Head of Global Rapid Response and Readiness Unit

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.

The Opportunity

Plan International’s global strategy prioritises humanitarian scale-up. To respond to the growing unmet needs in emergencies and to strengthen the speed, quality, relevance, and appropriateness of our humanitarian work, we have recently created four new global humanitarian capability units, including the new Global Rapid Response and Readiness Unit.

As Head of the Rapid Response and Readiness Unit, you will be responsible for building sufficient levels of readiness and preparedness across the organizations; lead, coordinate, and support humanitarian emergency response operations and provide practice leadership on anticipatory action. You will directly line manages a team of deployable managers/officers/ specialists and matrix manage a team of deployable technical specialists.

In addition, you will lead the internal coordination with operational support functions hosted within other departments in large-scale disasters. The Head of the Global Rapid Response and Readiness Unit will play a leading role in drawing lessons from Plan International’s experience and good practices from the sector and others and use these to provide direct support to Country Offices and National Organisations in real time, closer to the point of impact to scale up humanitarian assistance, save lives and raise more resources.

The post holder will play a catalyst’s role to strengthen learning, provide practice leadership and advocate for agile procedures, policies, and guidance to ensure timely emergency response. Externally, the post-holder will represent Plan in high-level humanitarian global fora and ensure representation of appropriate staff in relevant forums on humanitarian response, preparedness, readiness, and anticipatory action.

Please follow this link for the full role profile: Head of Rapid Response and Readiness Unit – JD.docx

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. If you are based in the UK this will be according to our hybrid working policy which we are happy to share. Re-location to Nairobi, Kenya may also be considered.

Type of Role: Permanent or maximum fixed term contract

Reports to:  Global Humanitarian Director

Closing Date: Monday 18th September, 2023

Anticipated 1st round interview: 25th  September and 2nd October.

*Applicable locations include: Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, Benin, Bolivia, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Central African Republic, China, Colombia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Finland, Ghana, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Honduras, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Ireland, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Korea, Laos, Lebanon, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Spain, Sudan, Sweden, Switzerland, Tanzania, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Togo, Uganda, United Kingdom, United States, Vietnam, Zambia, Zimbabwe

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.