Project Lead (Women Peace Security)

Key Activities

Project Management 

• Provide overall management and support for project implementation in Ethiopia, including leading programme planning, annual work planning, budgeting and forecasting.
• Ensure effective delivery of project outcomes, outputs, and key performance indicators.
• Guide adaptive programming in response to changing political, security, humanitarian, and operational contexts.
• Ensure alignment of country-level implementation with regional programme objectives and commitments.
• Provide leadership to project staff, and implementing partners to ensure quality programme delivery.
• Ensures timely and high-quality submission of programmatic reports through consolidation of country-level programmatic inppouts, in line with donor reporting requirements
• Oversee project and partner financial management, including budget utilization, forecasting, financial performance and accountability, while ensuring timely fund disbursement, liquidation, and efficient use of resources throughout project implementation.
• Support the integration of gender equality, disability inclusion, safeguarding, and conflict-sensitive approaches across all programme activities.
• Lead programme risk identification, assessment, monitoring, and mitigation efforts.
• Lead programme reviews, reflection meetings, learning events, and adaptive management processes.
• Ensure systematic documentation of evidence, best practices, success stories, case studies, and lessons learned.

Partnership Development and Management

• Lead the end-to-end grant-making process, including designing and launching calls for proposals, coordinating proposal assessment and due diligence, supporting grantee selection, negotiating budgets and grant terms, and ensuring compliance with donor and organizational requirements.
• Foster equitable and strong coordination and collaboration with women’s led organizations through open trust-based and transparent communication, participation and joint decision-making, and respect for their agency and technical expertise.
• Oversee partner due diligence, organizational and participatory capacity assessments, learning needs analyses, partner development plans, and regular performance reviews to strengthen partner capacity and performance.
• Facilitate joint planning, review meetings, and collaborative decision-making processes with partners.
• Support partners to strengthen organizational sustainability, governance, safeguarding, financial management, and resource mobilization capacities.
• Work with Finance to ensure grant management, disbursement and reporting processes are developed in collaboration with women-led organizations and responsive to their needs.
• Provide technical support to partners on advocacy, peacebuilding, gender-transformative programming, and survivor-centered approaches.
• Ensure quality delivery of training, mentoring, coaching, peer learning, and Training of Trainers (ToT) initiatives.
• Support the functioning of regional governance structures, steering committees, and technical working groups.

Stakeholder Engagement and Representation

• Establish and maintain strategic relationships with government ministries, regional authorities, women affairs institutions, peacebuilding platforms, and relevant national actors.
• Represent the programme in national and regional coordination forums, technical working groups, and policy dialogue platforms.
• Strengthen collaboration with IGAD, African Union platforms, UN agencies, development partners, and civil society networks where relevant.
• Contribute to national Women, Peace and Security policy discussions and implementation processes.
• Lead and support evidence-based advocacy initiatives related to Women, Peace and Security.
• Strengthen national and regional advocacy efforts through strategic partnerships and coalition-building.
• Facilitate sharing of lessons learned, good practices, innovations, and evidence across partners.
• Contribute to regional reporting, planning, and donor engagement processes.

Safeguarding Children and Program Participants (Safeguarding) and Gender Equality and Inclusion (GEI)

• Understands and puts into practice the responsibilities under Safeguarding and GEI policies and Plan International’s Code of Conduct (CoC), ensuring that concerns are reported and managed per the appropriate procedures.
• Ensures that all staff in the unit/function/department and SRH Alliance member partners are properly inducted on and understand their role in upholding Plan International’s safeguarding and GEI policies;
• Ensures that Plan International’s global policies for Safeguarding Children and Young People and Gender Equality and Inclusion are fully embedded in day-to-day work.
• Ensures that Plan Ethiopia contributes to Plan International’s global efforts to ensure safeguarding and GEI, including making sure that relevant reporting and data are submitted.

The Individual

Qualifications/ experience essential:

• Master’s degree or Bachelor’s degree in Peace and Conflict Studies, International Development, Political Science, Gender studies Project Management, or any relevant field
• Minimum of seven years  of progressive professional experience in program management.
• Demonstrated experience leading complex, multi-stakeholder, multi-regional programs/projects, including coordination of a pool of Women Led Organizations.
• Strong experience in partnership management and aptitude for cultivating strong relationships with multiple stakeholders including grass root women’s led organizations, government, and donors.
• Demonstrated experience in grant management, including partner selection, due diligence, capacity strengthening, budget management, grant monitoring, and partner performance management.
• Experience working on gender-based violence (GBV), protection, survivor-centered approaches, or gender-transformative programming.
• Experience leading cross-functional and remote teams to deliver results.
• Strong technical understanding of peace and security issues affecting women and girls, particularly in conflict and fragile contexts.
• Demonstrated experience in facilitating different sessions or delivering TOT for different stakeholders.
• Experience in managing institutional donor-funded grants, including compliance with diverse donor requirements (e.g. Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs).
• Excellent facilitation, negotiation, coordination and relationship-management skills.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills in a professional and multicultural working environment.

Languages required:

• Fluency in English language is essential
• In addition to Amharic, other local Knowledge of Local Languages is desirable