Project Coordinator - Urban Climate Action at Plan International

THE URBAN CLIMATE ACTION FUND PROJECT

• The Urban Climate Action Fund is a Plan-led mechanism for youth-led organizations to scale up existing climate adaptation and environmental initiatives. The fund will be piloted initially in select cities (in Kenya and Uganda), but the aim is to create a scalable and flexible funding mechanism that involves urban actors and funders globally. Plan Kenya and DNO, together with Plan Uganda, will co-create a flexible funding mechanism with a simple programmatic toolbox and work together to document impact and learning to enhance the potential for scaling the funding mechanism locally and globally. 
• Geographic locations and target group: Informal settlements in Nairobi (Kibera, Mathare and Huruma) providing small grants to youth-led organisations engaged in initiatives related to climate change and environmental regeneration.

ABOUT THE ROLE

• The Project Coordinator - Urban Climate Action will work directly with youth-led organisations and support them in the development of the project plans, aiming to optimise beneficial impact to the project participants in the programme area. The job holder will implement the assigned project portfolio within the programme area ensuring the achievement of project targets. The Project Coordinator will provide effective project management for a delegated portfolio of project activities, ensuring that results are achieved and quality interventions are delivered in line with project guidelines and an approved budget.

ACCOUNTABILITIES AND MAIN WORK ACTIVITIES

Planning, Design and Implementation (25%) 

• Work directly with Youth-led organisations to support them in the design, planning, initiation and implementation of their climate and environmental initiatives in target communities within Plan Kenya’s Nairobi Urban Programme.
• Participate in the situational analysis, baseline studies to get a full understanding of the project scope, targets and intended impact. 
• Working closely with the MERL team, collect data and document stories of change depicting the before and after project implementation impact for advocacy and donor project impact progress update and marketing.
• Working closely with the Urban Program Manager, set and evaluate project milestones to be realised during and after project implementation and ensure that the project contributes to: Advancing youth-led and gender-transformative climate actions that counters environmental degradation and creates green, resilient, and inclusive cities.
• Support conduct planning meetings and come up with ways of addressing any gaps that are identified including supporting district stakeholders during supervision and monitoring of Project activities.
• Work with youth-led organisations to monitor and ensure timely implementation of project activities as per their detailed implementation schedule.
• Contribute towards the implementation of the project by ensuring desired results are achieved on time and to the standard.
• Programme and Project implementation, Reporting and Influencing (20%) 
• Develop programme for induction, coaching and training for youth partners to equip them with the necessary skills, knowledge and tools to effectively implement the project.
• Support organize and conduct Project reflection and review meetings at team and district levels that bring on board different stakeholders.
• Review reports on youth partner due diligence and capacity assessments ensuring that the project is on the right track and feedback shared with the partners for any corrective action.
• Support the development and implementation of an innovative influencing & communication plan for the Project.
• Actively participate in meetings within the Urban Programme that raise PIK's profile and advocacy agenda.
• Support strategic partnerships, alliances, networks, and coalitions to spearhead and promote project objectives and outcomes.
• Organise regular community awareness meetings about Plan programmes and approaches, in particular ensuring that urban stakeholders and target communities are updated on the overall Plan’s interventions in the City.
• Provide technical information and analysis from Project results that help in influencing and raising PIK urban climate resilience programme profile.  

Working in Partnership (25%) 

• Coordinate Youth Led partners on-boarding for effective implementation of the project by ensuring that ongoing relationships with partners are maintained
• Support youth partners to cascade project plans and milestones for clarity of linkages between initiatives
• Engage and influence different technical working groups at sub-county level
• Assess local partners’ capacity gaps in delivery of program work with attention to GE&I and climate and, if funding allows, develop capacity building plans for mutual development
• Internally resource and establish external linkages/referral for capacity development of the local partners

Monitoring, Evaluation and Quality Assurance (10%) 

• Timely development and utilizations of all project tools to support technically sound project implementation.
• Deliver timely and quality project activity and scheduled reports
• Operationalise procedures of data quality assurance during collection and submission of all related project data.
• Work with the Project and the M&E team in documenting project achievements, best practices and lessons learnt.
• Participate in cross-country learning activities to share good practices and learning from the pilot in Kenya and contribute to developing the climate action funding mechanism.
• Facilitate and coordinate project reflection meetings with communities and other stakeholders to inform programming/improve on quality of interventions.

Financial Responsibility (5%)

• Develop monthly activities and budget plans as per approved work plan and ensure all activities are on track with appropriate scheduling, quality and timelines.
• Monitor expenditures by interventions and ensure compliance within the approved budget. 
• Review expenditure reports on a monthly basis. 

Risk Management (5%) 

• Provide skills, knowledge, and inputs necessary to enable local communities, especially young women to gain climate and risk-informed economic opportunities.  
• Develop project and activity risk assessments and put in place mechanisms to mitigate future recurrent environmental and climate risk and increase biodiversity for sustained ecosystem service. 
• Continually manage all program safeguarding risks.
• Safeguarding Children and Young People (Safeguarding) and Gender Equality and Inclusion (GEI) (5%)
• Understands and puts into practice the responsibilities under Safeguarding and GEI policies and Plan International’s Code of Conduct (CoC), ensuring that concerns are reported and managed in accordance with the appropriate procedures.
• Leads the orientation of Youth Led Organization to ensure that they are properly inducted on and understands their role in upholding Plan International’s safeguarding and GEI policies 
• Ensures that Plan International’s global policies for Safeguarding and Gender Equality and Inclusion are fully embedded in project design, during implementation and as principles applied in day-to-day work of Programme team; 
• Ensures that Plan Kenya contributes to Plan International’s global efforts to ensure safeguarding and GEI, including making sure that relevant reporting and data are submitted.  

Other duties (5%)

• Any other assignment within the scope of work.

TECHNICAL EXPERTISE, SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE

Qualifications/ experience essential: 

• A Degree in Social Work and Environmental science, Social Sciences, Education, Community Psychology, Development studies or others with relevant experience in community development work.
• At least 4 years’ experience in development & implementation of Climate change projects.
• Excellent communication skills, with good spoken and written English and experience in report writing
• Hold personal values, ethics and attitudes which are in alignment with the principles of the Plan’s values.

Qualifications/ experience desirable: 

• Strong report writing skills 
• Documentation of project impact stories of change
• Community facilitation, networking, partnership development and management skills 
• Good communication, negotiation and advocacy skills 
• Good interpersonal, relationship and team working 
• Conflict Management skills 
• Ability to work on ERP systems to deliver programs

Languages required:

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills in Kiswahili and English.

Knowledge:

• Knowledge and experience of working with young people and youth-led organisations, ideally in the field of urban climate adaptation or environmental issues
• In-depth knowledge local development issues, with particular knowledge in girls’ rights and child rights, feminist movements, the key actors and institutions, and the power dynamics involved.
• Mastery of key gender inequalities, gaps, barriers and opportunities at the local level
• In-depth understanding of the policies, processes, institutions and organizations that shape the development and humanitarian context and standards within Kenya.
• Strong Knowledge of community development. 
• Knowledge on management of partners including capacity assessment and strengthening.

Skills:

• Ability to design, implement and monitor evidence-based solutions for gender transformative programmes.  
• Ability to influence power holders about the need for and benefits of addressing gender equality and inclusion, including being able to offer a range of evidence-based solutions. 
• Excellent relationship building skills – networking, influencing and stakeholder management skills
• Ability to identify, analyze and monitor diverse, relevant external actors to work with and understand the purpose and implications of working with them.
• Experience in capacity building
• Hands on experience and skill in result based MERL system