Description

Location: Lagos Nigeria

Position Status: Full-Time, National  

Salary Level: National

Risk Level: ☐ Level 3       ☐Level 2        ☐Level 1 

• (Level 3: Frequent contact with participants, direct contact with children, access to sensitive data, and/or high level of accountability. 

• Level 2: Some contact with participants; unplanned non-direct contact with children.

• Level 1: Likely to have no contact with participants or sensitive data) 

TL;DR; If you want to lead one of Africa’s most ambitious efforts to get young people into safe, dignified work, and shape how the Mastercard Foundation and the wider sector think about the future of work for young women, refugees and persons with disabilities, this is your role. You’ll thrive here if you love building partnerships that deliver real results.

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. These are digital platform creating work opportunities for users, including gig-matching platforms, e-commerce platforms are more. 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 startups.

Position Summary

The Project Director is the senior leader responsible for the implementation of DAWN in Nigeria, accountable for delivering the project’s commitments to the Mastercard Foundation: supporting 132,000 financially disadvantaged young people into work on digital platforms over four years (at least 70% young women, 5% refugees and displaced people and 5% persons with disabilities), beginning with a one-year Learning Pilot that will generate the evidence to shape scale-up. Working with consortium partners BFA Global and ImpactHER, and with platforms, skilling providers and inclusivity partners across at least four to six states, the Project Director sets the direction for delivery and keeps the project on track against its approved workplan, budget and targets.

Critically, the Project Director owns the relationship with the Mastercard Foundation. This means leading every day-to-day interaction with the Foundation, anticipating its expectations, producing high-quality and timely reports, and building the trust and credibility that allow DAWN to adapt and grow as the evidence emerges.

The Project Director reports to the Jobtech Alliance Program Director, line manages team members working on inclusivity and inclusivity partners and works collaboratively in a matrixed form with different teams within the Jobtech Alliance and other members of the consortium.

Essential Responsibilities

Donor Management – 50%

• Lead the Mastercard Foundation relationship. Act as the single accountable point of contact for the DAWN programme. Build trusted relationships at working and senior levels, run regular check-ins, and make sure the Foundation hears about progress, risks and issues from DAWN.

• Run the governance cadence. Prepare for and lead DAWN’s engagement in the Foundation-facing forums set out in the grant agreement and workplan, including the kick-off workshop, monthly check-ins, the Project Management Team, the Strategic Advisory Committee, the Platform Selection Committee and the annual learning convening. Make sure decisions, actions and follow-ups are clear, timely and documented.

• Own reporting quality and timeliness. Be accountable for submission of all contractual reports, including the inception report, semi-annual and annual narrative and financial reports, quarterly status updates and the Learning Pilot evaluation report. Coordinate inputs from Finance, MEL and consortium partners, challenge weak evidence, and secure Jobtech Alliance Program Director approval before anything formal goes to the Foundation.

• Manage approvals and change. Maintain a live register of every action that requires the Foundation’s prior written approval (for example adding or replacing implementing partners or their budgets, material changes to activities, targets, eligibility criteria or platform partners, reallocation of device-subsidy funds, and official communications). Prepare well-evidenced, well-timed requests so that approvals do not delay delivery.

• Anticipate and resolve friction. Work with a highly engaged funder with exacting standards for evidence, compliance and safeguarding. Understand what the Foundation needs, respond promptly and constructively to challenge, negotiate pragmatic solutions, and escalate early to the Jobtech Alliance Program Director where positions diverge. Never make a commitment to the Foundation that the project cannot deliver.

• Manage monitoring, audit and information requests. Make sure records and supporting documentation can be produced quickly to meet Foundation requests and any audit or monitoring visits, working closely with Finance and Operations. Lead on field visits with the foundation as required.

• Use the Learning Pilot to build confidence. Lead the Foundation conversation on pilot results, benchmarks and recommendations, and shape evidence-based proposals for any refinements to the design, budget or scale-up strategy.

• Safeguard the partnership. Make sure that any event likely to affect delivery, compliance or reputation, including safeguarding concerns and suspected fraud or misuse of funds, is escalated immediately and communicated to the Program Director and Foundation as the grant agreement requires.

Project, Budget and Implementation Management 35%

• Lead the delivery of DAWN in Nigeria against the approved workplan, budget and targets, including the year-by-year milestones for youth transitioned into work, skilling, asset and device support, platform engagement, research and convenings.

