Consultancy: Enhancing Digital Skills and Employment Opportunities for Youth At International Labour Organization

Country: Kenya (Turkana and Garissa Counties as priority counties)

1.Background

1.1 Overview

Kenya’s youth continue to face mounting socio-economic challenges as employment opportunities fall short of the demand created by population growth. As of 2021, the youth unemployment rate stood at 39%, with 19% classified as neither employed, in education, nor in training (NEET). This issue disproportionately affects young women, with NEET rates twice as high (18.2%) compared to young men (9.2%).[1]

On a global scale, forced displacement has reached unprecedented levels. Refugees often face increased vulnerability, while host communities struggle with the pressures of accommodating large influxes of displaced individuals. In Kenya, the refugee population exceeds 700,000, with most coming from Somalia (53%), South Sudan (25%), and Congo (10%). Almost half reside in Dadaab (49.3%), with 37.3% in Kakuma and the rest in urban areas, including Nairobi[2].

Meanwhile, the rise of the digital economy presents significant opportunities for job creation, especially for youth. the Kenya National Digital Master Plan 2022-2032 set out a framework to enhance digital business, government, infrastructure, entrepreneurship and innovation. These developments hold potential for both refugees and host communities to gain employment in the digital sector. However, to capitalize on these opportunities, there is a need for accessible training and skills development in digital technologies.

1.2 Operational context of the assignment

In response to the challenges facing both host communities and refugees, a new partnership initiative titled: PROSPECTS – Partnership for improving Prospects for host communities and forcibly displaced persons’[3], has been launched by the Government of the Netherlands that brings together the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the International Labour Organization (ILO), the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Bank.

The overall outcome of the PROSPECTS project in Kenya is “improved sustainable living conditions for refugees and host communities in Kenya”. This is to be achieved through “increased number of refugees and host community with enhanced livelihoods and/or employment in safe/decent work”. The employment pillar will trigger the availability of employment services to support transition to work, as well as the labour market demand that is needed to support refugees and host communities’ transition to various forms of employment, and finally, mechanisms to promote enhanced quality of work. Barriers to business start-ups and scale-ups will be identified and addressed to unlock the entrepreneurial potential that exists in the targeted areas. Young refugees and host communities will be supported in accessing employment opportunities in the digital economy through enhancing and digitising local employment services, provision of vocational and career guidance in schools, capacity development of employment service providers as well as offering youth to youth coaching services.

Through PROSPECTS the ILO collaborate closely with local and national governments, education and training institutions serving youth in Turkana and Garissa, as well as employers and other key stakeholders to better understand and promote decent work opportunities for young refugees in the digital economy. This partnership aims to enhance skills training, facilitate access to job opportunities, and foster inclusive policies that support the integration of young refugees into the workforce. In this regard, ILO has supported a number of initiatives in these counties including market-driven digital skills initiatives, focused on curriculum development, training and recognition of prior learning (RPL), digital job intermediation services focusing on human skills development, one-to-one mentorship and job placement, as well as digital job search clubs and peer-learning job placement services.

2. Objective

The ILO is looking to partner with a non-profit organization with the capacity to deliver comprehensive digital skills training and linking youth with employment opportunities targeting at least 2,000 youth. This includes identifying suitable refugee and host community youth, offering market-driven digital skills programs especially at intermediate and/or advanced level, and providing mentorship and job search support to youth graduates as well as reaching out to employers and providing job placement services to transition youth graduates to wage and self-employment in the digital economy. The partner will bring to the project and expand its existing network through partnerships and collaboration with local and national government entities, private sector partners (such as companies, job portals, recruitment agencies), existing county digital hubs and other digital economy stakeholders.

2.1 Scope of the Assignment

The scope of the assignment comprises the following tasks and areas of work:

1. Inception phase and inception report Guided by the ILO, the implementing partner will finalise the intervention logic and design, ensuring that the project framework aligns with the objectives and outcomes to be achieved. This will also involve preliminary mapping of key partners and stakeholders critical to the project’s success, as well as identifying potential learning pathways for knowledge sharing and capacity building. During this phase, the workplan will be refined to detail specific activities, timelines, and responsibilities, ensuring a clear and actionable roadmap for the project’s implementation.

   Deliverable 1: Inception Report, which will outline the final intervention logic, partner mapping, identified learning pathways, and a detailed workplan.

