Our Organisation
Plan International is an independent development and humanitarian organisation that advances children’s rights and equality for girls. We believe in the power and potential of every child, but this is often suppressed by poverty, violence, exclusion and discrimination. And it is the girls who are most affected. Working together with children, young people, our supporters and partners, we strive for a just world, tackling the root causes of the challenges facing girls and all vulnerable children. We support children’s rights from birth until they reach adulthood. We drive changes in practice and policy at local, national and global levels using our reach, experience and knowledge. We have been building powerful partnerships for children for over 80 years and are now active in more than 70 countries.
ROLE PURPOSE
Plan International’s global strategy All Girls Standing Strong Creating Global Change (2022-2027) emphasises that working with and through partners is critical to achieving the goal of impacting positively the lives of 200 million girls over the next five years. Partnerships and civil society strengthening are intrinsic to Plan’s priority to be locally led and globally connected, authentically and consistently co-creating our programming and influencing strategies with young people, their networks, and youth partners as active drivers of change and meaningfully involving them in decision-making across the organisation and at all levels.
Plan International is committed to advancing the quality of our partnering across all contexts where we work and this newly created regional role serves to provide support to WACA regional hub and country offices on strategic partnering approaches and partnership management, while linking to our global standards, learning and processes on partnerships to ensure our work with partners is principled, impactful, and continuously improves.
Reporting to the Regional Director of Programming and Influencing, this role will support country offices to develop context-appropriate partnership strategies, guidance, processes and practices which are responsive to emerging needs, organisational ambitions, and quality frameworks, and advance equitable partnering practices and civil society strengthening. The position will develop Plan International’s approach to working with partners in development as well as humanitarian, fragile and high-risk contexts.
We are looking for an individual with strong experience of working in programme partnerships at a strategic level, with well-developed relational and advisory skills, and with sound knowledge and experience of project management at country level and preferably regional level too.
The position will be based in any of the 15 countries in the WACA region, with regular travel to other country offices and the regional hub as needed. This role links with and will manage the newly created role of Regional Partnership Coordinator.
Dimensions of the Role
The role primarily focuses primarily on providing direct support to country offices in the development of their partnership strategy and quality partnership management processes and practices. The role is also responsible for developing the WACA regional hub’s partnership strategy and processes. You will work closely with colleagues to embed good practices on strategic partnering in furtherance of Plan International’s global ambition and responding to organisational learning and demand, connecting with the Global Partnerships Team.
The position provides technical support to countries to support them to develop partnership strategies which enable Plan International and our partners to work on more equal terms, and with strong mutual oversight in our work together. It involves providing technical advice and guidance, developing and facilitating training and materials for colleagues and partners, supporting organisational learning through formal and informal processes, and providing direct, demand driven coaching and mentoring to country offices in order to strengthen organisational partnering theory and practices.
Accountabilities
Technical support to country offices and regional programmes to ensure strong strategic partnership relationship management practices are integrated in programming and influencing work
- Support country offices and regional programmes/ projects to develop localised partnership strategies aligned with Plan’s global ambitions, respective country strategies and other core organisational guidance, for example Plan International’s gender transformative programming and influencing approach, and ‘ready to respond in emergencies’ guide, and to conduct partnership mapping aligned with respective partnership strategies.
- Develop, apply and advise on the adaptation of contextually relevant guidance and tools to strengthen equitable partnership approaches and improve the quality of Plan’s gender transformative programming and influencing work when working with partners and partnering relationships, including mutual partnership appraisals, partnership monitoring tools and partnership evaluation/ impact tools.
- Advise on strategies to mitigate risk in specific partnerships where partnership risk assessment processes have raised issues with potential to impede the effectiveness of the collaboration, such as power dynamics in partnership relationship management, conflict sensitivity and shrinking civic space.
- Provide advice and support to country office prioritised recommendations from partnership review processes, including annual partnership reviews, the annual partnership survey and programme, audit findings and project and programme evaluations where there are implications for principled, equitable partnering.
- On request, provide in-depth analytical support for partnership portfolio reviews/ deep dives in relation to working with diverse actors, application of partnership principles and equitable partnership management approaches, and provide technical advice and coaching on process improvement.
Technical advice to country offices and regional programmes on the application of partnership models in proposal/ project development
- Advise country office business development teams on the alignment of proposal and project development with Plan International’s priorities on equitable partnering and the integration of civil society strengthening approaches.
Upskilling and capacity development support
- Develop and provide training to key staff on advancing equitable partnership approaches and quality partnership management with diverse actors.
- Support country offices to develop appropriate training materials/ resources to use with partners to strengthen partner capacities for partnering.
- Advise other functional areas on the development of partner friendly training materials/ resources to strengthen partner capacities.
- Develop a regional resource bank for capacity strengthening on partnering approaches and practices, and civil society strengthening and share appropriate resources with country offices for use in capacity strengthening work.
Direct support for regional partnerships/ regional programmes
- Lead on the WACA regional hub’s partnership strategy development, partner mapping and regional portfolio reviews.
- Lead the annual partnership survey process and analysis of findings for WACA regional hub partnerships.
- Support WACA regional hub to apply equitable partnership and civil society strengthening approaches within business development, partnership management and oversight processes for partnership management, including the management of multi-country projects involving partners.
