Strategic Planning

Terre des hommes 

The Client

Terre des hommes (Tdh) is the leading Swiss organisation for children’s aid. Through their health, protection and emergency relief programmes, they provide assistance to over four million children and their families in more than 40 countries each year. For this project inFocus worked with Tdh’s delegation in Jordan. Their activities focus on helping the refugee population and the host communities to provide fair access to child protection services and to give children support.

The Challenge

At the time of the strategic planning project the landscape in Jordan and the wider MENA region was changing. This changing context along with along with a greater need to align with the global Tdh Vision (2030) and the MENA regions own strategic orientations meant that there was a need to develop a theory of change and strategic plan to effectively adapt to this.

The Project

Working the assignment consisted of reviewing and finalising the existing draft Theory of Change as well as defining the strategic orientations and key strategic priorities of Tdh Jordan. 

The strategic planning process incorporated a detailed analysis of the Jordanian context, including a situation analysis focused upon children and youth issues in Jordan and a cross sector stakeholder analysis to identify potential partners and understand the partner landscape; a detailed organisational analysis of Tdh Jordan’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, to better understand the unique contribution that Tdh Jordan can make; and a Theory of Change to establish a clear and common understanding of the wider context of social change in Jordan and the specific changes the organisation hopes to contribute towards, through their two priority work programmes with children and youth.

 

A key part was a three day live workshop with Tdh staff and stakeholders to explore different elements of the planning process. The project took a participatory approach, recognising the value of internal stakeholders being involved at each stage, in terms of enhancing the quality and the level of ownership over the end product. The final stages of the planning process utilised the participants enhanced understanding of the context and collective wisdom, to formulate a three year practical vision for Tdh Jordan, exploring the ‘blocks and barriers’ that will be encountered to the practical vision elements, devising innovative and compelling strategies to deal with the barriers and put the three year practical vision in place. 

At the end of the planning process a comprehensive strategic plan document and Theory of Change were developed. The aim of both documents was the help guide Tdh Jordan’s internal operations, management, and future development.