United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland: Humanitarian Policy Manager

The Organisation

Founded in 1937, Plan International is one of the oldest and largest children’s development organisations in the world. We work in over 60 countries worldwide to create lasting change for children and their communities. Everything we do is based on our firm commitment to children and ensuring they can claim their rights.

We see a clear link between fulfilling children’s rights and ending child poverty. Every child has the right to be healthy, educated, protected, valued and respected in their own community and beyond. In 2014, we worked with 86,676 communities. The areas in which we worked covered a population of 164.9 million people, including 81.5 million children (41.1 million girls and 40.4 million boys).

The Opportunity

Plan is committed to responding to children affected by emergencies in the countries of our operation and our total budget on Disaster Risk Management during the last financial year was over €40 million.

We are currently recruiting for a Humanitarian Policy Manager to join the Disaster Risk Management Team as Plan seeks to increase our profile and influence on governments, international institutions, and intergovernmental bodies. Policy work and practice can help change the course of an emergency response and our disaster risk reduction and resilience building work. Plan’s DRM strategy makes commitments to address the policy dimensions of an emergency response and our work related to Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR).

The Humanitarian Policy Manager will keep up to date with developments on disaster risk management issues and the sector, conduct policy analysis, develop recommendations and articulate Plan positions. You will identify key issues, policy trends, report on key developments and analyse ramifications of policy changes to scope priorities for DRM policy and advocacy work done by the organisation and develop advocacy strategies and actions.

This role requires a significant knowledge of disaster risk management issues and experience working in advocacy and policy positions dealing with complex humanitarian and/or emergency settings, knowledge of the key donors for emergency responses and the key international standards.

Excellent communication, influencing and negotiation skills will be imperative to represent, network and increase the influence and profile of Plan. This role requires strong organisational and prioritising skills with the ability to focus both on internal issues as well as external demands.