipulate rural Water Safety Plan as mandatory. As a result, water suppliers in rural areas do not consider applying rural Water Safety Plan as a necessary and compulsory task. Therefore, the development of a Circular guiding the water safety supply in rural areas in the transition period when Viet Nam has not yet developed a law on drinking water became very crucial.

Decision No. 5254/QD-BNN-PC dated December 31, 2021 by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development on the promulgation of development plan for legal document in which, the Water Resources Directorate (WRD) has been assigned to be in charge of drafting a Circular on guiding the implementation of WSP in rural areas and submitting it to the Ministry for promulgation in October 2022.

Based on the approved detailed plan on the circular development, the WRD is responsible for coordinating a team of national consultants to complete the development of the Circular to submit to MARD for promulgation in October 2022. As a result, WRD is proposing WHO Viet Nam to provide support in recruiting 02 national consultants, one on rural WSP aspect and another on legal/ institutional aspect of WSP. This vacancy is for recruiting a national consultant to provide legal review and to support development of a draft Circular.

2. Planned timelines: Part time

Start date: 31 May 2022 (subject to confirmation)
End date: 31 October 2022
Number of working days as a consultant: 30

3. Work to be performed

Purpose of the consultancy: To provide technical review and to support development of a draft Circular on rural Water Safety Plan to ensure that the Circular will be smoothly implemented in terms of technical aspect.

Method(s) to carry out the activity

Work as a team and under the close supervision and coordination of the WRD focal point and WHO Technical Officer in charge.
Under technical guidance of WHO and MOH, design a methodology for field assessment of WSP implementation to get consensus from WRD Editorial Team.
Conducting field trips to 2 selected WSP models and 1 newly developed rural WSP to review rural WSP implementation, using methodology as stated above. In addition to the indicators covered in the assessment methodology, identify, technical obstacles in implementing risk management at water supplier level and for scaling up rural WSP at the national level as well as how all rural WSP steps were designed and implemented technically and check if they are in line with the national guideline on rural WSP.
Writing a report summarizing and reporting detailed results of the implementation of rural WSP in terms of the over-all effectiveness of the models, including operational effectiveness and achievement of outcomes; technical issues, technical, operational and political obstacles around the process of developing and adopting the WSP.
Drafting a Circular on rural WSP to collect comments from all relevant stakeholders, editorial team, ministries, provinces, experts and water staff on technical issues of rural WSP
Facilitating 3 TWG/Editorial Team meetings and 1 workshop for data collection, comments and discussion points.
Reviewing comments collected from TWG/Editorial Team meetings to revise the draft Circular on technical issues
Consolidating comments from meetings and workshop and opinions from WRD into the final version of the Circular

Output/s

Output 1: Methodology for field assessment of WSP
Output 2: A report summarizing and reporting field trip results of the implementation of rural WSP, advantages and challenges in the implementation of WSP in the localities
Output 3: Supporting development of a draft Circular on rural WSP and collecting comments from all relevant stakeholders, editorial team, ministries, provinces, experts and workers
Output 4: Consolidated reports, collecting comments and providing feedbacks to ministries, organizations, experts, and editorial teams through meetings, workshop and written opinions
Output 5: Final draft Circular on rural WSP to be submitted to MARD for consideration

4. Specific requirements

Qualifications required:

Post-graduate degree in water supply and drainage, WASH, environmental health, public health, environmental science or other relevant areas from a recognized university.

Experience required:

At least 7 years of experience in water supply and drainage, WASH, environmental health or relevant fields
Advantage: Experience in Water Safety Plan program in Viet Nam, especially in providing training on Water Safety Plan, in risk management for water production process and in auditing WSP or providing consultancy in implementation of rural WSP

Skills / Technical skills and knowledge:

Knowledge on WSP approach and process, water quality issues in rural areas in Viet Nam;
Experience and skills in collecting data, reporting and development of guidelines, regulation and legal documents
Communication skills; and
Teamwork spirit and coordinating skills

Language requirements: