Resilience and Humanitarian Programming Manager

THE ORGANISATION

Working in 54 developing countries across Africa, Asia and the Americas, with a total annual budget of approximately Euros1 billion, Plan International’s stated Global Strategic Goal is to reach 200 million girls, particularly those living in fragile contexts, fighting injustice or facing crisis, with high-quality programs that deliver long-lasting benefits.

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, Isiolo, Kwale, Kilifi, Homa Bay, Kisumu, Tana River, Turkana, and Marsabit.

Under the current Country Strategy, 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 THE ROLE

The Resilience and Humanitarian Programming Manager provides strategic, technical, and operational leadership for Plan International Kenya’s humanitarian preparedness, emergency response, and resilience programming. The role ensures that PIK is fully equipped to prevent, prepare for, and respond to emergencies while building long-term community resilience and driving climate adaptation and nexus programming across the portfolio.

The position strengthens PIK’s institutional capability to deliver high-quality, gender-transformative interventions in humanitarian settings; champions climate-resilient programming across sectors; leads nexus planning and integration; and ensures that PIK is well positioned within national, regional, and global coordination mechanisms.

The role represents PIK in national humanitarian and DRR coordination platforms, leads donor engagement and resource mobilisation for humanitarian and climate-resilience programming, and supports CO leadership in aligning country response strategies with Plan International’s Global Humanitarian Strategy, Climate Change Adaptation Framework, and the HDP nexus approach.

ACCOUNTABILITIES AND MAIN WORK ACTIVITIES

Strategic Leadership 20%

• Lead the development, review, and delivery of PIK’s Humanitarian Preparedness & Response Strategy, Resilience and Climate Adaptation Framework, and Nexus Programming Approach.
• Ensure all humanitarian and resilience programming aligns with:
  • Plan International Global Humanitarian Strategy
  • Climate Change Adaptation & Resilience Framework
  • Sphere, CHS, IASC guidelines and HDP Nexus
  • Kenya disaster management and NDMA standards
• Drive integration of humanitarian and development approaches across all programs.
• Lead PIK’s policy and advocacy agenda on emergencies, resilience, climate action, and protection of girls and young women.
• Coordinate with internal teams and external stakeholders to ensure a harmonized, multisectoral approach to resilience-building.
• Establish and maintain a trained Emergency Response Team with clear deployment protocols.
• Develop and review technically sound sector approaches and strategies that will enable the Plan Kenya to respond to humanitarian emergency and sustainable development needs of the operational areas of Plan International.
• Ensure timely, accurate internal and external reporting (sit-reps, donor reports, MEAL updates).
• Provide CMT with regular humanitarian analysis, early warning insights, and implementation updates.

Program Design & Management 20%

• Lead design and oversight of humanitarian and resilience programs in drought-, conflict-, refugee-, and climate-affected areas.
• Ensure all interventions are gender-transformative, climate- and conflict-sensitive, and inclusive.
• Oversee rapid assessments, joint analyses, and response planning processes.
• Strengthen DRR systems, early action mechanisms, climate-resilient livelihoods, and community-based adaptation.
• Ensure coordinated, high-quality implementation across sectors (WASH, SRHR, EiE, CPiE, Livelihoods).
• Advocate for policies that strengthen protection, DRR, resilience, climate justice, and gender equality.

Emergency Preparedness & Response 10%

• Lead emergency preparedness planning (EPP), including risk analysis, early warning triggers, contingency plans, and simulations.
• Ensure strong response coordination, surge deployment capacity, and procurement readiness.
• Provide technical leadership during emergencies such as droughts, floods, outbreaks, conflict, and refugee influxes.
• Continuously monitor the national assessment and analysis of disaster risks for contingency preparedness, planning and response.

Quality Assurance, MERL & Learning 10%

• Ensure all humanitarian and resilience programs meet international standards and donor requirements.
• Promote real-time learning, after-action reviews, and documentation of best practices.
• Strengthen accountability to affected populations, including feedback and complaint mechanisms.
• In conjunction with the MERL Manager, develop and implement robust monitoring and evaluation systems to track the progress and impact of integrated programs. Ensure that lessons learned are documented and shared internally and externally to inform programmatic decision-making and improve practice.
• Conduct regular assessments and reviews to identify gaps, challenges, and lessons learned, adapting strategies as needed.

Donor and strategic partners engagement and Resource Mobilization 10%

• Support fundraising efforts by providing technical input and guidance on the development of funding proposals and donor engagement strategies for integrated programs.
• In collaboration with the Business Development Team at the Country Office, identify funding opportunities with National Offices and lead/support strategy and concept development with the Technical Specialists.
• Develop engagement strategies with key donors in the humanitarian and resilience building landscape (ECHO, BHA, DANIDA, GIZ, FCDO, EU, UN Agencies).
• Pro-actively networks and build external relations and support or lead fund raising efforts and build up a portfolio of grants to finance to meet the funding target of the response plan in close coordination with the Business Development Unit. 
• Support the development and design of all external proposals, budgets and reports, ensuring that they are completed to the highest possible standard
• Foster strong partnerships and collaboration with government agencies, UN agencies, international NGOs, local NGOs, community-based organizations, and other relevant stakeholders to ensure a coordinated and coherent response to humanitarian and development challenges in Kenya.
• Cultivate and maintain relationships with key partners, including government agencies, I/NGOs, and community-based organizations to elevate PIK’s visibility and influence.
• Collaborate with partners to leverage resources and expertise for effective humanitarian and resilience programming.
• Represent PIK in national and county-level coordination forums (clusters, NDMA, refugee coordination, climate platforms).

Partnership Development & Capacity Strengthening (10%)

• Strengthen partner capacity in emergency response, DRR, climate adaptation, and nexus programming.
• Provide technical mentorship, due diligence oversight, and quality assurance to partners.
• Champion localisation and locally led preparedness and response models.

People Leadership (5%)

• Manage, mentor and develop humanitarian and resilience teams, ensuring clear performance expectations.
• Build a culture of gender equality, learning, accountability, and high performance.
• Ensure surge capacity readiness and support staff wellbeing during high-pressure periods.

Financial & Grant Management (5%)

• Provide oversight of budgets, financial planning, and grant compliance for humanitarian and resilience projects.
• Ensure accurate and timely expenditure tracking and reporting in collaboration with Finance.

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.

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE 

Essential

• Master’s degree in Humanitarian Studies, Climate Change Adaptation, Disaster Risk Management, International Development, Public Policy, or relevant field.
• 8–10 years’ progressive experience in humanitarian response, resilience, DRR, climate programming, or nexus initiatives, including 5+ years in a senior leadership role.
• Demonstrated experience managing emergency responses in complex contexts (drought, conflict, refugee settings, disease outbreaks).
• Strong technical understanding of:
• Climate adaptation and resilience frameworks
• DRR, early warning/early action systems
• Humanitarian principles, Sphere, CHS
• HDP Nexus and integrated programming
• Proven skills in donor engagement and resource mobilisation.
• Experience representing organisations in coordination structures at national level.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, communication, and negotiation skills.
• Experience managing teams and building partner capacity.

Click on the following link to access full Job Description:  JD-Resilience and Humanitarian Programming Manager.pdf 

Location: Nairobi, Kenya

Reports to: Director of Programs

Closing Date: 5th January 2026

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.

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.