Plan International Sri Lanka Plan International is a development and humanitarian organization that advances children’s rights and equality for girls. We strive for a just world, working together with children, young people, our supporters and partners. Plan International is working in Sri Lanka since 1981, facilitating programmes in early childhood care and development, education, youth empowerment and child protection, working nationally and in the North, North Central and Uva provinces. Plan International Sri Lanka is seeking qualified candidates to fill the positions mentioned below on One Year Fixed Term Contract.

Head of Influencing and Communication
For detailed Job Description, please visit: https://issuu.com/plansrilanka Qualified individuals are invited to submit their resume with a covering letter to: Human Resources Department, Plan International Sri Lanka, No. 110, Park Road, Colombo 05. Or e-mail to: psl.hr@plan-international.org Closing date: 26th July 2019. Only shortlisted candidates will be notified. Plan International Sri Lanka is an Equal Opportunity Employer. As an international childcentered development organization, Plan International Sri Lanka is committed to the well-being of children and supporting the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Plan International Sri Lanka does not tolerate child abuse.
ROLE PROFILE Title
Head of Influencing and Communication
Functional Area Reports to Location Effective Date
Influencing & Communications Country Director Colombo Travel required 10th July 2019
50%
ROLE PURPOSE To ensure the design and implementation of Plan Sri Lanka influencing and communication strategy to complement Plan’s country strategic plan and continue to provide strategic guidance in influencing and communication across the organization in accordance with Plan’s corporate policies and procedures by using media, online channels, digital communication, and brand awareness to promote plan international’s advocacy priorities, help raise children’s especially girl’s voice, document our programs, progress and milestones, inform key stakeholders and the public about our work, and respond emergencies. At Plan, ‘influencing’ is an umbrella term used to describe the systematically planned, coordinated, and integrated range of activities - including research, policy, advocacy, public mobilisation, strategic communications and partnerships - that seek to change the behaviour of one or more decision-makers to achieve development outcomes for children, especially girls. Plan believes that influencing at national and local levels is particularly important, given that this is where the most important changes happen, which have the greatest impact on the lives of girls and boys.
DIMENSIONS OF THE ROLE Under the guidance and direct supervision of the Country Director and being part of the Country Management Team (CMT), the Head of Influencing and Communication will lead design, management and implementation of the overall Plan International Sri Lanka’s influencing and communication strategy which is geared to influence the development agenda, promote public and media outreach and incorporates the national-level extension of Plan’s global flagship campaign (currently ‘Girls Get Equal’) The role requires courageous and inspirational leadership skills, a drive that delivers results and the ability to analyze policies, develop key messages and to build strong and constructive relationships with both internal and external stakeholders. A communications strategy tightly linked to program priorities help position Plan International Sri Lanka in key development markets as a leader in ways that boost demand for various service lines and increase overall business opportunities.
ACCOUNTABILITIES Leadership
Provides strategic and technical leadership, direction and motivation to the Influencing and communication team in the Country Office as well as to focal person in the field, and collaborate and support country management team, through an observable and passionate commitment to reach the goal to girls’ rights and equality for all children.
Builds a high performance culture across the influencing and communication team with a focus on problem solving together and driving change that will advance children’s rights and equality for girls.
Builds strong team links and a spirit of collaboration, encouraging staff to contribute to networks, influencing, campaigns, advocating and communicating within the Plan International Sri Lanka, region and at global level.
Takes a leading role at the national level on good gender transformative practice around power and policy analysis, effective messaging and statements, evidence based advocacy, public campaigning and risk assessment
Involving Field Offices (Programme Units (PU’s)), and other influencing and policy teams within the organization to ensure that courageous and innovative influencing solutions are found for promoting children right and girl’s equality in the country, while also supporting PU’s in developing grant technical projects.
Co-ordinates learning activities and seeks opportunities to develop and share learning beyond his/her own team, including with National Organizations.
Acts as a role model, ensuring Plan International’s values and behaviors are put into practice and ‘lived’ by the team.
Supports the Country Director in building a strategic network among the national humanitarian hubs, regional bodies and agencies, local media and public relation initiatives, child rights alliances, etc.
Delivering Strategic Ambitions
In line with Plan International’s ambition to reach 100 million girls by the end of 2020 and Global priorities, develop an ambitious country strategy for the transformation of programming in the country towards influencing, and support to transform country strategies and programmes and ways of working to have wider impacts through campaigns and influencing work.
