Exciting Career Opportunity: Programme Manager, Democracy & Governance at Salve Consulting Limited

Are you a visionary leader passionate about driving positive change in democratic governance, civil society, and women's political participation? Salve Consulting Limited, a leading holistic Human Resources firm, is seeking a highly skilled and strategic Programme Manager - Democracy & Governance to provide operational and strategic leadership for an impactful portfolio.

This is a senior delivery and thought-partnership role. Working closely with the CEO, you will shape portfolio direction, maintain donor and partner confidence, and ensure that programmes remain evidence-led, politically aware, and grounded in the realities of women seeking power and influence across Nigeria and Africa.

Role Overview

Salary Range: NGN 600,000 - 650,000 Gross monthly
Location: Nigeria
Position Type: Full-time / Senior Management

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Programme Leadership

Lead the design, implementation, monitoring, and continuous improvement of the Democracy & Governance and elections portfolio.
Translate strategic priorities into annual implementation plans, workplans, budgets, milestones, and measurable deliverables.
Provide clear direction to Programme Officers, Programme Assistants, consultants, technical advisers, and implementing partners.
Ensure programme delivery aligns with organizational priorities, donor commitments, safeguarding standards, and impact objectives.
Strengthen programme management systems, standard operating procedures, implementation calendars, and quality assurance processes.
Identify emerging opportunities, risks, and strategic interventions linked to election cycles, governance reforms, civic space, women's leadership, and partner priorities.
Lead programme review meetings, implementation planning sessions, and quarterly programme performance reviews.

Programme Delivery and Technical Oversight

Oversee end-to-end programme delivery, from concept development and grant design through implementation, reporting, and close-out.
Ensure timely delivery of programme milestones, outputs, outcomes, and donor deliverables.
Review concept notes, proposals, implementation plans, budgets, technical reports, policy products, and donor submissions for quality and coherence.
Provide technical oversight across activities such as leadership training, candidate support, convenings, civic engagement, policy dialogues, research projects, and coalition work.
Embed gender equality, disability inclusion, safeguarding, conflict sensitivity, and do-no-harm principles across programme design and implementation.
Coordinate programme risk management, issue escalation, and mitigation planning.

Policy, Research and Thought Leadership

Lead the Democracy & Governance policy agenda in close collaboration with the CEO.
Drive research and learning initiatives that generate evidence for advocacy, policy reform, public engagement, and programme improvement.
Oversee the development of policy briefs, technical reports, position papers, research publications, learning notes, and other knowledge products.
Monitor national, regional, and global developments affecting democracy, elections, governance, gender equality, political financing, civic participation, and women's representation.
Translate research findings and field intelligence into practical recommendations for policymakers, partners, donors, and programme teams.
Facilitate policy dialogues, roundtables, and multi-stakeholder engagements that position the organization as a credible voice on women's political leadership and inclusive governance.

Stakeholder Engagement and Strategic Partnerships

Develop and implement stakeholder engagement strategies aligned with portfolio priorities and organizational positioning.
Build and sustain high-level relationships with government institutions, electoral management bodies, political actors, civil society organizations, development partners, regional institutions, academic institutions, and multilateral agencies.
Represent the organization at national, regional, and international meetings, conferences, donor engagements, and policy platforms.
Identify partnerships that strengthen programme delivery, expand influence, and create practical pathways for women leaders, aspirants, candidates, and public office holders.
Manage partner expectations, follow-through, and documentation so collaborations translate into measurable value.

Resource Mobilization and Business Development

Work closely with the CEO and Growth Team to identify funding opportunities aligned with Democracy & Governance priorities.
Contribute technical leadership to proposal development, grant design, programme narratives, budgets, and donor presentations.
Support donor engagement, relationship management, and portfolio positioning.
Track donor priorities, funding trends, and windows for democracy, governance, gender equality, civic technology, elections, and leadership development.
Contribute to programme sustainability by packaging evidence, lessons, partnerships, and implementation models for future funding and scale.

Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL)

Work with the MEAL function to ensure programme performance is measured through clear indicators, baselines, targets, learning questions, and impact evidence.
Review programme data regularly and use insights to guide strategic decisions, implementation adjustments, and donor reporting.
Lead programme learning sessions, after-action reviews, and reflection processes.
Ensure lessons learned are documented and integrated into future programme design and delivery.
Promote evidence-based decision-making across programme implementation and external advocacy.

Cross-functional Input & Team Leadership

Actively coordinate with internal functions (Communications, Growth, Finance, People & Culture) to ensure programs are visible, compliant, and operationally sound.
Lead relationships with project consultants and other team members.
Promote collaboration, initiative, learning, documentation, and strong internal communication.
Model sound judgment, political sensitivity, integrity, responsiveness, and calm execution under pressure.

Required Qualifications

Education: Master's degree in Political Science, Public Policy, Development Studies, International Development, Public Administration, Gender Studies, Law, or a related discipline. A Bachelor's degree with significant relevant experience may be considered.
Experience: Minimum of 7-10 years of progressive programme management experience within the development, democracy, governance, gender equality, or international NGO sector.
Demonstrated experience managing donor-funded programmes and multi-stakeholder implementation.
Experience leading multidisciplinary teams, consultants, and partners.
Proven experience in policy advocacy, influencing, research uptake, or public-sector engagement.
Strong grant management, donor reporting, budgeting, and compliance experience.
Experience working with government institutions, electoral stakeholders, civil society, and development partners.
Direct experience with women's political participation, elections, governance reform, leadership development, or civic engagement is strongly preferred.

Method of Application

Interested and qualified candidates should send their application and resume to: recruitment@salveconsultinglimited.com using the Job title as the subject of their email.