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 80 years, and are now active in more than 70 countries.

ROLE PROFILE

role PURPOSE

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 girls are the 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 80 years, and are now active in more than 70 countries. Plan International aims to reach as many children as possible, particularly those who are excluded or marginalized with high quality programs that deliver long lasting benefits by increasing its income, working in partnership with others and operating effectively. Plan is committed to responding to children affected by emergencies in the countries of our operation.

Since 1996, Plan has worked with over 1,239 communities in Cameroon. With field offices in NW, SW, Littoral, East, North, Far North, Plan has operational presence in 10 regions, with integrated multisectoral programmes. Given the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the North-West and South-West Regions of Cameroon, schools have closed in several localities and some of which never opened their doors. Teachers and students who attempted to go to school in many localities have faced security threats and this situation has forced many parents to send their children to other regions like the West and Littoral to study and for survival while those who can’t afford have stayed and remained out of school.

Plan International believes that it is critical to directly address gender-based discrimination and promote gender equality to advance our vision for a world where the rights of children and equality for girls is advanced. Plan International recognizes that gender inequalities are exacerbated in times of crises and create major barriers for sustainable development. We work to ensure all our programs, across the humanitarian-development spectrum identify and account for the different needs, abilities and opportunities of all children particularly girls in all their diversity. Through a gender transformative approach in programmes, Plan International tackles the root causes of gender inequality and aims to reshape unequal gender and power relations to achieve the full realisation of girls’ rights and equality between all children, young people and adults regardless of their gender.

Plan International is engaged in providing life-saving humanitarian assistance through protection, education and psychosocial support. Our operations are implemented in key sectors of Education, Child Protection, SGBV, Food Assistance and Nutrition, Livelihood, WASH and NFIs in coordination with all other humanitarian organisations. Plan International is looking to continue supporting vulnerable children amidst the COVID-19 pandemic – particularly girls – and assess how Plan can further expand the way these girls and boys are supported. The WFP-Third Party Monitoring (TPM) project, is geared at ensuring that there is a WFP affiliated presence at the field level across the entire North-West Region of Cameroon, undertaking rigorous monitoring in accordance with WFP’s corporate standards (SOPs). The main activities for the project include, GFA monitoring, process monitoring, ware house monitoring, Post Distribution Monitoring, Market Price monitoring and the monitoring of CVA activities implemented by WFP through Cooperating partners.

Dimensions of the Role

Gender in Emergency Officer, supported by a Gender Specialist at Country Level Organisation, will support and work closely with the ERM and the Project Manager in providing technical and strategic support for Plan International Cameroon work on gender equality and inclusion in disaster preparedness and response. The Gender in Emergency Officer ensures that Plan International Cameroon’s disaster risk management gender transformative programming and influencing is well reflected in the project, and becomes well-known for quality, innovation, scalability and results. The objective of such a role is to ensure that during the project implementation phase, enough resources will be allocated to foster a gender transformative approach and ensure dedicated gender technical support, monitoring, training, and knowledge management/ production is available to the project Team.

The incumbents will be responsible for effective interventions, strategic and operational guidance and technical advice. Ensure the implementation of all the gender deliverables in the (gender mainstreaming and gender targeted strategies); Lead on capacity building and knowledge building and management on gender equality and inclusion in project monitoring; Provide strategic advice to project team for the integration of gender; Serve as quality assuror in project implementation ensuring gender issues properly addressed. Support in creation of strategic partnerships and implementation of resource mobilization strategies. He/she will work directly with the Project Coordinator and the Gender Laed at Country Level. He/she will participate in technical coordination meetings, ensuring alignment of the project to gender transformative standards of Plan International

Accountabilities

Key End Results and Typical Responsibilities:

