Research & Insights Director – Jobtech Alliance at Mercycorps, Africa - Various Locations

Research & Insights Director – Jobtech Alliance at Mercycorps in Africa - Various Locations. Full-time. Apply with swipeandhired.

Location: Kenya or nigeria
Position Status: Full-Time, National
Salary Level: National
Risk Level : Level 3: Frequent contact with participants, direct contact with children, access to sensitive data, and/or high level of accountability.
TL;DR
If you want to shape the future of work in Africa, there is no role that will put you closer to the centre of the sector’s learning-for-action agenda .
About Prosper Global
Barely enough is not enough for anyone. Prosper Global is a humanitarian organization working alongside communities facing conflict, climate change, and economic hardship to meet urgent needs and create the conditions for lasting progress. Today's challenges demand new solutions, so we pair local knowledge with global resources to help communities build what's needed, test what's possible, and scale what's proven so that people everywhere can pursue a full life on their own terms. In 2026, we changed our name from Mercy Corps to Prosper Global, to reflect our belief that when every community can prosper, all of humanity moves forward.
About Prosper Global, the Jobtech Alliance and DAWN
Prosper Global (formerly Mercy Corps) is a global humanitarian organization working in over 40 countries at the front lines of today’s biggest crises. Prosper Global has built a reputation for innovative economic development programming, particularly working with start-ups, and hosts a venture capital arm called Prosper Global Ventures.
In late 2021, Prosper Global launched the Jobtech Alliance , a Pan-African ecosystem-building initiative around inclusive jobtech in Africa. The Jobtech Alliance has a portfolio of grants for acceleration activities with jobtech startups, and wider ecosystem-building . We learn by doing, conduct research to better understand what makes these innovations work (or not), and explore emerging themes to help define and guide the sector.
Digital Advancement for Women Now (DAWN) is a four-year project in Nigeria, funded by the Mastercard Foundation and implemented within the Jobtech Alliance. It enables underserved young people, with a particular focus on young women, alongside refugees and displaced people and persons with disabilities, to access safe, inclusive and dignified work through jobtech platforms.
Position Summary
As the Jobtech Alliance Research & Insights Director, you will lead the insight generation, research and learning strategy and its implementation at the Jobtech Alliance, including on the DAWN project. You collaborate with different teams to draw insights from our ecosystem and acceleration activities and craft our learning-for-action plan, oversee research, with a particular focus on young women. You will work with ecosystem team members to coordinate our dissemination and advocacy plans to ensure our research outputs spur action across the entire jobtech ecosystem, and translate to impactful outcomes for young people.
We operate as a ‘do-tank’ rather than a ‘think-tank’ - our insights need to be operationally impactful. You will often have a role in moving research into practice, as well as vice-versa. You will be traveling up to 20% of the time across the continent, including regularly within Nigeria.
Essential Responsibilities
This role at the Jobtech Alliance will provide you with access to unrivaled, cutting-edge information resources, data and influence across the jobtech ecosystem in Africa.

• Access to the highest-potential jobtech startups across the continent working to make their business models more scalable and inclusive

• The most comprehensive dataset on gig workers in Africa (1M+ workers) with rich details on engagement patterns and earnings

• Learnings and data from implementation, tracking how young people move into dignified platform work, and which approaches work best

• Deep relationships with players across the jobtech ecosystem and beyond for research dissemination, partnerships and advocacy

• Close interaction with the venture building team, which works with and within the highest potential platforms on the continent.

You will have the opportunity to influence and execute action-oriented research and learning to solve problems across the jobtech ecosystem:

• Internal use cases: where the Jobtech Alliance team requires insights that are material to the organisation’s operations, e.g. guiding our strategy around platforms in international migration

• Partner use cases: where partner jobtech start-ups or donor funders (including the Mastercard Foundation) require insights for their decision making, e.g. how best to support female gig workers increase their platform earning

• Ecosystem use cases: where learning products are required to shift mindsets and get ecosystem actors to do something differently, e.g. helping startup entrepreneurs to replicate best practices around vetting

• Communication use cases: shorter-form thought leadership articles that raise the Jobtech Alliance’s profile, e.g. guidance on how to measure what counts as a job in gig platforms

Key Responsibilities
RESEARCH AND INSIGHTS STRATEGY- 25%

• Craft and continuously refine our research and insights strategy (updated at least quarterly), identifying the different research and insight use cases and the appropriate methodologies, formats, dissemination channels and advocacy required to translate research outputs to action.

• Shape the overarching learning-for-action plan of the Jobtech Alliance. Identify emerging themes coming out of our work, as well as upon the wider jobtech horizon, which require further research.

• Lead the research and learning plan and priorities for DAWN, including the Learning Pilot’s key questions: how to define and measure dignified and fulfilling work, which inclusion interventions improve outcomes for disadvantaged users, and which sectors, platform models and pathways deliver the strongest work-quality and earnings outcomes.

• Work with venture building teams and startups to identify the questions each innovation sprint should answer, and turn the findings into lessons for the startup and the wider sector

• Advise the team on new issues they should be addressing in their work, based on reading emerging research in the jobtech space.

CONDUCTING RESEARCH AND OVERSEEING RESEARCH OUTPUTS - 50%

• Lead research on varying themes with acceleration start-up partners, from product design, to business model strategy, user-level impact, and/or operations. This involves strategizing research approaches and methodologies in a manner that is adapted to each innovation project’s needs, and would involve data collection activities with start-ups, the venture building team, and users themselves.

