Prospects IV, Mercy Corps Prospects IV, Mercy Corps The Promoting Sustainable Partnerships for Economic Transformation (PROSPECTS) IV Program is for 45 months, and aims to impact poverty by increasing incomes, job quality and job security for 16,400 urban youth. The program will be implemented in Montserrado and Nimba counties, with potential expansion to other counties contingent on first year’s inception activities. A proposed budget of 48,000,000 SEK is presented. PROSPECTS IV builds on previous Government of Sweden investments through PROSPECTS I – III, but moves away from direct delivery model to facilitating systemic change through application of a Market Systems Development based approach to creating decent and productive employment. Programmet Promoting Sustainable Partnerships for Economic Transformation (PROSPECTS) IV är på 45 månader och syftar till att påverka fattigdom genom att öka inkomsterna, arbetskvaliteten och jobbsäkerheten för 16 400 stadsungdomar. Programmet kommer att genomföras i Montserrado och Nimba län, med potentiell expansion till andra län beroende på första årets startaktiviteter. En föreslagen budget på 48 000 000 SEK presenteras. UTSIKTER IV bygger på tidigare Sveriges regeringens investeringar genom UTSIKTER I - III, men går bort från modellen för direkt leverans till att underlätta systemförändringar genom att tillämpa ett marknadsutvecklingsbaserat tillvägagångssätt för att skapa anständiga och produktiva arbetstillfällen. The new Program aims to increase incomes, job quality, and job security for urban female and male youth. It will be implemented in two defined urban areas, Monrovia (Montserrado County) and Ganta (Nimba County), with potential expansion to secondary locations and counties contingent on the results of the first years Inception Phase activities. It will be one of the first Market Systems Development (MSD) programs focused on urban youth employment in Liberia,
and will also provide new insights for the Swedish Embassy and the development sector in general around the MSD approach in the Liberian context, that could be considered to be thin and fragile. The program will also be looking at the connections between primary and secondary urban areas. The program started with an inception phase to validate the initial assumptions and underlying problems.

Mercy Corps PROSPECTS IV Programme Poverty Impact Goal is to increase incomes, job quality and job security for urban female and male youth with the target of improving employment outcomes for 14,856 youth overlapping across sectors and intervention impact, and 6,182 unique youth. We expect to do this primarily through pursuing more work and better work. The overarching theory of change (ToC) for PROSPECTS IV focuses on increasing the demand for, supply and exchange of labour (wage employment) and products and services (selfemployment) thereby helping young people have improved access to work, more work and better work, increase incomes and step out of poverty. The ToC looks at influencing change, facilitating innovations, policy and norm shifts that will enable better and more meaningful participation of young people in the selected market systems. This will lead to improved youth performance and resilience through more work and better work.