Salah Ahmed Jama (Somali: Saalax Axmed Jaamac, Arabic: صالح احمد جامع; born 1980) is a Somali politician serving as the Deputy Prime Minister of the Federal Government of Somalia since 2 August 2022.^[4] Salah previously served in the cabinet twice, first as the Minister of Labour, and later as the Minister of Constitutional Affairs.

Salah is also Senator of the Upper House of the Federal Parliament of Somalia representing the Sanaag region^[5] and a former MP who has represented Sanaag in the House of the People of the Federal Parliament from December 2016 until his election to the Upper House in September 2021.^[6]

Salah Jama was born in Erigavo, Sanaag in 1980 and has later moved to India where he lived for some time before relocation to Ottawa, Canada where he earned a bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Political Science and Developmental Studies from Carleton University.^[3] Salah later worked as a teacher and research assistant at Carleton University’s Political Science and African Studies departments. His research focused on peace and state-building with a keen interest in the challenges facing post-conflict societies and their recovery and has written several publications reflecting on democratisation and state-building approaches of fragile states.^[3]

Salah moved to Mogadishu, Somalia in the late 2000s and has started working with the Ministry of Interior and Federal Affairs as a Senior Electoral Advisor tasked with implementing the Federal Government’s democratic agenda, including the formation of the National Independent Election Commission and the development of key electoral legal frameworks such as the citizenship and political parties’ Bills. He also worked as a Coordinator of the National Consultative Forum, leading a technical support team, composed of both federal and regional state institutions to facilitate public consultations across Somalia’s Federal Member States capitals.^[7] In the absence of one-person-vote, the technical support team advanced public consultations and the subsequent political negotiations among national stakeholders that helped forge an agreement on the most appropriate Somali electoral model for the 2016 elections.^[8]

While working with the Federal Government, Salah also served as Strategic Policy Advisor, charged with developing organisational reforms, re-establishing control and command structures and laying the foundations for a new federal policing architecture for the Somali Police Force.

Salah speaks Somali, English, Urdu, and Hindi languages.

On 2 August 2022, Salah Jama once again became a member of the Federal Cabinet, this time as the Deputy Prime Minister of the Federal Government of Somalia.^[4] Since assuming the office of the Deputy Prime Minister, Salah has presided over a number of cabinet meetings on the current challenges,^[18] including the ongoing liberation war against the militant group Al-Shabaab^[19] and the widespread drought that has been ravaging the country for over a year.^[20]

• Hussein Kasim, Salah Jama, Understanding the drivers and deficiencies of Afro-optimism: a development perspective, Horn of Africa Journal (2012)^[21]