• Oversee the analysis, synthesis, and production of research and learning outputs as a primary author for various forms of audiences and channels, including long-form reports, blogs, and other communication mediums for knowledge products. Our content will primarily be in the form of 5-10 page learning reports, and 1-2 page blogs, with a few longer-form research products.

• Lead the evidence, analysis and recommendations for the Year 1 Learning Pilot evaluation, which informs the Mastercard Foundation’s decisions on refinement and scale-up.

• Manage researchers, consultants and primary data collectors, where required,, as part of the research output production process.

• Deliver DAWN’s portfolio of research and learning products including studies that centre the voices of disadvantaged young women, refugees and displaced people and persons with disabilities in Nigeria, and ensure all data collection with these participants is ethical, inclusive and consistent with safeguarding and data protection requirements.

SHAPE DISSEMENTATION AND INFLUENCE - 25%

• Work with the Ecosystem and Communications teams to decide who needs to see each piece of research, what we want them to do with it, and how best to reach them. This could include workshops, webinars, events, or campaigns. Plan and deliver content plan for the Jobtech Alliance’s flagship Africa Jobtech learning convening, bringing together platforms, skilling providers, financial institutions, policymakers and funders.

• Lead advocacy efforts to feed research findings into the decision-making process of ecosystem actors, where identified in the strategy.

• Oversee our quarterly research and content calendar. Ensure that research and content (blogs etc) are on course.

• Ensure quality and relevance of blogs and learning products produced by other team members.

• Contribute the learning and evidence sections of DAWN’s reports to the Mastercard Foundation, working with the DAWN Project Director, and present findings to the Foundation and other stakeholders.

• Function as a learning focal point for engagement with external stakeholders. Attend local events, meetings and networking activities.

• Where suitable, convene researchers in the jobtech space to move forward learning plan and priorities, or to foster collaboration.

SAFEGUARDING RESPONSIBILITIES

• Actively learns about safeguarding and integrates it into their work, including safeguarding risks and mitigations related to their area of work.

• Practices the values of Mercy Corps including respecting the dignity and well-being of participants and fellow team members.

• Encourages openness and communication in their team; encourages team members to submit reports if they have any concerns using reporting mechanisms e.g., Integrity Hotline and other options.

Supervisory Responsibility
Department Lead: Impact & Data (TBD), Researchers, Consultants, Enumerators,
Accountability
Reports Directly To: Jobtech Alliance Program Director
Works Directly With: Start-ups, External partners, Results Measurement & Learning Lead, Venture builders, Ecosystem team (Community & Communications), DAWN Project Director, BFA Global and ImpactHER (consortium partners), Mastercard Foundation.
Accountability to Participants and Stakeholders
Prosper Global team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically to our program participants, community partners, other stakeholders, and to international standards guiding international relief and development work. We are committed to actively engaging communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our field projects.
Minimum Qualification & Transferable Skills

• 10+ years of relevant experience, including working in or with technology startups.

• Demonstrated expertise in both quantitative and qualitative research methods.

• Demonstrated ability to develop tailored research and learning strategies covering use cases, formats and dissemination plans

• Demonstrated familiarity with both business strategies and decisions, as well as user-level impact.

• Experience conducting research with young people, ideally with young women, refugees and displaced people or persons with disabilities, applying ethical research, safeguarding and data protection standards.

• Experience producing research and learning for institutional donors and contributing to donor reporting.

• Excellent communication and writing skills, with a keen ability to synthesize and present complex data in a simple, compelling, meaningful way.

• Must be a strong self-starter.

• Ability to complete tasks in a timely manner while balancing several assignments with inputs from multiple team members.

• Bachelor’s degree in business, social science, international development, or a related field.

• Familiarity with Nigeria’s youth employment, labour market or platform economy context is an advantage.

Living Conditions / Environmental Conditions
This role can be based in Nigeria, or Kenya. Candidates must have the right to work in the country in which they are based
Ongoing Learning
In support of our belief that learning organizations are more effective, efficient and relevant to the communities we serve, we empower all team members to dedicate 5% of their time to learning activities that further their personal and/or professional growth and development
Team Engagement and Effectiveness
Achieving our mission starts with how we build our team and collaborate. By bringing together individuals with a variety of experiences, backgrounds, and perspectives, we strengthen our ability to solve complex challenges and drive innovation. We foster a culture of trust and respect, where every team member is valued for their contributions, empowered to reach their full potential, and motivated to do their best work.
We recognize that building a strong and effective team is an ongoing process, and we remain committed to learning, improving, and growing together.
Equal Employment Opportunity
Prosper Global is an equal opportunity employer committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all employees and qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, sex, sexual orientation, religion or belief, national origin, age, disability, marital status, veteran status, or any other characteristics protected under applicable law.
Safeguarding and Ethics
Prosper Global is committed to ensuring that all individuals we come into contact with through our work, whether team members, community members, program participants or others, are treated with respect and dignity. We are committed to the core principles regarding prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse laid out by the UN Secretary General and IASC and have signed on to the Interagency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme . We will not tolerate child abuse, sexual exploitation, abuse, or harassment by or of our team members. As part of our commitment to a safe and inclusive work environment, team members are expected to conduct themselves in a professional manner, respect local laws and customs, and to adhere to Prosper Global Code of Conduct Policies and values at all times. Team members are required to complete mandatory Code of Conduct elearning courses upon hire and on an annual basis.
As an applicant, if you witness or experience any form of sexual misconduct during the recruitment process, please report this to Prosper Global Integrity Hotline ( [email protected] ).