Turkana Program Manager
Date: 15 May 2025
Location: Kakuma, Turkana, Kenya
Company: Plan International
THE ORGANISATION
Founded in 1937, Plan International, Inc. ("PII") is a globally recognized non-profit dedicated to advancing children's rights and gender equality in both humanitarian and development contexts. With over 80 years of experience, Plan International addresses the root causes of challenges faced by girls and vulnerable children, working in 70+ countries. The organization collaborates with children, young people, supporters, and partners to create a just world, acknowledging that the potential of every child is often hindered by poverty, violence, exclusion, disasters, and discrimination.
PLAN INTERNATIONAL KENYA
Plan International Kenya (PIK), operational since 1982, focuses on long-term development. Collaborating closely with local communities and governments, PIK implements programs to enhance the well-being of children in areas such as Nairobi, Machakos, Kajiado, Tharaka-Nithi, Siaya, Kwale, Kilifi, Homa Bay, Kisumu, Tana River, Turkana, and Marsabit.
Under the current Country Strategy (July 2021 – June 2026), PIK aims to end teenage pregnancies and gender-based violence against girls. This goal aligns with four strategic objectives:
1. Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR): Improve access to SRHR services and information to reduce teenage pregnancies and harmful practices in Kenya.
2. Prevention and Response to Gender-Based Violence: Ensure functional child and girls' rights protection mechanisms to prevent and respond to all forms of violence and abuse.
3. Protecting Girls and Young Women in Crisis and Climate Change Adaptation: Minimize the impact of disasters on girls, young women, families, and communities.
4. Youth-led and Innovative Partnerships for Job Creation: Build a stronger ecosystem for youth employment and entrepreneurship, particularly for vulnerable young women, fostering job seekers and creators.
ABOUT PROJECTS IN TURKANA
Plan International Kenya is implementing 2 projects in Turkana County, Kenya. Turkana West Sub-County specifically, as it hosts the Kakuma refugee camp and Kalobeyei Settlement, as well as Lopur Ward.
Nurturing Futures (NF) is a project whose goal is to ensure that crisis-affected girls and boys in refugee- and host populations have access to food and nutrition and receive gender-sensitive nurturing care. The project combines parenting interventions with food security and nutrition interventions that can positively impact and save lives in Kakuma refugee camp in Turkana, Kenya.
The project is designed against 3 Outcome areas namely:
1) Improved access to food and nutrition for children and the most vulnerable; it entails the provision of cash, knowledge and means sharing for production and preparation of nutritious food, as well as strengthened referral mechanisms.
2) Improved nurturing care practices for children and enhanced parental psychological wellbeing: it entails the setting up of a parenting programme that aims to empower parents and caregivers to provide nurturing care that supports their children’s healthy and holistic development and wellbeing and supports solidarity networks between crisis-affected parents. and
3) Improved service provision for early learning: the project will work with teachers to improve their knowledge and skills for early learning specifically emotional learning as well as reconstruct ECD centres.
Climate Proofing Water Sanitation and Hygiene Services (CP WASH) is a consortium led project, members will combine their expertise to ensure that refugees and host communities in Turkana County enhance their resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related challenges through improved economic self-reliance and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services. Interrelated barriers for achieving economic self-reliance and access to sustainable WASH are addressed through a three-pronged approach whereby:
1. Local markets related to water, sanitation and hygiene are assessed and piloted if proven high potential to create access to job opportunities, including green jobs.
2. Socially, environmentally, and financially sustainable WASH services contribute to healthy lives and communities, and
3. Policies and legal frameworks are enabling and inclusive for sustainable water governance.
A gender transformative approach is employed to challenge and address gender-related barriers for sustainable and rewarding change. Locally led development is emphasised, enabling local communities, organisations, and county government to lead, while promoting green jobs and green transition. The target group includes young women and men and their families. Key stakeholders and actors are refugees and host communities, the County Government of Turkana, relevant agencies of the national government, UNHCR and other relevant UN agencies, local and international civil society, and a broad spectrum of private sector actors and financial institutions operational in Turkana County.
ABOUT THE ROLE
The Turkana Program Manager will report to the Director of Programs and will provide overall project leadership for the CP WASH and Nurturing Futures projects. The role will be responsible and ultimately accountable for project’s strategic direction, quality programming and results achievement, financial management and compliance, team leadership, stakeholder and partner relations, and donor deliverables throughout the project cycle.
ACCOUNTABILITIES AND MAIN WORK ACTIVITIES
Program leadership, Planning and Implementation (25%)
• Provide overall leadership on the projects’ strategic direction, implementation management, while ensuring application of technically sound project cycle management in alignment with donor requirements.
• Ensure donor compliance and timely reporting on project progress, challenges, and achievements.