Develop, deliver and monitor the national influencing strategy in targeting policy-makers, decision-makers and stakeholders to understand, recognize and support the work and ambition of Plan International to promote girls’ rights and equality for all children.
Ensure the creation of clear and accessible tools and resources for teams to maximize their program impact, building evidences for influencing and provide necessary guidance to country team in the same areas.
Ensure to create awareness and gain the commitment of decision-makers at national level for eradicating injustice through the changes in policies and practices that affect the lives of children and particularly girls and support the PU offices to do the same at PU Level.
Take the lead in developing a well-focused quality gender transformative influencing policy, communication and campaign strategies that bring large-scale transformative change for children, particularly girls in Sri Lanka.
Raises Plan International’s profile through effective influencing and advocacy work, communications, being an ambassador at national level and representing Plan International at appropriate national events and national bodies.
Build strategic networks and relationships with internal and external stakeholders and allies including donors, government representatives and other civil society organizations to increase influencing impact.
Advocacy, Communications, External relations, Profiling and Campaigns
Builds and maintains constructive relationships with the Influencing and Programme team in Regional Office, Global Hub counterparts, National Organization representatives and Country Office Teams.
Support in the development of key messages, statements, opinion pieces, brochures/publications as well as templates to be used at a country level. Also make sure the messages reflects gender equality.
Ensure a regular flow of products related to communications priorities: web stories, photos, videos, articles and assist with other publications such as case studies and advocacy reports.
In collaboration with relevant departments and technical people make sure researches support the development of influencing positions, that research initiatives had key audiences and influencing objectives included in their design from the beginning and are integrated into complementary external engagement and influencing work streams. Ensure research is planned, published and conducted in line with Plan International’s internal policies on research and publication.
Raise profile of the organization and strengthen/reinforce position on key issues through publicizing reports and other relevant publications and initiative.
Contextualize and adapt global flagship campaigns (currently this is the Girls Get Equal campaign) and movement-building priorities to the country context and provide leadership at the national level.
Based on the country ambitions to engage with campaign initiatives, facilitate the development and implementation of advocacy and campaigns at national level.
In line with Country Office priorities and internal capacity development aims, determine relevant regional and global-level influencing-related working groups and coordination initiatives for Plan Sri Lanka to contribute towards. Represent, or ensure adequate representation of, Plan Sri Lanka in those groups.
Support country leadership to be externally focused and tuned to developments within their context and support them to have the right skills to conduct influencing and communication activities.
Identify critical influencing, campaigning, advocacy and policy capacity gaps in country level and develop actions that can support the development of such capacities.
Explore opportunities for influencing and campaigns actions that add value to the achievement of the country offices national level goals.
Support the Plan International Country Director in external representation, national level representation and external engagement as required.
Leads regular reporting on the outcome of the influencing and policy team’s work at the CMT and contribute to the CMT planning and decision making.
In conjunction with other colleagues, is responsible for ensuring that annual and quarterly reporting requirements relevant to influencing work stream are met and that risks relevant to influencing work streams are identified and mitigated appropriately.
Emergency Response
Ensure a high and effective communications capacity to respond to disaster emergencies in coordination with the regional and country Senior Management, and Disaster Response Management team. Make sure media releases and other relevant materials are provided on time Have disaster communications plans including contacts of international media and be the spokesperson at the country. Liaise with the PU office team to gather relevant and accurate information related to the disaster. Ensure relevant communication materials (including figures, individual stories, Photos and stories,) relating to the emergency/crisis situation. Ensure adequate financial allocations for communication in Emergency Appeal Budget
People Management
Builds and maintains a high performing Influencing and Communication team that delivers against Plan International’s strategic goals and measures, whilst demonstrating behaviors consistent with Plan International’s values and behaviors.
Sets individual team member’s annual objectives and provides timely performance feedback, identifying individual development needs and providing coaching/development, as required.
Ensures staff receive relevant development as required, especially in key areas such as gender transformative programming, influencing, advocacy, communications, and campaigns and other related areas.
Corporate Governance In collaboration with the Country Director, ensures that Plan International Sri Lanka demonstrate that Plan International’s Influencing standards of quality are being achieved and operate consistently within Plan International’s key policies and procedures.
Other Responsibilities: Complies with corporate policies and standards: Child Protection Policy, IT Policy, Anti –Fraud and Corruption Policy, Confidentiality Policy, Code of Conduct, Whistle Blowing, HR Policies and Procedures. Success Metrics: No violations of the corporate standards and policies.