2. Develop/ review a digital skills curriculum and associated learning pathways. The implementing partner will curate/adapt a market driven digital curriculum that fits the demands of digital economy. When developing the training content, flexible training methodologies, including blended learning will be explored to bridge the gap in access with the limited resources within Turkana and Garissa counties. The curriculum should also adopt work-based learning methodologies to give the trainees opportunities to practice the skill in real world scenarios. Ideally, the curriculum will be re-engineered, tried and tested version of a training course already delivered to young people, preferably in Turkana and Garissa Counties, and/or other similar contexts. In developing/adapting the curriculum, the implementing partner will rely both on internal capacity and experience as well as seek inputs from other training providers, workers and employers and the digital economy as well as ILO technical experts.. Importantly, the training curriculum will outline different learning pathways that are connected and leading to job opportunities for graduates in the digital economy. Modules, offered at different levels (for instance basic, intermediate, advanced) will fall in one of the following categories and pathways will be curated to fit specific job profiles (for instance a differentiation into learning pathways targeting self- vs. wage-employment vs. freelancing): (i) technical skills; (ii) soft skills (including job search skills); (iii) business development skills

   Deliverable 2: A digital skills training programme is available and validated by the ILO. Training materials are made in different formats with a preference for blended learning adaptation. The training curriculum offers different tracks corresponding to different job profiles that are targeted through the courses.

3. Recruitment and Training: The implementing partner will work closely with the ILO and UNICEF to identify refugee and host community youths in Turkana and Garissa Counties for training in the on demand digital curriculum based on a progressive approach but with a keen focus on intermediate and advanced digital skills (including technical, soft and business skills as per deliverable 1). At the onset, the partner with the support of ILO will partner with existing digital hubs including those operated by the Counties to facilitate access to training and co-working spaces. During training the implementing partner will be tasked with progressive placement and job linkages based on the learned skillset by the target group. The partner will map learning spaces and negotiate partnerships for up to 2,000 students including a plan on where how many students can receive training at what time and for which learning modalities (face-to-face, online, blended). Special consideration will be given to ensure access to suitable learning equipment and connectivity. The implementing partner will identify learners with advanced skills and support in efforts to recognize them by Certification via Recognition or Prior Learning (RPL), which ILO will lead.

   Deliverable 3: Established partnerships with county governments, local NGOs, and community organizations to create and strengthen a network of digital hubs and co-working spaces to support and roll out the training demonstrating a capacity to train at least 2,000 young people.

   Deliverable 4: At least 2,000 youth complete in-demand digital skills training ensuring good representation of the host and refugee, and male and female participants. At least 5 per cent of participants will be young people with disabilities.

4. Decent Digital Job-matching, placement and startup building: The implementing partner will link up with different digital jobs network/platforms and support the graduates of the training get access to decent digital jobs and entrepreneurship opportunities. Approaches to secure digital jobs for young people will be connected to the learning pathways identified under Deliverable 1 and might include but are not limited to the following:

• Providing coaching and mentoring services to young people
• Support in onboarding digital jobs platform (micro/gig-work), including training on how to deliver results and earn decent income;
• Facilitating access to co-working spaces and or/devices
• Job fairs and careers days for young people aspiring to work in the digital economy
• Partnerships with private sector companies to procure digital services (for instance web development, marketing, ICT management and solutions).
• Start-up building services, including business acceleration and incubation. The partner and ILO will explore the ILO business management and digitalization methodologies including the ILO Start and Improve Your Business (SIYB) and Digitize Your Business (DYB) methodologies.

Deliverable 5: At least 60% of the youth trained transition to wage or self-employment opportunities through Job placement and matching support services including through job networks and platforms, and startups support.

5. Monitoring and Evaluation: The implementing partner will work closely with the ILO and UNICEF to put in place monitoring mechanisms to assess the progress of the program and recommend changes or adaptations to overcome identified gaps. The partner will be required to evaluate on demand skills within the digital economy and advise any modality for adaptation, if need be, during the delivery. Requirements for reporting and for data collection, including beneficiary databases and post-training follow-up tracer survey to systematically track labour market outcomes following the completion of training activities, will be discussed with and supported by the ILO during the programme inception.

Deliverable 6: Reports and data on post-intervention outcomes of beneficiaries are available (as defined during the programme set-up with the ILO)

6. Reporting: ILO will require progressive reports from the implementing partner and will revolve around the success matrix set out during the beginning of this assignment.

3. Deliverables and duration

3.1 Key Deliverables

The main deliverables of this engagement are as below:

