Head of Global Hunger Response and Resilience Unit at Plan International

ROLE PURPOSE

• Plan International is an independent child rights and humanitarian organisation committed to children living a life free of poverty, violence and injustice.
• We actively unite children, communities and other people who share our mission to make positive lasting changes in children’s and young people’s lives. We support children to gain the skills, knowledge and confidence they need to claim their rights to a fulfilling life, today and in the future. We place a specific focus on girls and women, who are most often left behind.
• We have been building powerful partnerships for children for more than 85 years and are now active in over 80 countries.
• Our new global strategy prioritises humanitarian scale up. To address the growing need to respond to humanitarian emergencies and to strengthen the speed, quality, relevance and appropriateness of our humanitarian work, we are creating a new Global Hunger Response and Resilience Unit.
• The postholder leads Plan International’s global work on Hunger and resilience and manages a team of technical specialists. This global unit’s focus is on providing quality support to Country Offices responding to humanitarian crises, ensuring strong programme quality and support to raise more resources. The Hunger and Resilience Unit provides support across the organisation to secure a diverse range of donor funding.

DIMENSIONS OF THE ROLE

• The post holder will lead the overall hunger and resilience programming work across the Plan International federation. They will also lead a unit of technical specialists. They will engage in high level fora and networks both as required.
• Post holder will contribute to marketing and fund-raising efforts to raise resources to scale up our work related to hunger and to ensure the sustainability of the unit.
• The post holder will support country office teams, spending up to 50% of their time in countries responding to humanitarian crises. One single travel / deployment may last up to 4 weeks but could be longer for complex crises.
• The post holder will travel to Country Offices, sometimes at short notice, to provide technical support on hunger related programming. They will provide high level strategic advice and guidance to Country Management Teams and in particular Country Director’s and Directors of Sub Region. They will not hold budget responsibility but will be responsible for leading programme design and implementation, positioning Plan International in front of donors and supporting the development of funding submissions (these may be proposals of multi-million-euro value).
• The post holder has 3 direct reports – i.e., global leads on Food Security and Livelihoods Expert; Cash and Voucher Assistance Specialist and Resilience and Climate Change expert. In addition, the unit also has 3 core deployable positions (2 cash and vouchers, 1 nutrition in emergencies)
• The postholder will develop networks with key food security, nutrition and resilience networks (and work closely with climate, gender, education and child protection experts), with a specific focus on supporting Plan International’s in-country cluster engagement.

ACCOUNTABILITIES

•  The post holder will regularly deploy to Country Offices to provide technical support and leadership on food security, nutrition and cash during humanitarian crises. Where possible seeking to ensure that this support is recharged to donor grants.
•  Leads the assessment of hunger related needs and the design and implementation of programmes when deployed to a Country Office, ensuring a portfolio of high-quality hunger programming.
•  Provide country management teams with programmatic guidance and advice to support scale up of humanitarian operations.
•  Ensures all hunger and resilience work has a specific gender, diversity, inclusion and climate lens.
•  In close collaboration with the Deployment manager ensures that deployable capacity in the Hunger Response & Resilience Unit are deployed 75% of the time, securing 100% recharge, and that technical specialists are providing in country support 50% of their time, also securing significant recharge income.
•  Travels regularly to provide in country technical advice and support, raising Plan International’s profile and positioning country offices for funding opportunities.
•  In close collaboration with the liaison offices and policy and influencing colleagues across the organisation develops key policy and influencing positions
•  Oversees representation of Plan International in the Global Food Security, Nutrition and Early Recovery Clusters, Climate and Resilience forums and identify appropriate colleagues from within Plan International who can take on these representation roles.
•  Provides management support to Hunger Response & Resilience Unit team members, ensuring strong Country Office focus.
•  Deploys to support Country Offices respond to large scale and complex humanitarian crises and rapid onset emergencies, leading the hunger programming scale up, for up to 1 month at a time.
•  Represents Plan International with humanitarian donors, positioning Plan to secure funding.
•  Work with National Organisations and Country and Regional Offices to increase the quantity and scale of hunger and resilience related grants.
•  Identify and disseminate lessons from Plan’s work on hunger and resilience.
•  Identify opportunities and establish dialogue towards partnerships with other humanitarian agencies.
•  Support organisational engagement with WFP, positioning Plan International as a key partner.
•  As a member of the Humanitarian Department Management team provides input and support to the overall management of the department, supporting or leading management initiatives and processes as required.
•  Leads annual workplan development for the unit, aligning with the global strategy.
•  Works closely with other heads of unit within the humanitarian department, ensuring teams collaborate in a networked approach.
•  Ensures that Plan International’s global policies for Safeguarding Children and Young People and Gender Equality and Inclusion are fully embedded in accordance with the principles and requirements of the policy including relevant Implementation Standards and Guidelines as applicable to their area of responsibility. This includes, but is not limited to, ensuring staff and associates are aware of and understand their responsibilities under these policies and Plan International’s Code of Conduct (CoC), their relevance to their area of work, and that concerns are reported and managed in accordance with the appropriate procedures.

KEY RELATIONSHIPS

Internal

•  Regional Heads of Humanitarian
•  Directors of Sub regions
•  Country Directors
•  Global Fundraising Hub
•  National Organisations
•  UN, AU and EU Liaison Offices
•  Country Directors
•  Regional Hubs
•  Plan International National Organisations
•  Climate and resilience practitioners

External

•  Global Food Security, Nutrition and Early Recovery Clusters
•  Peer & partner organisations.
•  Humanitarian funding donors.
•  Academia and think tanks.

TECHNICAL EXPERTISE, SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE

Essential

•  Proven ability to raise resources from humanitarian donors and other sources of funding.
•  Significant experience of managing humanitarian or hunger related programmes in a range of different humanitarian contexts.
•  Demonstrated experience leading the design and implementation of gender and diversity humanitarian programming.
•  Demonstrated experience of key practice and programme standards for food security and nutrition programming.
•  Degree or equivalent in food security, nutrition or related fields or appropriate work experience.
•  Significant knowledge of humanitarian response and humanitarian coordination mechanisms.
•  Proven experience of using humanitarian standards in programme design and implementation.
•  Demonstrable experience in advocacy, influencing and negotiating skills, experienced in gaining commitment from a wide range of people and bringing about change.
•  Proven ability to network effectively and represent an organisation across a wide range of different stakeholder groups.
•  Able to work calmly under extreme pressure and at unpredictable hours during emergency response.
•  Ability to work in English. Arabic, French or Spanish is desirable.
•  Demonstrable experience of developing food security, nutrition, resilience related programmes.

Desirable

•  Please include those requirements that are desirable.
•  Experience of cash and voucher modalities.
•  Experience in representing through media interviews. Understanding about climate and resilience.
•  Hostile Environment & Fist Aid training.

Closing Date: Monday 21st August