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.

We are embarking on an ambitious and exciting change process, to make the organisation more relevant, bold, engaging and effective in a dynamic and fast-changing global context in line with Plan International’s global strategy All Girls Standing Strong Creating Global Change (FY23-FY27)

The Regional Hub oversees the realisation of Plan International’s country facing programming and influencing activities in the Region and holds business units to account for achieving maximum and timely impact in accordance with our purpose, values and behaviours, global policies, and as directed by the Members Assembly and International Board.

DIMENSIONS OF THE ROLE

The role oversees a regional hub management team consisting of Directors of Sub-Regions who hold the line management for the Country Directors, Regional Finance, People & Culture, Safety & Security, Programme & Influencing, Humanitarian, and other related functions.

The Regional Director has overall accountability for regional performance and is the CEO representative for influencing, strategic engagement, fundraising and external representation within the region. The Regional Director sits on the Plan International Inc Leadership Team, the Plan International Global Team and periodically joins and contributes to International Board and Committee meetings.

Responsible for the successful development and delivery of Plan International’s strategy, programmes, and operations in the WACA region in-line with Plan International’s global strategy and standards;

· Drive forward our ambition under the global strategy to achieve 100 per cent gender transformative programmes and courageous local, national, regional and global influencing for maximum impact.

· Continuously improve all elements of our operations in the region (grants and sponsorship management, security, supply chain and planning and performance) to ensure they demonstrate excellence in performance and deliver maximum value to all stakeholders including the girls we work with and for, National Organisations, donors, sponsors and partners. Ensure that Plan International’s dual mandate in development and humanitarian work is adequately reflected in all the region’s operations.

· Actively advance intersectional feminism and anti-racism and ensure all leaders and staff exercise our values and behaviours. Strengthen the line of delegation and information sharing from the CEO of PII through to Country Offices to further promote decision making closest to the point of impact while achieving a strong culture of end-to-end accountability. Effectively address non-performance through decisive action. Promote the use of data driven evidence and digital solutions.

Develop and lead a high performing and value-based leadership team within the region, ensuring that people with the right competencies and values perform in the right roles. Managing and supporting the high performance of Directors of Sub Regions, Country Directors, and senior regional staff, strengthening attention to equity, diversity and inclusion within staff teams, and ensuring optimal regional organisational structures.

Sustaining attention of the whole team on wider strategic resourcing issues and the strengthening of talent pipelines both for leadership roles and technical capabilities., Attracting, developing, progressing, and retaining a highly skilled, motivated and diverse workforce. Role modelling and encouraging others to have honest and empowering conversations with individuals about their performance, potential, career direction and development. Driving and supporting our succession and talent processes at the global, regional and country levels and ensuring that staff across all levels feel empowered and supported to deliver at their best, feel pride in their work and develop their potential.

· Lead overall strategic planning and alignment, providing direction and leadership for the region, and contributing to leadership of the global organisation. The Regional Director plays an active role in helping the Global Hub to align and work effectively with Country Offices, developing products that will be assets to the delivery of the mission at Country Office level.

· Lead the design and implementation of context-specific operating models to ensure Plan remains relevant and delivers increased performance and impact in a rapidly evolving region.

· Strengthen Governance in country offices to achieve the broad-based membership ambitions of the organisation in line with the Locally Led, Globally Connected strategic imperative. As the accountability of Country Offices grows, the Regional Director is responsible for driving the interdependence, synergy and support between Country Office’s so that the region as a whole performs and has overlapping and coherent programmes.

· Agility, transparency and legitimacy. Actively advancing intersectional feminism and anti-racism and ensuring all leaders and staff exercise our values and behaviours. Strengthening the line of delegation and information sharing from the CEO of Plan International Inc through to Country Offices to further promote decision making closest to the point of impact while achieving a strong culture of end-to-end accountability. Empowering Directors of Sub-region to effectively address non-performance through decisive action. Promoting the use of data driven evidence and digital solutions

· Identify and manage risk, ensuring that systems and processes are in place to identify, understand, and mitigate risks, as well as monitor and intervene as appropriate.