1. Deliverable-1 (1 month after signing the contract): Inception Report, which will outline the final intervention logic, partner mapping, identified learning pathways, and a detailed workplan.
2. Deliverable-2 (2 months after signing the contract): A digital skills training programme is available and validated by the ILO. Training materials are made in different formats, including with an adaptation for online and mobile training contents.
3. Deliverable-3 (3 months after signing the contract): Established partnerships with county governments, local NGOs, and community organizations to create a network of digital hubs to support for the training and co-working spaces. Target: Partnership with at least 20 digital hubs/co-working spaces.
4. Deliverable-4: At least 2,000 youth complete digital skills training, especially at intermediate and/or advanced digital skills training.
   1. Deliverable 4a (5 months after signing the contract): At least 2,000 youth enrol in digital skills training, especially at intermediate and/or advanced digital skills training.
   2. Deliverable 4b (10 months after signing the contract): At least 2,000 youth complete digital skills training, especially at intermediate and/or advanced digital skills training.
5. Deliverable 5 (12 months after signing the contract): At least 60% of the youth trained benefit from job placement/matching support services, including through job networks and digitally managed/online platforms and digitally enabled enterprises as follows;
   1. Deliverable 5a**:** At least 40% young people benefit from job placement/matching support services, including through job networks and digitally managed workforce groups
   2. Deliverable 5b**:** At least 20% youth benefits from start-up building support services
6. Deliverable 6 (15 months after signing the contract): Reports and data on post-intervention outcomes of beneficiaries are available (as defined during the programme inception with the ILO)

Deviations from these deliverables can occur according to the evolution of the assignment; however, any changes observed or anticipated should be consulted with the focal person at the ILO.

A comprehensive report will be documented showcasing the key activities done and areas of improvement for future collaborations.

4. Payment Terms

The ILO will only pay for services that have been performed and for deliverables that are successfully completed to the satisfaction of the ILO. The payments will be made according to the following schedule:

• The first payment of 30 per cent of the contract volume (or a maximum of USD 30,000 whichever sum is smaller) will be made upon signing of the contract and receipt of the invoice.
• In case the sum of the first payment is less than 30 per cent of the contract volume, the difference will be paid as part of the second payment subject to the receiving of deliverable 1 and deliverable 2 to the full satisfaction of the ILO and the submission of the invoice

Further payments will be made as follows. These payments can be requested individually or combined:

• A further payment of 30 percent of the contract volume will be made upon receipt of Deliverable 3 and Deliverable 4a to the full satisfaction of the ILO and the presentation of the invoice
• A further payment of 25 percent of the contract volume will be made upon receipt of Deliverable 4b and Deliverable 5a to the full satisfaction of the ILO and the presentation of the invoice
• A further and final payment of 15 percent of the contract volume will be made upon receipt of Deliverable 5b, and Deliverable 6 to the full satisfaction of the ILO and the presentation of the invoice

5. Staffing, Roles, and Reporting

ILO will require from time to time based on agreed timelines comprehensive reports to highlighting work done. Reports will be reviewed to ensure conformance with ILO operations before acceptance.

The implementing partner will report directly to the ILO Chief Technical Advisor. The ILO Kenya PROSPECTS team will offer technical support and will coordinate closely with the Regional Skills and Employment Specialist of PROSPECTS program, Skills Digitalization specialist at HQ, the Youth Employment Officer at the Regional Office for Africa and the Decent Work Skills specialist at Pretoria to facilitate mainstreaming and standardization of the approach across the project.

6. Specific Clauses

Throughout the course of this assignment, the implementing partner will report on a bi-weekly basis to the ILO for coordination and follow–up. All communication to other relevant stakeholders should be coordinated with the ILO. If it appears necessary to modify the tasks of work or exceed the time allocated, the implementing partner must discuss the circumstances with the ILO and obtain prior written approval. ILO may disclose the draft or final documents and/or any related information to any person and for any purpose the ILO may deem appropriate.

7. Required experience and qualifications

• The Implementing Partner, as an organization, should have at least 5 years of experience and a proven track-record in on demand digital curriculum development with the aim of creating digital labour workforce in Kenya preferably in refugee and displacement context.
• Experience in digitizing learning content so it is available in different platforms either online or offline.
• Sound knowledge of the current trends in the digital economy space with a key interest in skills development and market linkages.
• Experience in digital training delivery through different methodologies not limited to remote, in person and the use of users-friendly learning management system
• Should have a physical presence in Kenya with a good understanding of the areas of the assignment (Turkana and Garissa Counties, Kenya) and in good standing with statutory laws and regulations.
• Demonstrated success in managing partnerships with county governments, local organizations, including digital innovation hubs, NGOs, community-based organizations, and mentors platforms
• Vast network and knowledge of digital job providers and partners either on-platform or local with experience in placing graduated youths into the digital jobs providers platforms/networks and business opportunities.
• Knowledge of the local context, culture and language is an added advantage however official language within the area is English & Swahili – Knowledge in any other local dialect is a plus

For more information on the templates to used for the application, following the link below:

https://www.ilo.org/resource/vacancy-notice/prospects-kenya-enhancing-digital-skills-and-employment-opportunities-youth

[1] Quarterly-Labour-Force-Report-2020-Quarter-4.pdf (knbs.or.ke)

[2] Kenya Statistics Package – 31July24.xlsx (unhcr.org)

[3] ILO PROSPECTS in Kenya – at a glance | International Labour Organization