- Support WACA regional hub to develop and strengthen equitable and principled partnership management in regional partnerships, and integrate civil society strengthening approaches – including advising, and leading where appropriate, on mutual partnership appraisals, partnership monitoring and partnership evaluation/ impact.
Monitoring, evaluation, accountability, research and learning
- Active participation in regional spaces to advance learning on partnership approaches for programming and influencing in line with Plan International’s strategic ambitions and supporting the development of appropriate regional management action plans.
- Lead and co-ordinate a WACA regional community of practice on partnerships and civil society strengthening, to share partnership experiences and best practices, ensuring that these spaces are informed by partnering needs in various contexts including high risk contexts, and trends and best practices are documented and shared within the region and globally and with external networks and working groups.
- Lead and co-ordinate regional engagement around research and knowledge products connected to partnering practices and civil society strengthening, as appropriate, and socialisation of outputs and learnings.
- Monitor the environment for civil society across the region and ensure analysis is shared with relevant programmes, initiatives and networks.
Working Relationships
- Country Offices, especially Heads of Programmes and Partnership Managers
- Regional Partnerships Coordinator
- Regional Youth Engagement Lead
- Regional Head of Gender & Inclusion
- Global Partnerships Team to share learning and support global initiatives
- Other organisations and fora, for representation, coordination, collaboration, learning and advocacy
Technical expertise, skills and knowledge
Knowledge
- At least 7 years’ experience in the development and/or humanitarian sector including working in or supporting country programmes and partnerships in different operating contexts.
- In depth knowledge on the concept of and trends in civil society strengthening and effective partnership building in development and humanitarian context
- Understanding the nature and approaches of key movements, actors and institutions relevant to Plan’s ambitions and activities
- Understanding and deploying participatory approaches which strengthen civil society, including with children and young people
- Experience of developing partnership strategies (including approaches to localisation), and designing partnership systems and tool
- Experience of networking with humanitarian and development actors and robust knowledge of humanitarian architecture, coordination mechanisms and sector trends
- Demonstrated success in building consensus among diverse stakeholders and working with virtual teams.
- Ability to critically analyse data and evidence to innovate, deliver, learn and share what works and what doesn’t work for children and youth, partnerships and civil society strengthening
- Training, facilitation and capacity building experience for staff capacity strengthening and partner organisational development
- A sound understanding of power and privilege, gender equality and inclusion, and working with a rights-based perspective
Skills
- Strong strategic skills, including leading development of partnership strategies/frameworks.
- Excellent interpersonal skills: ability to develop and maintain successful professional relationships at all levels
- Ability to motivate teams and encourage learning and development opportunities.
- Proven experience in designing and delivering bespoke training packages for diverse stakeholders
- Ability to and experience of coaching and mentoring colleagues and partners in their daily work by explaining key concepts; familiarising them with standards and resources; and working alongside them on the application of technical knowhow
- Strong communication and information presentation skills.
- Excellent organisational and time management skills; proactive problem solver and self-motivated.
- Ability to work under pressure and to meet challenging deadlines.
- Ability to analyse complex organisational challenges and present innovative solutions.
- Fluent in English and French and possessing a high level of English and French writing skills.
Behaviours
- Demonstrable commitment to safeguarding and creates an environment where children, young people, partners and colleagues are supported and safe
- Upholds and demonstrates Plan International’s values and behaviours
- Has the courage to challenge the status quo, to question the way we work, especially when work or behaviour is not of the quality required
- Strives for high quality in all they do, respecting deadlines, working continuously to improve performance
- Pro-actively works to support mutuality and equal working in all relationships, and takes action to address power imbalances
- Helps the team to achieve their goals and creates an environment where colleagues, teams and partners feel comfortable to ask for help and have space to grow
- Listens to and understands views of colleagues and partners. Draws on their experience to ensure high quality work
- Adjusts approaches, communication style and behaviour to work effectively across cultures and with diverse stakeholders and communities
- Actively promotes diversity, gender equality and inclusion internally and externally.
- Actively contributes to both internal and external information-sharing networks.
Plan International’s Values in Practice
We are open and accountable
We create a climate of trust inside and outside the organisation by being open, honest and transparent. We hold ourselves and others to account for the decisions we make and for our impact on others, while doing what we say we will do.
We strive for lasting impact
We strive to achieve significant and lasting impact on the lives of children and young people, and to secure equality for girls. We challenge ourselves to be bold, courageous, responsive, focused and innovative.
We work well together
We succeed by working effectively with others, inside and outside the organisation, including our sponsors and donors. We actively support our colleagues, helping them to achieve their goals. We come together to create and implement solutions in our teams, across Plan International, with children, girls, young people, communities and our partners.
We are inclusive and empowering
We respect all people, appreciate differences and challenge inequality in our programmes and our workplace. We support children, girls and young people to increase their confidence and to change their own lives. We empower our staff to give their best and develop their potential.
Physical Environment
Office based – anywhere Plan has a legal entity within the WACA region.
Level of contact with children
Mid-level: Occasional interaction with children.
This position is opened for all applicants and females’ candidates are highly encouraged to apply. The successful candidate should be immediately available. To apply, click on the link below and send by December 19th 2022.
Your application should include:
- A comprehensive cover letter
- A comprehensive and clear CV that includes the contact of four (4) of your professional referees, one of whom should be your current employer.
Females’ candidates are highly encouraged to apply
More Information
- Job City Benin
