Deputy Country Director Programme Ukraine

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 know this is often suppressed by poverty, violence, exclusion and discrimination. And it is girls who are most affected.

Working together with children, young people, supporters and partners, we strive for a just world, tackling the root causes of the challenges girls and vulnerable children face. 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.

For over 85 years, we have rallied other determined optimists to transform the lives of all children in more than 80 countries.

We won’t stop until we are all equal.

Plan international in East and Central Europe

Plan International responded to the Ukraine Crisis since March 2022, starting in countries hosting Ukrainian refugees (Moldova, Romania, Poland) and thereafter expanding humanitarian operations inside Ukraine since August 2022. Since July-August 2022, Plan International has been duly registered in Poland and Romania as national Foundations and in Moldova as a branch office of Plan International Inc. Since October 2022, Plan International has also been duly registered in Ukraine as a representative office of Plan International Inc.

The Ukraine Crisis Response portfolio across the 4 countries has seen a rapid expansion and has the ambition to grow to EUR 100M between 2022 and 2025. Growth is expected to come through acquisition of grants from both bilateral and multilateral donors, EU funding streams (DG ECHO, DG NEAR, DG HOME) as well as through ongoing public appeals, exploring corporate sector funding opportunities and local fundraising.

Plan International is profiling itself as one of the ‘go to’ organizations in promoting and protecting the rights of children, girls and young people in conflict and crisis; in particular through adding value in child protection, education, gender and inclusion, social cohesion, GBV, MHPSS and CVA. As the crisis permits, Plan International will expand its humanitarian interventions into longer term development goals driving youth-led action and equality for girls in Moldova, Poland, Romania and Ukraine.

Plan International works exclusively through strategic local civil society partners to support vulnerable children, young people, and their families to cope with the impact of the current humanitarian crisis and to increase their resilience.  

Plan International currently employs approximately 80 staff across the response. It is expected that the ratio of international to national staff will rapidly decrease. A Ukraine Crisis Response Leadership Team comprising of the Response Director, the Heads of Mission for Poland, Romania and Moldova, the Ukraine Deputy Country Director Programme, the Head of Programme Operations, the Head of P&C, the Head of Finance and Operations, the Head of Policy and Advocacy and the Head of Communications, is driving our strategic ambition and promotes inclusive decision making and mutual accountability. The response is supported by the Ukraine Crisis Response strategic and operational shared service hub which strongly connects Plan International’s response and presence in Moldova, Romania, Poland and Ukraine: a multi-country Ukraine Crisis Response Strategy (January 2023-June 2025) guides the strategic ambition of Plan International throughout the multi-country response.

Plan International is committed to meeting safeguarding expectations across all its operations and will expect the Leadership Team to ensure all incidents regarding child abuse and sexual harassment are reported and effectively managed.

Role purpose

Under the leadership of the Response Director, the DCD-Programme provides leadership and strategic oversight over Plan International’s humanitarian and nexus programme & influencing work in Ukraine.  S/he will deliver on:

1. Plan International Ukraine programme and influencing initiatives meeting highest levels of technical outcomes, producing results for children, and particularly girls, and contributing to the achievement of Plan International’s strategic plans in Ukraine, East and Central Europe and globally.

2. The annual program & influencing process, monitoring progress towards the achievements of strategic goals and global strategic goals.

3. Assuring exemplary grants programme and project portfolio delivery, with a focus on quality, impact and timely delivery of Plan International’s commitments to donors in Ukraine.

4. Working proactively to engage all important stakeholders around one integrated ambition for the realization of children’s rights and equality for girls in Ukraine.

As a member of the East and Central Europe Ukraine Crisis Response Leadership Team, the role has shared accountability to contribute to the overall learning and strategic direction of Plan International in the East and Central Europe region with a total budget to grow to approximately €100 million and a staff complement of about 100 people. This includes helping shape the overall narrative and rationale of grant proposals to ensure programs development aligns with humanitarian needs and with Plan International’s strategic focus.

Dimensions of the role 

The Deputy Country Director Programme will lead the work of Plan International Ukraine’s Programme team, comprising of a Programme Quality, Programme Implementation, MERL and Partnerships Section. Duties and responsibilities will include, but are not limited to:

• Oversee the management of all programme activities in country, ensuring activities are in line with, and contributes to, Plan International Strategy in East and Central Europe
• Provide oversight on the selection of local partner organisations alongside the Partnership Specialist, ensuring alignment with Plan International’s partnership approach and programming priorities for Ukraine
• Guide programme technical specialists alongside the Programme Quality Manager to ensure programmes are of high quality and have direct positive impact on children and adolescents, especially girls
• Oversee programme and project delivery alongside the Programme Implementation Manager to ensure program implementation, budget management and partnership management are in line with our commitments to donors
• Supporting the ECE Response Director in representation, both internally and externally, including brokering and enhancing productive working relationships with key national office (NO) partners, donors, and influencers.
• Creating a high performing team through effective working relationships.

