Country Director

The Country Director provides overall strategic programmatic operational and representational leadership for Ipas Nigeria ensuring that the country program delivers sustained impact financial viability regulatory compliance and ongoing organizational relevance. The role leads a multidisciplinary team to develop and achieve long-term strategic objectives and oversees the planning implementation and monitoring of a diverse portfolio of initiatives aimed at improving womens and girls access to safe abortion care and contraceptive services. The Country Director ensures strong stewardship of Ipas resources and full compliance with Ipass global policies and quality standards.

In addition the Country Director upholds and strengthens Ipass technical leadership drives robust programmatic results and fosters effective collaboration with a wide range of partners. Operating within Ipass shared leadership and mutual accountability model the role exemplifies Ipas values by advancing equity and inclusion promoting learning and collaborating closely with colleagues across the global organization. The Country Director is accountable for setting strategic direction mobilizing resources safeguarding assets building partnerships leading and developing people and positioning Ipas Nigeria as a credible and influential leader in sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) within a complex and evolving national context.

Primary Responsibilities:

Program Leadership

• Maintain and strengthen Ipass position as a sector leader in Nigeria.
• Lead design and implementation of the Ipas Nigerias strategic plan in line with Ipass strategic plan global vision and mission.
• Work closely with Ipass global teams to ensure that regional/country programming meets Ipas Network standards and supports and is supported by the global organization.
• Develop and lead the implementation of business development plans with the support of the Ipass global teams to ensure the maintenance and growth of the country programs in the region.
• Lead and support the country program teams including strengthening programmatic and operational capacity of staff as needed.
• Model and foster a high-trust positive management high-performance work culture in the country offices based on Ipas core values and organizational culture.

Program Management

• Ensure robust systems and processes are in place to support strong project and award management including work planning budgeting and regular data-driven reviews of progress and problem-solving efforts.
• Ensure full donor contractual compliance for each project in the country portfolio as well as compliance with Ipass network standards and policies and procedures.
• Promote evidence-based decision making and lead in the adoption of innovative solutions to improve the country program effectiveness and efficiency.
• Ensure quality is maintained through development of and support of a quality and monitoring process for continuous quality assurance.

Finance and Governance

• Ensure Ipas Nigeria meets good governance requirements including support for strategic engagement with Ipas Nigerias local board.
• Ensure that the Ipas Nigeria stays in compliance with relevant government laws and requirements including nonprofit registration requirements labor laws tax and other laws and obligations.
• Ensure strong financial management aligned with Ipass financial compliance policies and award requirements monitoring and sharing financial performance through regular reviews and follow on actions.
• Responsible for ensuring robust internal controls are in place to minimize and manage risk.

External Relations and Resource Mobilization

• Build and nurture strong partnerships with government donors health institutions local organizations media and other stakeholders.
• Lead in developing and implementing a program development and resource mobilization strategy.
• Lead in revenue growth and increased efficiency basing strategic and operational plans on sound financial and programmatic results data.
• Represent Ipas and our mission at the country/regional/international level advocating for womens reproductive health and rights.

Human Resources & Culture

• Champion safeguarding across the Nigeria country program by ensuring robust prevention reporting and response mechanisms for sexual exploitation abuse and harassment (SEAH) and by fostering a culture of safety accountability and survivorcentered practice in line with Ipas safeguarding policies.
• Provide strategic leadership for HR including workforce planning performance management staff wellbeing and succession planning.
• Ensure HR policies systems and practices comply with local labour laws and Ipas standards with clear accountability embedded in core processes (e.g. annual performance goals performance reviews and documentation).
• Monitor safety and security issues in Nigeria and the region and ensure country office complies with Ipas safety and security standards and policies.
• Promote a strong culture of continuous learning and development by supporting staff capacity building reflection and knowledge sharing and by integrating learning from evidence practice and evaluation into program improvement and shared leadership decisionmaking

• Performs any other assigned tasks.

SUCCESS MEASURES

Performance will be assessed against agreed performance focus areas with associated annual targets defined reviewed and evaluated through the organizations performance management process. Performance in this role will be demonstrated through:

• Sustained donor confidence and funding continuity
• Strong country reputation and sector influence
• Consistent program delivery at scale and quality
• Clean audits and regulatory compliance
• Positive organizational culture and staff engagement

Requirements for the role

Essential

• Commitment to sexual and reproductive health and rights especially safe abortion and access to contraception.
• Respect and credibility as an advocate for reproductive health and rights strong advocacy and speaking skills in a context with stigma and opposition.
• Knowledge of the issues and context of womens sexual and reproductive health and rights in the region.
• Proven ability to lead and motivate teams and create a positive work environment through supportive supervision strong communication and teamwork and shared leadership approaches.
• Proven ability to build and maintain positive working relationships with a variety of partners including government officials partner organizations and regional or global donors

Minimum

• Masters level degree or higher preferred in a relevant field such as Public Health International Development Gender Issues Policy Administration or Related Studies.
• A minimum of 10 years of increasing responsibility in Team Leadership and Program Management preferably with an NGO / INGO and in the SRHR sector.
• Strategic leader with sound general management skills; previous experience as a Country Director/ Country Manager for an international NGO preferred.
• Experience and demonstrated success in fundraising and maintaining relationships with donors.

Preffered Requirements

• Medical qualification (e.g. General Practitioner MD or equivalent clinical degree) is an advantage
• Experience managing grants funds and/or budgets.
• Working knowledge of Microsoft Office Suite particularly Excel
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills
• Ability to work with clear targets with minimum supervision.
• Ability to coordinate with multiple stakeholders
• Ability to travel for up to 30% time (domestic regional and global)

Professional Capabilities

• Strategic vision and decisionmaking
• External representation and influence
• Financial oversight and risk governance
• People leadership and organizational culture building
• Crisis management and adaptive leadership
• Resource mobilization/fund-raising and donor management

Competencies

• Leads with integrity clarity and purpose
• Builds trust and alignment across teams and partners
• Delivers results through disciplined execution
• Steward resources responsibly and ethically
• Continuously adapts strategy to context and learning

How to Apply

The search is being led by The Taplow Group ().

Interested applicants may submit their resume via email to

Please include Application for the role of Country Director Nigeria in the subject line.

The application deadline is 10 June 2026.

Ipas is strongly committed to providing a work environment that is free from all forms of harassment discrimination and inequity. We recruit employ train promote and compensate our personnel without regard to race age sex religion national origin color creed ancestry citizenship caste ethnicity regional identity tribal identity marital status veteran status disability genetic information gender identity transgender status sexual orientation or any other personal characteristic protected by law or outlined by Ipas policy. Ipas acknowledges that these personal characteristics may differ in different contexts.