Academic Qualifications and/or Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree in International Relations, Political Science, International Development or a related field, Master’s preferred
• Relevant experience working with political stakeholders/ international organizations or working on democracy building, elections, political activism and/or community organizing; {minimum of four (4) years of this experience for the Program Officer and six  (6) years of this experience for the Senior Program Officer}
• Experience with management, development and implementation cycle of programming

Required Skills and Abilities: 

• High level of interpersonal skills and cultural sensitivity to effectively interact with all levels of staff, foreign personnel, members of donor organizations and political party representatives to actively maintain and build constructive professional relationship with a broad range of (senior) political representatives and NDI’s partners
• Excellent oral and written communications skills in Nepali and English to engage partners, effectively present information and respond to questions; Exceptional writing skills to create clear and concise proposals and reports
• Ability to take initiative, inspire and motivate staff and serve in supervisor capacity when needed to delegate tasks and responsibilities to other staff
• Capacity to work both independently and as a member of a team
• Willingness to work longer hours if required
• Working knowledge of PC-based word processing and spreadsheet applications and experience with Google Apps (Gmail, Calendar, Google Drive, G+, etc.)
• Ability and willingness to travel to remote and difficult to reach locations
• Demonstrated ability to quickly gather, understand, analyze and contextualize relevant political developments in Nepal’s political environment and report on those to senior staff
• Identify areas for programmatic intervention and develop proposals on the basis of a political analysis; able to introduce new concepts convincingly
• Good English and Nepali speaking, writing and translation skills are required
• Familiarity with presenting ideas and expressing yourself effectively in front of groups
• Experience with organizing events; able to quickly tackle logistic and administrative challenges necessary to organize events; working in a structured and organized manner 

Additionally, a Senior Program Officer will need to have:

• Have access to a network amongst political stakeholders (without being politically affiliated to any of them), women’s organizations, media and/or civil society organizations
• Have strong critical thinking and strategic planning skills; able to actively conceptualize, interpret, apply, analyze and evaluate information to reach conclusions or form opinions