You will be a values-based and feminist leader, deeply comfortable with purpose driven humanitarian and nexus programming and influencing, and with a demonstrable commitment to gender equality, equity, diversity, and inclusion. You will understand and drive efforts to deliver positive change for diverse girls and young people in crisis. You will lead by example in ensuring gender equality is evident in everything we do throughout all aspects of our advocacy efforts

Key Accountabilities and main Responsibilities

Programme Portfolio Management | Quality and Implementation

Providing support to quality implementation of programs/projects. Playing a lead role in periodic reviews within the context of Ukraine integrating the global programme quality and influencing policy framework.

Ensuring a robust M&E system and updated output tracker with appropriate benchmarks, targets and that performance indicators are established and monitored.   

Identifying opportunities for national scale up and resource mobilisation through documentation and promotion of best practices, and collaboration with stakeholders and community groups.

Supporting the drafting of high-quality concept notes and proposals.

Leading the department’s planning processes working in tandem with technical specialists, project managers and finance team to ensure proper budgeting and scaling up or down as required, depending on funding availability and pipeline.

Support the Response Director to identify new ways of working towards a transformative localisation approach which allows civil society organizations to achieve goals in line with Plan International’s Global and ECE Ukraine Humanitarian Response Strategies.

Representation and networking

Support the ECE Response Director to identify opportunities to increase Plan International Ukraine’s influence in Ukraine through developing meaningful working and collaborative relationships with government and civil society.

Contribute to building strong relationships with key international and national organizations, donors, government, and multilateral partners.

Develop links with counterparts in Poland, Romania, and Moldova and, in collaboration with the ECE Response Director, maintain close working relationships with the support functions at the ECE Ukraine Humanitarian Crisis Response Hub.

People

Ensuring productive working relationship within the programme team and between different colleagues and teams within the Ukraine office.

Providing leadership, coaching for results and support to the programme team.

Overseeing effective and meaningful partnership building, communication and collaboration between Plan International Ukraine staff and its partners.

Participate as a core member of the Plan International Ukraine Country Management Team

Ensuring that the programme team comprehends and adheres to Plan International’s key policies, values and behaviours.

Safeguarding Children and Young People and Gender Equality and Inclusion are fully embedded

Ensure 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

This role reports to the ECE Response Director (who de facto is also Country Director Ukraine) and collaborates closely with the other members of the ECE Leadership Team

Plan International Ukraine Country Management Team, including the ECE Response Director, Business Development Manager, Finance Manager, Human Resources Manager and Supply Chain Manager

Plan International ECE shared services, including Head of Communications, Head of Programme Quality and Operations, Head of Finance, Head of Policy & Advocacy

In tandem with the Business Development Manager, liaises with international programme department colleagues from National Offices across the Plan International Federation.

Communications and Working Relationships

Internal

Director of ECE Ukraine Crisis Response – Line manager

Ukraine Programme Team

Ukraine Country Management Team

Ukraine Crisis Response Leadership Team

Ukraine Crisis Response Hub (Strategic & Operational Shared Service centre)

National Organisations (NO)

External

Delegate to response director at Ukraine NGO Platform Country Directors Group and other Working Groups as relevant

Civil society actors and platforms

National and local authorities

Institutional and private sector donors (directly and through National Organisations) and National Institutions

UN and donor representatives and partners including humanitarian country teams, clusters, national and international NGOs, civil society and community-based organizations.

Knowledge, Skills, and Competencies

Master’s Degree in humanitarian field and/or international development studies, social sciences, business administration or related field, or equivalent experience

Cultural understanding and proven significant experience of exercising leadership functions with increasing responsibility in an international environment related to humanitarian principled action and development or with diverse populations, cultures, and social or economic contexts.

A track record of humanitarian management of effective and motivated programme delivery teams, including distance management and delivering business planning, financial management, improvement programmes in line with organisational objectives

Knowledge of programming in challenging environments including complex humanitarian conflict settings with good understanding and appreciation of the geopolitical factors affecting girls and child-poverty in Ukraine, historical, security context, political, social, environment opportunities, economic, social/religious and humanitarian context in Ukraine or a comparable environment.

Knowledge and experience in delivering disaster preparedness, humanitarian response, disaster risk reduction programmes and nexus programming.

Effective working with and through civil society partners and proven networking and negotiation skills with governmental and non-governmental actors

Proven understanding of “child rights” and “gender in development” concepts and the promotion of girls’ rights in the context of relevant International Conventions (Convention of the Rights of the Child, Convention for the Eradication of Discrimination against Women) and the Global Goals (SDGs).