1. Ensure the implementation of a gender transformative approach in emergency with focus on the following results

1. The Officer will provide technical support to mainstream gender across project activities, including development of gender mainstreaming strategy.
2. The project officer will conduct field monitoring and capture protection concerns faced by WFP beneficiaries as a result of the assistance they receive.
3. The officer will also monitor how WFP-CPs (Cooperating Partners) handle protection concerns amongst beneficiaries.
4. The Officer will Identify, provide PFA and PSS, do referrals in cases of GBV and Child protection issues amongst beneficiaries of WFP to various service providers
5. The officer will monitor and assess the use of available CFMs in place.
6. The Officer will ensure gender is integrated into the M&E processes.
7. The Officer will ensure gender transformative strategies are implemented in all project activities.
8. The Officer will assess the level of acceptance of each staff member of the gender transformation process.
9. In collaboration with the Media and Communication Coordinators, M & E the Officer will formulate key gender messages and targets from lessons learned, assessments, research and evidence gained through project implementation.
10. The Officer will acquire information and understanding of key gender issues in the country particularly in the NW/SW, focusing on boys and girls (e.g GBV, Early Child Marriage, SRH etc) and adapt strategies as necessary.
11. The Officer will build the capacity of key project staffs and community volunteers including the Child Protection Committees, Adolescent Clubs, Community Focal Points and Foster Parents on gender.
12. The Officer will provide inputs into assessment, analysis and documentation that underpin evidence for gender-based activities and influencing in the project.
13. The Officer will maintain a strong relationship with other Gender related staff across Plan International Cameroon.
14. The Officer will develop and maintain a network of external contacts with key individuals in the government, NGO sector, civil society and the media particularly working on gender issues and participate in gender working group meetings.
15. The Officer will ensure report on child and young people safeguarding issues in the assigned project locations.
16. The Officer will take part in community-based mobilization and sensitization meetings and introduce the project to target communities.
17. The Officer will perform other tasks, as required, to ensure the smooth running of the project and in supporting the team.
18. Ensure the IASC GAM monitoring tool is used at the end of the first year of implementation, and lessons learnt are collectively identified to strengthen implementation of the project.
19. Support the development of an organizational culture that reflects our full spectrum programming, promotes accountability and high performance, encourages a team culture of learning, creativity and innovation, and frees up our people to deliver outstanding results for children

2. Capacity building and knowledge building and management on gender issues in emergency

1. Support the development, implementation and evaluation of capacity strengthening plans with partners to implement quality gender- sensitive and transformative approaches, GBV, PSEA including mentoring and facilitating high quality trainings via workshops, webinars, etc
2. Identify gender capacity gaps amongst the project team and ensure adequate support is provided (training of gender focal points, coaching,..) in collaboration with relevant stakeholders (Gencap, GBV Taskforce, and others)
3. Identify local and/or regional resources and network that can be accessed for knowledge building of the NW SW office on gender equality and empowerment of women and girls as relevant to knowledge networks and communities of practice on gender and inclusion
4. Organize the documentation and communication on lessons learned and best practices.
5. Responsible for development and implementation of capacity building, training, coaching, learning plan on gender equality, inclusion and gender transformation for all Project Team

Thematic Advisory and Technical Quality Assurance:

1. In coordination with Project Management team, review project deliverables and donor reports from a gender equality technical quality control perspective.
2. Work across thematic areas in the program to integrate Gender Quality Benchmarks and provide high quality technical guidance on appropriate approaches and methodologies; conceptual and practical frameworks; standards and tools for effective and quality delivery of gender equality following Plan International and WFP Standards
3. Work closely with the Area-level monitoring teams and project team to undertake joint monitoring visits to project sites, ensuring project are implemented in line with Plan International Quality Benchmarks and global standards and protocols, and support M&E and operations teams in the identification and implementation of action plans.

Advocacy & Representation

1. In collaboration with the Advocacy & Communication team, support the design and execution of advocacy strategy to influence policy changes, including producing high quality thought leadership materials.
2. Support communications and advocacy teams to promote relevant advocacy messages on gender (inc. harmful traditional practices) and GBV and ensure project’s communications are gender-transformative and promote gender equality.
3. Lead positioning Plan International activities on gender, such as representation at panels, participation in external practitioner events and networks, and internal Working Groups as well as in-country gender coordination mechanisms and actors (Gender, GBV, PSEA) as relevant.
4. Contribute to the overall Project team effort in resource mobilization, as relevant.

Evidence, Learning & Innovation:

1. Participate in periodic technical project and program review meetings and thematic community of practice workshops to internally review progress, challenges, best practices, lessons learnt etc. on gender equality
2. Work closely with the Research & Evaluations team to provide technical inputs and guidance on knowledge gaps/needs, study conceptualization on the gender analysis tool development, report review and translation of recommendations and findings into actions.

            Dealing with Problems:

1. Complexity of problems handled & the degree of investigation, analysis, & creative thinking required to solve them.
2. The job requires intense interventions on the field, in areas often at risk. This requires prudence, vigilance and respect for compliance with security instructions on the part of the staff.
3. Support staff on how to deal with resistance challenging social norms.
4. Analyse feedback from staff and stakeholders on the issue of gender transformation approaches to identify risks and mitigation measures.
5. Excellent and creative leadership skills will be utilized to correct implementation of education activities, in accordance with the standards and with possible resistance from colleagues as is often the case in emergency response work 
6. He/she should work under pressure and accept travels and stays in areas often austere.

           Communications and Working Relationships:

             Key Internal Contacts

Project Coordinator, Donors, Gender Lead at Country Office Level, other members of the Emergency Response team and Plan staff in general.  

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