SENIOR PROJECT MANAGER - DIGITAL LIVELIHOODS & INCLUSIVITY

Job Category : Programming

Requisition Number : SENIO007294

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Posting Details

• Posted: November 3, 2026
• Full-Time
• On-site
• ### Locations

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Lagos

Lagos, NG-LA, NGA

Lagos

Lagos, NG-LA, NGA

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Job Details

Description

Position Description

Location: Lagos, Nigeria

Position Status: Full-time, Regular

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)

About Mercy Corps

Mercy Corps is a leading global organization powered by the belief that a better world is possible. In disaster, in hardship, in more than 40 countries around the world, we partner to put bold solutions into action — helping people triumph over adversity and build stronger communities from within. Now, and for the future.

Program / Department Summary

Mercy Corps has built a reputation for innovative economic development programming, particularly working with start-ups, and hosts a venture capital arm called Mercy Corps Ventures.

In late 2021, Mercy Corps 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 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 an anticipated four-year project in Nigeria, pending funding approval from 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.

General Position Summary

Reporting to the Project Director, the Senior Project Manager is the primary in-country lead responsible for skilling and supply-side interventions, equipping underserved youth (disadvantaged young women, displaced populations and people with disabilities) to thrive on platforms. S/he is responsible for designing interventions which will enable these target populations to gain access and earn meaningfully from specific platform opportunities, and managing the interventions’ delivery (which could include skilling, coaching, asset transfer, or other activities) through Inclusivity Partners (NGOs, CBOs and other local providers).

Additionally, he/she collaborates with other departments, including the Venture Support team that engages directly with platforms to make them more inclusive. S/he oversees contracting and subgrant management with local partners alongside the Operations team. The role requires strong leadership and people-management skills, a demand-led orientation, and the ability to build relationships across a wide set of actors including private-sector partners, and community-based, refugee-led and disabled people’s organizations. The role manages the Project Officer for Skilling & Inclusion Safeguarding and is accountable for embedding safeguarding across all delivery.

Essential Job Responsibilities

Strategy and Intervention Design (30%)

• Provide overall leadership for the Inclusivity Department’s delivery in Nigeria, translating the inclusivity strategy agreed with the Platform Inclusion Lead into a delivery plan and targets across the three populations
• Identify adaptations to the program model for the Nigerian context, geographic targeting, and/or recommended interventions
• Work with partners to design interventions which will equip participants for work based on specific platform opportunities

Partner and Stakeholder Management (50%)

• Identify, assess and onboard Inclusivity Partners e.g. community-based organisations, refugee-led organisations and disabled people’s organisations
• Build capacity of partners to dynamically respond to private sector needs
• Coordinate connections between Inclusivity Partners and DAWN portfolio platforms
• Ensure quality of service delivery by Inclusivity Partners, and ensure that activities adapt to needs of youth and platforms. Conduct direct oversight, and ensure oversight work of Project Officer.
• Coordinate procurement, contracting and administrative processes of inclusivity Partners ensuring compliance with organisational and donor policies
• Track and manage partner progress against workplans and budgets
• Serve as the program’s primary liaison with relevant regulatory and refugee-authority stakeholders in Nigeria, coordinating closely with the Mercy Corps Nigeria country office and the DAWN Project Director

Collaboration with other departments (10%)

• Feed market insight, evidence and emerging patterns from delivery back into the program’s wider learning
• Contribute the inclusivity lens to wider ecosystem and support in-market convenings and engagements
• Contribute to identifying, assessing and engaging jobtech platforms in Nigeria that are well placed to onboard target populations
• Support Venture Support to make platforms more inclusive by contributing inclusivity insights

Monitoring, Evaluation, Learning & Reporting (5%)

• Work with Inclusivity Partners to use the tracking systems set up by the Results Measurement team to learn and iterate early to improve delivery of interventions to achieve target outcomes
• Conduct field visits to verify data accuracy and collect qualitative insights, ensuring all data is disaggregated by gender, disability and displacement
• Contribute insights and lessons learned to research and donor reporting

Safeguarding (5%)

• Oversee implementation of the Community Accountability Reporting Mechanism in Nigeria. Decide on responses and/escalations of safeguarding reports or concerns.
• Actively learn about safeguarding and integrate it into the program’s work, including safeguarding risks and mitigations related to their area of work .
• Practice the values of Mercy Corps, including respecting the dignity and well-being of participants and fellow team members
• Encourage openness and communication in their team; encourage team members to submit reports if they have any concerns using reporting mechanisms e.g., Integrity Hotline and other options

Team Leadership and Management

• Line-manage the Project Officer; supporting performance, development and maintaining clear priorities as the program evolves

• 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

Project Officer (direct report). Oversight of contracted Inclusivity Partners and consultants delivering in Nigeria

Accountability

Reports Directly To: DAWN Project Director

Works Directly With: Platform Inclusion Lead (based in Kenya), Results Measurement Team, Research & Learning Team, Venture Support team (BFA Global), Finance and Operations Teams, Human Resources

Accountability to Participants and Stakeholders

Mercy Corps 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 and Transferable Skills

• Demonstrated experience and understanding of livelihoods programming (ideally digital livelihoods) with at least one or more of the program’s target populations; young women, refugees and displaced people, and/or persons with disabilities is a must; experience across two or more is strongly preferred
• Minimum of 6 years’ experience in project management, livelihoods, employment or a related field, including at least 4 years managing teams and implementing programs
• Demonstrated expertise in designing livelihoods activities and interventions
• Experience setting up delivery in a new market; setting up partnerships, systems and teams is strongly preferred
• Experience engaging with the private sector (as placement partner/collaborator or as a staff) is required. Experience working with refugees or disability inclusion is strongly preferred
• A history of excellence in achieving results and self-management
• Demonstrated experience in strategic planning, work planning, and managing project budgets and donor compliance
• Bachelor’s degree in development studies, Economics, Business Administration, Social Sciences, or other related fields; a postgraduate qualification is an advantage
• Excellent communication skills (written and verbal), and a collaborative approach to working with
• Working and written fluency in English, given work with a regional English-speaking
• Outstanding analytical capacity, with capacity to bring clarity for others and make quick decisions

Success Factors

You are a self-manager who is passionate about economic opportunity for the people the digital economy usually leaves out, the role technology can play in creating it, and most importantly energized by building something from the ground up. You are as comfortable designing interventions and setting up partnerships and systems in a brand-new market. You are great at managing relationships with a diverse set of actors, and you can hold your own in a matrix, working with a remote functional lead while partnering closely with an in-country team and Project Director. You take people-management seriously and bring out the best in a small team and are honest about what is working and what isn’t, and always ready to get your hands dirty.

Living Conditions / Environmental Conditions

The position is based in Lagos, Nigeria, and requires 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

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

Mercy Corps 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

Mercy Corps 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 Mercy Corps 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.