The 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’s 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. And we enable children to prepare for – and respond to – crises and adversity. 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 85 years, and are now active in more than 80 countries.

In our new global strategy, All Girls Standing Strong Creating Global Change (2022-2027), Plan International 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 and that to increase our impact and strengthen our legitimacy as a leader in gender-transformative change we must prioritise evolving into an organisation which is “locally-led, and globally connected”. Partnerships and civil society strengthening are already core components of Plan International’s Programming and Influencing approach, however advancing the quality of our programming and influencing work in partnership, working more equitably with partners and in ways that strengthen civil society, in all contexts, with partners are critical to achieve our goals.

The Opportunity

In this role you will strengthening organisation-wide practices of partnership building and management, you will monitor the quality of Plan International’s partnership relations worldwide and provide strategic guidance on areas of learning and improvement, leading internal related projects.

You will advance Plan International’s work in civil society strengthening, across programming and influencing, through technical leadership and facilitating the development of a common understanding of and coherent practices for Civil Society Strengthening for the organisation

This role has a strong focus on direct support to country office colleagues, but also focuses on driving system change across the organisation and therefore involves close collaboration with colleagues across all offices to advance practice in partnership and civil society strengthening across the wider organisation and in all contexts within which Plan International works.

The Individual

• An undergraduate or postgraduate degree or equivalent experience in human rights, political science, social science, gender studies, international development, or other specific field relevant to Plan International’s work.
• In depth knowledge on the concept of and trends in civil society strengthening and effective partnership building in development and humanitarian context, and considerable practical experience in this work within both programming and influencing, preferably at a country level.
• Understanding and deploying participatory approaches which strengthen civil society, including with children and young people.
• A sound understanding of power dynamics, gender equality and inclusion, conflict sensitivity and working with a rights-based perspective.
• Significant experience in programme and influence design, monitoring & evaluation, learning and knowledge management.
• Structured and strong organizational, and planning skills, including budgeting, to balance multiple activities and projects.
• Solid experience applying strategies for capacity strengthening for internal and external stakeholders at various levels and designing these into programmes and projects.
• Ability to and experience in coaching of colleagues and partners into daily work by explaining key concepts; familiarising them with standards and resources; and working alongside them on the application of technical knowhow.

Please click on the following link for a full role profile.

Location: The location of this role can be flexible where Plan International has an office* that can employ on behalf of the Global Hub and you have the pre-existing right to work and live. Preferably a central time-zone.

Type of role: Maternity cover, Fixed term contract until October 2024

Salary: We will be happy to disclose the salary and applicable benefits to applicants as part of this process, however, please kindly note that this will vary according to the location of the appointed candidate and therefore, it is not possible to include full details here

Closing date: 13th August 2023

Equality, diversity and inclusion is at the very heart of everything that Plan International stands for.

We want Plan International to reflect the diversity of the communities we work with, offering equal opportunities to everyone regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation.

Plan International is based on a culture of inclusivity and we strive to create a workplace environment that ensures every team, in every office, in every country, is rich in diverse people, thoughts, and ideas.

We foster an organisational culture that embraces our commitment to racial justice, gender equality, girls’ rights and inclusion.

Plan International believes that in a world where children face so many threats of harm, it is our duty to ensure that we, as an organisation, do everything we can to keep children safe. This means that we have particular responsibilities to children that we come into contact with and we must not contribute in any way to harming or placing children at risk.

A range of pre-employment checks will be undertaken in conformity with Plan International’s Safeguarding Children and Young People policy. Plan International also participates in the Inter Agency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme. In line with this scheme we will request information from applicants previous employers about any findings of sexual exploitation, sexual abuse and/or sexual harassment during employment, or incidents under investigation when the applicant left employment. By submitting an application, the job applicant confirms their understanding of these recruitment procedures.

Please note that Plan International will never send unsolicited emails requesting payment from candidates.