About the Safe Water team

Evidence Action’s Safe Water Now program provides safe drinking water to over 10 million people across rural Uganda, Malawi, and Kenya. Water treatment reduces all-cause child mortality by about 25%. We  deliver safe water in rural settings through two interventions; our Dispensers for Safe Water (DSW) and newly launched In-Line Chlorination (ILC). Over the past two years, we’ve more than doubled our footprint in East and Southern Africa and are exploring expansion into new countries. We are also developing an innovation agenda through our Accelerator process to create next-generation safe water programs by defining problem statements, identifying solutions and designing creative interventions to test.

We are also launching an ambitious technical assistance program to help the government of India reach 17 million people with safe water, with plans to expand further. This supports India’s commitment to expand access to safe water across rural India, a massive effort which has already led to over 140m households receiving household tap connections.

Here, you will play a pivotal role in supporting Safe Water Africa's fundraising and partnership efforts by engaging with donors, contribute to the strategic expansion of Safe Water programs into new countries, oversee the development of strategic directions, drive cost-effectiveness, and create mechanisms for cross-regional and cross-program learning as part of our global team support. You will be supporting the integration of various safe water interventions and developing a playbook for broader policy advocacy. You will report into our Global Director of Safe water and lead a team of four spread across the globe.

Position Location

There is some flexibility on a US based location, the preference is for this role to be based in Washington DC with frequent travel (25% or more) to Africa, particularly: Kenya, Uganda, Malawi.  

Key Responsibilities:

Fundraising and Partnerships Lead donor outreach and engagement with donors for Safe Water Africa fundraising. Coordinate work planning around donor relationships, ensuring clear communication, timely reporting, and effective stakeholder management. Develop fundraising pitches with External Relations support and create high-quality deliverables for external audiences to help support increased funding diversification. Track and manage a wide range of grant-related activities, including funding commitments, project implementation milestones, reporting deadlines, and donor update meetings. Strategy, Innovation and Optimization Develop a sustainability plans by testing alternative options for transition and scale-up. Provide strategy oversight around the expansion of safe water programming into new countries and support the team to identify programmatic barriers.  Oversee efforts focused on optimization of activities, driving towards greater cost effectiveness and efficiency in the delivery of services. Develop strategic direction for Safe Water in Africa over the next 5 years that builds on a sustainability plan and incorporates innovative approaches as pathway to scale and expansion. Program Management Create mechanisms for greater cross-region and cross-program learning through standardized SOPs and guidelines. Coordinate global team technical and operational support to regional and country teams on Safe Water in current and future geographies. Support coordination between the Dispensers for Safe Water program and other safe water interventions in the same geographies (including ILC), ensuring synergies and efficiencies.  Develop playbook for ‘Safe Water for all’ that includes standardized technical guidelines and forms basis for broader policy advocacy for water treatment.  Provide budget oversight for Safe Water Africa activities from global level including partnership with country and regional leadership teams to develop plans and ensure efficient allocation of resources to support the delivery of programmatic objectives.  Safe Water Expansion Support  scoping and piloting in new countries leading to scale up of large new interventions.  Manage efforts to build partnerships with a range of stakeholders for safe water expansion. Team Development Empower staff reporting to you, identify areas for growth, and effectively coach their learning.  Maintain and promote a positive and healthy work environment for the staff reporting to you.