• Ensure integration of gender equality and inclusion (GE&I), gender transformative and socially inclusive solutions in project structures and approaches.
• Work with relevant ministries, departments, private sector, civil society and partners to achieve project objectives.
• Develop a program capacity building plan of action for partners, CBOs and Community Resource Persons as per context with specific focus on the key objectives.
• Providing strategic leadership and supporting collaborative partnership engagements within the CP WASH and NF focus areas.
• Ensure effective and timely implementation of all levels of interventions and initiatives with communities and partners;
• Lead daily operations across project sites to ensure high-quality delivery of activities.
• Apply adaptive management approaches to respond to context changes and emerging issues
Partnership, Advocacy, and Stakeholder Engagement (15%)
• Maintain effective partnerships with consortium members, local NGOs, and government departments
• Facilitate joint planning, review, and reflection forums
• Represent Plan International in relevant coordination meetings and forums in Turkana
• Contribute to advocacy initiatives aligned with project objectives and Plan’s global priorities
• Effectively network with other partners implementing similar programs in project locations to stay up to date and inform project members of relevant developments and possible synergies.
• Develop working agreements / MOUs with partners as per need.
• Coordinate reflection and learning forums for community and partners for purposes of providing forums for experiential learning & reflection.
• Ensure good relations with Project Partners, County Government, National Government line Ministries, Private sector, Community Based organizations, and other relevant partners
Quality Assurance, Monitoring, Reporting & Documentation (10%)
• Oversee the coordination of program assessments, planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, documentation and dissemination of promising practices
• In collaboration with the MEAL team develop project monitoring and evaluation framework that ensures that the targets and project milestones are effectively tracked.
• Oversee the coordination of joint monitoring visits with key partners to track and document program progress in the targeted counties.
• In cooperation with Partners, lead/support development of data collection and monitoring tools as required.
• Oversee the development and submission of program reports and core documents as per donor standards and guidelines.
• Support development of technical papers and or policy briefs on key issues for external engagement with decision makers.
Donor Engagement, resource mobilization and networking (5%)
• Represent Plan International Kenya in donor engagement meetings as needed
• Identify funding opportunities and lead proposal development efforts to secure new funding for humanitarian and development programs in Turkana.
• Build relationships with donors, UN agencies, and other funding partners to enhance resource mobilization.
Financial Responsibility (10%)
• The incumbent will have oversight of all financial aspects of the CP WASH and Nurturing Futures projects and will therefore be responsible to provide delegated authority for all financial related processes
• Review expenditures on a monthly basis to ensure spending is on track and forecast are duly updated based on project needs and in compliance with donor requirements
• S/he will track projects activity budgets during implementation phases, manage and report on any variances to the line manager and the Country Office Finance and Grants manager.
Capacity Building and People Management (10%)
• Lead the day-to-day management of the Project taking into consideration safety and security of the Programme staff, leave and general welfare of all staff and liaise with the relevant offices for necessary support.
• Ensure that local laws and operational policies and protocols, including for security, are observed and respected.
• Provide strategic leadership that inspires the Project team towards the realization of Project purpose and goal.
• Promote team cohesiveness and integration at the Project team level and interface with the rest of the existing Program Unit team.
• Deal with conflict resolution in a timely way.
• Manage the performance, mentorship and coaching for all direct reports and dotted line reports
• Staff performance reviews are conducted in line with Plan International Kenya’s performance management system.
• Liaise with Human Resources for any staff development issues as per the training needs analysis for the PU
Logistics, Admin and Procurement Oversight (5%)
• Embrace overall responsibility of the assets of the organization at field level
• Support the development and usage of procurement plans in execution of project activities. • Oversight on asset, fleet, office and inventory management
• In close collaboration with the Administration and Logistics Officer, ensure smooth operations for effective and efficient implementation of the project.
• Support procurement functions including engagement of service providers.
• Development and submission of administration related reports.
Risk Management (10%)
• Provide leadership in risk mapping and documentation.
• With project team, consultatively identify and put mitigation measures for project risks.
• Continually monitor the risks environment and act as appropriate.
• Ensure all Project staff understand Project risks and related responsibilities.
Safeguarding (5%)
• Ensure that Plan International’s global policy for Safeguarding and PII policy for Preventing Sexual Harassment Exploitation and Abuse; 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.
Other duties (5%)
• Any other duties as assigned by the line manager.
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Location: Kakuma, Turkana County
Reports to: Turkana Program Manager
Closing Date: 29th May 2025
Preference will be given to candidates from Turkana County
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.
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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.
Disclaimer: Plan International is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate applicants on any basis. We also do not charge Job seekers any fees at any point of the recruitment process.