Dealing with Problems: Complexity of problems handled & the degree of investigation, analysis & creative thinking required to solve them.
Responding to multiple demands from various customers and meeting various deadlines Being updated on influencing and communications strategies in the changing development organizations and Plan International. Working effectively with people of wide and various backgrounds.
1.
Ensures that Plan International’s global policies for Child Protection (CPP) and Gender Equality and Inclusion (GEI) are fully embedded in accordance with the principles and requirements of the policy including relevant Implementation 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.
KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, AND BEHAVIOURS Demonstrable knowledge and understanding of: The social-economic issues in the country that are affecting the rights and well-being of children and young people, especially girls and the most vulnerable.
International conventions on child rights and gender equality as well as the Sustainable Development Goals;
Plan International, the brand, what we do and what we don’t; Gender equality and gender-transformative programming and influencing; Documented experience in advocacy, lobby, communications and campaigns work with international actors Understanding of, or experience in, implementing and monitoring child rights in a national /international context, including excellent knowledge and experience of work related to the other human rights treaties. Relationship management experience
Qualifications and Experience A Master’s Degree in Communication, Mass Media, Journalism, Political Science, International Development or similar discipline At least five years of demonstrated experience working as a professional communicator, including in digital and online environments; experience of development and humanitarian issues affecting children and families preferred. Senior Leadership and management experience on influencing and policy, preferably in an INGO Environment. Influencing, policy, campaigns, communications, and relationship building experience in a development organization, including significant experience in development countries. Experience of working with a wide range of donors, networks, government authorities, regional bodies and other stakeholders. Skills Strategic understanding of the principles behind social media and internal communications, and their potential to deliver interactive communications.
Exceptional written and interpersonal communication skills preferably in all three languages and especially social media-oriented ‘writing for the web’ skills. Strong experience in outcomes-focused strategic communication and planning across the full spectrum of media formats and genres. Strong organizational abilities; able to prioritise and manage short-term and continuing projects across diverse themes despite competing deadlines. Hands-on experience with related software, particularly image and video editing software. Strong commitment to raising the profile of issues affecting children and their families in communities affected by poverty. Strong commitment to child protection policies both inside and outside the workplace, and experience working with children in a development environment. Practical and field experience in communications in development and/or humanitarian settings. Experience dealing with the media, including hosting media visits to potentially vulnerable communities. Strong character traits, including team work, striving for high performance, emotional stability, resilience, adaptability, and ability to handle stress, strong initiative and self-motivation, cultural and gender sensitivity, honesty and physical fitness to travel are essential. Very good working knowledge of English and Sinhala. Knowledge of Tamil
language would be an added advantage.
PLAN INTERNATIONAL’S VALUES IN PRACTICE We are open and accountable 1. Promotes a culture of openness and transparency, including with sponsors and donors. 2.
Holds self and others accountable to achieve the highest standards of integrity.
3.
Consistent and fair in the treatment of people.
4.
Open about mistakes and keen to learn from them.
5.
Accountable for ensuring we are a safe organisation for all children, girls & young people
We strive for lasting impact 6. Articulates a clear purpose for staff and sets high expectations. 7.
Creates a climate of continuous improvement, open to challenge and new ideas.
8.
Focuses resources to drive change and maximise long-term impact, responsive to changed priorities or crises.
9.
Evidence-based and evaluates effectiveness.
We work well together 10. Seeks constructive outcomes, listens to others, willing to compromise when appropriate. 11. Builds constructive relationships across Plan International to support our shared goals. 12. Develops trusting and ‘win-win’ relationships with funders, partners and communities.
13.
Engages and works well with others outside the organization to build a better world for girls and all children.
We are inclusive and empowering 14. 15. 16.
We empower our staff to give their best and develop their potential We respect all people, appreciate differences and challenge equality in our programs and our workplace We support children, girls and young people to increase their confidence and to change their own lives.
PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT AND DEMANDS
Spends sometime in the areas of assignment; Exposed to varied weather conditions during field work; Exposed to areas with contagious and communicable diseases; Occasionally exposed to dusty, rugged terrain, inaccessible roads and flood-prone areas; May need to cross seas, rivers, swamps, hanging bridges etc.; May be required to work during night time, weekends and holidays in order to ensure timely delivery, especially during emergencies.
LEVEL OF CONTACT WITH CHILDREN: High level
TRAVEL
Travel is estimated at 50%.