About 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.

Job Summary: The Programme and Sponsorship Team Lead (PSTL) plays a critical role in supporting gender transformative programme planning, implementation, and monitoring within the Regional Area. He/she leads in providing oversight of the sponsorship programme, implementation of sponsorship funded Projects as well as grant funded projects. The role is responsible for managing a budget portfolio range of approx 3M Eur per year. The PSTL directly supervises the Sponsorship Coordinator, Programme Officers, grant funded Project Managers/Coordinators/Officers and leads community mobilisation processes particularly sponsored children and their families to participate and benefit from Plan interventions.

In supporting the Sponsorship Coordinator, the PSTL has a key oversight role of ensuring Plan International commitments to sponsored children are delivered through implementation of quality and impactful programmes. In liaison with Technical Advisors, and Project Managers, S/he ensures that various projects (grant funded and sponsorship ) place sponsored children at the centre of our programme and influence work and involve them as representatives in our project cycle.

Further this role is expected to co-lead resource mobilisation efforts with supportof the country office programmes and business development teams. The role is also responsible for building better partnership approaches while ensuring that Plan is a go to partner organisation.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:

KRA 1: Programme Management

• Participate in the design, planning, implementation and monitoring of projects in the Regional Area (RA), with a particular focus on ensuring that SPAD and grant projects are leveraged to create impact in sponsorship communities
• Lead the transition from project design to project implementation, ensuring that detailed implementation plans, resourcing strategies, and monitoring frameworks are in place to ensure project targets are achieved on time and to standard
• Participate in situational analysis, such as social mapping, wealth ranking and gender analysis to identify and include the most marginalised and vulnerable segments of communities in Plan programmes
• Review the results of situational analysis and baseline studies and ensure full understanding of the project scope, targets and intended impact
• Ensure the Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning framework is in place, along with relevant and user- friendly data collection tools.
• Ensure projects are uploaded into PMERL and report results as required
• Promote and facilitate community leadership and active participation of stakeholders in project design implementation and monitoring, in particular the participation of women, children, Youth Advisory Panels and other marginalised groups

KRA 2: Sponsorship Programme Management

• Work with the Sponsorship Coordinator to ensure Programme Officers meet sponsorship communication requirements on time and required quality standard.
• Lead Programme Officers in the identification of priorities in sponsorship communities and ensure this understanding is used to inform annual planning and budgeting for SPAD and grant projects
• Support the functionality and capacity building of Community Volunteer Associations (COVAs) and Family Support Groups
• Onboard and build capacities of Programme Officers to effectively mobilise communities and sponsored families in realisation of Plan International commitments
• Ensure that sponsored children and their families have a voice in decisions that affect their lives, are fully informed of the full range of PIU’s activities in the community, and are encouraged to participate
• Ensure that every community where Sponsored Children live benefits from a Plan programme every year, and work closely with graduating SCs to foster alumni engagement
• Support SC monitoring mechanism by tracking and understanding whether Sponsored Children are in school and healthy including implementation of beneficially tracking mechanisms to determine the number of SC/families directly benefiting from plan programmes.
• Ensure that the Regional Area team is fully aware of the 9 Plan International commitments; provide leadership to ensure KPIs are achieved as prescribed (@ 95% or higher)
• Support sponsorship community phase-in and phase-out processes to ensure situation analyses are conducted to inform programming including engaging stakeholders and communities to understand and support Plan’s sponsorship model
• Ensure adherence to quality standards by performing quality checks on a sample of 5 percent of all types of sponsorship communications
• Support implementation of case management processes as per established standards to benefit SCs while leveraging existing referral mechanisms

KRA 3: Communicating for Influence

• Actively participate in the development and implementation of innovative influencing & communication plans for the Regional Area and ensure effective influencing of key stakeholders
• Work collaboratively with the Regional Manager (RM) and other colleagues in the programme area to develop and implement a cost-effective and impactful community engagement strategy, ensure an accurate representation of sponsorship benefits is communicated, and carefully manage expectations
• Contribute to the implementation of the Influencing Strategy in the RA, by:
• Support Youth Advisory Panels in planning and execution of youth activism initiatives
• Building relationships with key actors (e.g. community and district leadership), and implement influencing interventions that drive change
• Coordinating with local government to ensure Plan International Uganda’s targets and annual budgets are considered by the sub-county / district development plans
• Participating in project-specific advocacy, lobbying and influencing initiatives
• Representing Plan International in external engagement, while adhering to Plan’s values and Code of Conduct (CoC) to give a faithful representation of the organisation
• Support generation of sponsorship Programme Area Overview and Sponsorship Programme Area Report
• Coordinate quarterly community awareness meetings about Plan programs and approaches across all
• Communities; in particular ensuring that sponsored families and communities are updated on Plan’s
• interventions and the graduation process
• Work with implementation teams to ensure internal PlU’s Principles of Communication are embraced

KRA 4: Risk & Resource Management

• Support the the management of programme finances, giving due care and attention before authorising payments and ensuring funds are managed in line with PIU’s policies and procedures:
• Review and approve payments and fund transfers in line with authorisation limits; carefully ensuring that expenditure is in line with budget and all supporting documentation is present and correct
• Undertake periodic monitoring and review effectiveness of sponsorship programme controls
• Review and authorise vehicle approvals and fuel authorisations for Programme Officers; query any unexpected expenditure and ensure efficient use of resources
• Review and authorise Project Outlines, modifications and Project Completion Reports as requested and appropriate within financial limits, in accordance with PIU procedures
• Manage all SPAD and grant project funds according to established accounting policies and procedures, ensuring value for money and strong accountability; monitor all budgeted project expenditures and cash flow projections and report actual cash flow and variance to senior management on a regular basis

KRA 5: Value Based Leadership & Staff Management

• Lead a team of Programme Officers, Project Coordinators/Officers, and the sponsorship team in a manner that empowers them to contribute effectively towards achievement of PlU’s strategy
• Ensure that community outreach for sponsorship communications is resourced with the expertise necessary for success through a combination of recruitment and management of staff, mobilization of community volunteers, and procurement of consultants
• Lead and manage teams towards high standards of performance through clear roles & responsibilities and provision of appropriate support; coordinate effectively with others to ensure high performance within PlU’s matrix operating structure
• Develop and encourage talent through on-going staff development, succession planning, career management; proactively address poor performance through timely constructive feedback, coaching and appropriate corrective action
• Foster an inclusive environment by implementation of policies and ways-of-working that provide for diversity and equal opportunities and utilisation of a leadership style that will drive employee engagement
• Ensure that staff are managed in accordance with good HR management practice and provided with a safe and conducive working environment; includes ensuring that all legal and statutory obligations are fulfilled

KRA 6: Safeguarding, Gender Equality & Inclusion

• Ensure that Plan International’s global policies for Safeguarding Children, Young People, and programme participants, as well as Gender Equality and Inclusion are fully embedded programme and sponsorship work in accordance with the principles and requirements of the policy.
• This is in addition to implementation of relevant 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.

Qualifications, Skills and Experience:

• A Bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences, Development Studies or other Humanities. A masters degree with a focus on project management or related fields is an added advantage
• Minimum 8 years experience in development work and a minimum of 8 years in managerial and leadership role.