Research & Insights Director – Jobtech Alliance

Description
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 th

Work arrangement
Yes