· Ensure effective acquisition and utilization of resources, overseeing effective fundraising, allocation, and utilisation of resources according to strategic plans, budgets, and financial standards, to ensure that resources are used to add the most value and to support cost effective operations. Monitoring, guiding, and intervening as needed in the use of financial resources.

· Ensure compliance with Plan International standards and that systems and processes are in place to comply with plans, policies and legal requirements. Monitoring compliance of the same and intervening as appropriate.

· Build relationships and communicating internally and externally to strengthen a culture of collaboration, partnership, and learning within the region. Building and maintaining relationships with relevant partner organizations to support strategies and

programmes, working with Directors of Sub-Regions and Country Directors to lead internal communications with staff within the region, as well as ensuring that information about the region is available to other parts of the organisation.

· Lead on Representation and Advocacy in the region and in global platforms, working closely with the Chief Strategy and Engagement Officer. The Regional Director is also responsible for protecting and promoting the reputation of the organisation in the region. This role jointly oversees the Africa Union Advocacy Office in Addis.

ACCOUNTABILITIES

While leading all dimensions of the role, the Regional Director’s first and foremost task is to build and manage a strong performing team of Country Directors and senior staff in the region.

Typical key end results to deliver together with the team in in the accountability areas are:

· People: A high performing and value-based team, engaged and motivated, able to deliver on the ambitions set, promoting gender equality and diversity, and demonstrating a progressive raising of the bar in their performance.

· Strategy: Ambitious and targeted Country Strategies, new or updated, in line with Plan’s global strategy and ambition, that guide Plan International’s programmes towards increased impact, strengthened legitimacy, sustainability and continued relevance within each country context.

· Change: The world and the West & Central Africa region are changing rapidly and the role of international NGOs, such as Plan, needs to evolve to ensure we remain relevant within each context and as a global organization. The regional director and his/her team will lead change within the region and contribute to the development of changes at the global level. A key pillar in this effort is the achieving broad based membership to support the locally-led, globally connected objectives.

· Quality: Ensuring our programmes become and remain state of the art and are in line with latest global standards, demonstrating outcomes and leading to thought leadership and policy influence based on evidence through evaluations and research.

· Risk: Ensure that all countries comply with internal and external standards in security, disaster preparedness, sponsorship and grants management, finance and administration, demonstrated in progressively positive audit performance in all auditable functions and compliance with external reporting requirements.

· Resource Mobilisation: Ensure a healthy funding base for Plan International’s programmes in the region through effective acquisition, allocation, and utilization of resources.

· Compliance: Ensure our operations are in compliance with Plan International’s global management and programme standards and with external regulatory and donor requirements.

· Networking: Represent Plan International and strengthen collaboration and partnerships at the right levels and ensure the organisation is present in relevant networks and forums.

· 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

TECHNICAL EXPERTISE, SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE

Essential

· Significant experience in progressive senior international management roles

· Demonstrable knowledge as a result of study, training or practical experience on the key debates in development, particularly around child rights and gender equality

· Practical knowledge of the requirements of donor compliance and financial management

· Practical knowledge of programming for development and emergency response

· Working experience in West/Central Africa, with experience in other regions desirable

· Business level fluency in English and French

Leadership Skills and Behaviours

Striving for high performance: Strongly drives performance forward in area of the business for which they are responsible; involves others in setting and achieving goals; creates a strong sense of purpose within own part of the business and with stakeholders.

Strategic thinking and innovation: Sets strong strategy in own part of organisation; makes an effective contribution to wider strategy; sees contribution of own part of the organisation in wider Plan and external context; balances future vision with practical delivery; critically evaluates work effectiveness and searches for better ways of working.

Decision making and risk management: Sound judgement and decision-making in complex situations; alerts others to risks inside and outside the organisation; willing to make judgements about managing risks and ready to take responsibility for such judgements