• Lead on local adaptations, advising on geographies and approaches for implementation (recognising the need for 50% of participants to be outside of Lagos/Abuja).

• Work with Inclusivity team to ensure technical guidance and standards shape inclusion delivery against population targets

• Line manage the Senior Project Manager responsible for managing Inclusivity Partners holding him/her accountable to deliver interventions against targets, and ensure activities evolve to respond to emerging needs.Work with Finance to monitor budget against actuals, manage within approved flexibility, and ensure financial controls and documentation are in place across the project and its partners.

• Work with the Results, Learning & Research Team to ensure that the first year pilot delivers on its learning requirements and can justify subsequent scale-up.

• Lead on matrixed communications with different technical leads including those responsible for Inclusivity, Venture Support, Results Measurement, Research and Ecosystem.

• HQ management. Collaborate with Prosper Global HQ responsible for funder management.

• Represent DAWN with platforms, government, private sector, civil society and the wider Nigerian jobtech and youth employment ecosystem, and identify partnerships that might be of value to the project.

• Set and track DAWN’s Objectives and Workplan, linked to the Jobtech Alliance’s systems change domains, and use them to keep the team and partners focused on the priorities that matter most.

Country Operations - 10%

•  Lead the social and performance culture of the Jobtech Alliance’s Nigeria team, so people do their best work and enjoy it.

• Support services: Ensure that the DAWN Nigeria team (and visiting team members) have what they need to thrive, including suitable office space, logistics and more.

Risk, Compliance and Safeguarding - 5%

• Make sure safeguarding is embedded across all activities and partners, including the community accountability and reporting mechanism, and that the Foundation’s Code of Conduct and Child and Youth Safeguarding requirements are met.

• Function as the ultimate in-country point of escalation and accountability.

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

Senior Project Manager - Digital Livelihoods & Inclusivity (with one Project Officer underneath them). Matrixed interaction with multiple teams including Inclusivity, Research & Learning, Results Measurement & Data, and Venture Support.

Accountability

Reports Directly To: Jobtech Alliance Program Director 

Works Directly With: Mastercard Foundation (external); BFA Global and ImpactHER (consortium partners); Results Learning & Research Team, Inclusivity Team, Finance, Operations Teams, Human Resources 

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

• Minimum of 10 years’ experience in program or project management, including at least 5 years leading complex donor-funded programs with multiple partners, ideally in youth employment, gender, livelihoods, entrepreneurship or start-up ecosystems, or the digital and platform economy

• Critical: a proven track record as the primary relationship lead for institutional donors on large grants, including negotiating changes, securing approvals, delivering high-quality reports and resolving difficult issues while maintaining the donor’s confidence. Experience leading projects funded by the Mastercard Foundation is an advantage.

• Strong grounding in results-based management and MEL, and sound understanding of donor financial management, budget oversight and audit readiness

• Experience working on youth employment and/or livelihoods programs, with knowledge of safeguarding and protection

• Experience working with one or more of the program’s populations; young women, refugees and displaced people, or persons with disabilities is preferred

• Comfortable working with ambiguity and adapting as priorities evolve in a new program, with strong organisation and the ability to keep multiple activities and partners moving at once

• Sound judgement and discretion in handling sensitive and confidential information

• Ability to work independently, influence without formal authority, and build trusted relationships with funders, partners, platforms and communities

• Excellent communication skills, including the ability to write clear, persuasive and accurate donor reports and briefings, and written and spoken fluency in English

• Bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences, Social Work, Development Studies, Business, Law or a related field, or equivalent practical experience; a postgraduate degree is an advantage

• Legal right to work in Nigeria

Living Conditions / Environmental Conditions

The position is based in Lagos, Nigeria, and involves working at a shared office ~3 days per week, in addition to requiring up to 40% travel to reach target populations, partners and platforms across the program’s areas of operation, which may include travel to locations where amenities or freedom of movement are limited. Occasional regional or international travel may be required.

Success Factors

You are a credible, composed and diplomatic leader who builds trust with funders and partners easily, and you know how to keep a demanding relationship constructive. You are comfortable with ambiguity, capable of building coherence in strategy and implementation with a lot of moving parts and people. You are a hands-on doer energised by building something from the ground up, moving fast, and keeping partners, participants and activities moving, and are always ready to get your hands dirty.  

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]).