Experience and understanding of the concepts of nexus programming, climate change adaptation, social cohesion building and participatory approaches and practices in humanitarian interventions.

Knowledge of the requirements of donor compliance and financial management

Excellent English written and verbal communication skills.

Having a good understanding of Ukrainian language and the socio-economic status in the Ukraine and the East and Central European region would be considered an advantage. 

Strategic Leadership Competencies

Drive progress in the area of responsibility by setting and communicating ambitious but realistic plans in line with strategy, aligned with Plan International's short and longer-term priorities and appropriately resourced.

Use own behaviour to role model the culture change we need, upholding our values and accelerating progress towards gender equality inside Plan International, with our partners and in wider society.

Ensure effective delivery by leading through others, working closely with support functions, keeping abreast of what is going on in the own business unit or function and responding quickly if problems arise.

Grow the professional and leadership capabilities we will need in future by developing the skills and potential of our programme team workforce and coach programme team members to act in turn as developers of other people.

Communicate clearly and persuasively with diverse groups of people, giving them the understanding and motivation to succeed and involving all programme staff in reflection, innovation and improvement.

Business and management competencies:

Organisational understanding - Purpose, priorities, values and approaches

Business processes, policies, practices and standards

Managing resources and finance

Formal people management

Managing risk

Managing technology and digital working

Advanced Programme and Project management 

Terms and conditions

The salary is commensurate with the seniority of the appointment. Plan International will be happy to disclose the salary range and applicable benefits to applicants as part of this process.

Physical Environment and Demands

Based in the response office located in Kyiv, Ukraine with extensive local and some international travel. Willingness and ability to travel frequently to insecure conflict affected response areas.

Level of Contact with Children

Mid contact: Occasional interaction with children

Plan International's Values in Practice

Our values are at the heart of everything we do. Only by defining a common set of values that are important to us – and that we also want to see in our partners – can we deliver on our shared aspirations. If we are to work towards fulfilling our new purpose, it is critical that we understand the behaviours we have to demonstrate to get us there.  

We strive for lasting impact

We strive to achieve significant and lasting impact on the lives of children and young people, and to secure equality for girls. We challenge ourselves to be bold, courageous, responsive, focused and innovative.

We are open and accountable

We create an environment of trust inside and outside the organisation by being open, honest and transparent. We hold ourselves and others to account for the decisions we make and for our impact on others, while doing what we say we will do.

We work well together

We succeed by working effectively with others, inside and outside the organisation, including our sponsors and donors. We actively support our colleagues, helping them to achieve their goals. We come together to create and implement solutions in our teams across Plan International, with children, girls, young people, communities and our partners.

We are inclusive and empowering

We respect all people, appreciate differences and challenge inequality in our programmes and workplace. We support children, girls and young people to increase their confidence and change their own lives. We empower our staff to give their best and realise their potential. 

Plan International’s feminist principles

Self-awareness and courage: Making conscious effort to recognise our vulnerabilities and value our strengths while challenging ourselves and others to improve through self-reflection and empathetic mutual feedback.

Self and collective-care: Taking care of our individual health and work/life balance, and encouraging team members and cooperating partners to prioritise caring for self and each other. This extends also to institutional care i.e. managers balancing the workload of their staff, empowering staff to prioritise self -care and promoting infrastructural improvements to create a harmonious working environment. 

Collective accountability: Promote collaborative goal setting and create institutional spaces for team members and young people to participate and lead in decision-making processes on equal terms, both inside and outside the organisation.

Diversity: Recognise, celebrate ,and promote diversity across the organisation by expanding our worldview beyond binaries and nurturing leadership of younger people, particularly from the global south.

Zero tolerance to discrimination and sexual harassment: Calling out all forms of discrimination, abuse of power and sexual harassment and implementing appropriate disciplinary measures.

Tackling bias:  Recognising conscious and unconscious bias and checking our own individual and institutional privilege based on gender, class, race, ability and other factors.

Share power: Using power responsibly to transform systems and provide equal opportunities. Leveraging individual and collective power to create space for young people. Crediting the work of others and engaging in ethical, non-extractive ways with team members and communities.

Purpose-driven: Advancing gender justice and transforming harmful gender-norms. Reflecting this purpose in both our personal and professional lives. Bringing passion and energy to our work.

Joyful in co-creating: Make things fun, the workplace should be a space of collaboration and mutual respect something you enjoy. People want to work for us.

Honouring the movement: recognising, honouring and standing in solidarity with feminist organisations as strong allies who partner in actions crucial to creating lasting, impactful change towards gender justice.

Location: Kyiv, Ukraine

Type of Role: Full-time, Fixed-term Contract

Reports to: Director East and Central Europe Ukraine Humanitarian Crisis Response  

Closing Date: 10th December 2024

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.