Introduction

Save the Children is implementing “East African Migration Routes” project. The project is a 10-year initiative funded by Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) with the overall goal for the countries along the East African Migration Routes to have child-protection policies and adequate organizational capacities to ensure protection and enable self-reliance of children and youth in vulnerable displacement situations. The initiative is divided into 4 phases: Inception phase; First implementation phase; Second implementation phase; and Consolidation and phasing out phase. During the 4 initial years, the project will start its activities mainly from the main urban hubs in Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan (Addis Ababa, Cairo and Khartoum).

The 25 months Inception Phase (2019-2021) was concluded in March 2021 and was focused mainly on piloting test activities, developing detailed project proposal for the new phase, establishing baselines, and conducting four key research/study outputs:

–          Conflict sensitivity audit of planned intervention strategy

–          Mapping of existing child protection initiatives and partners

–          Study on gender in displacement situations

–          Political economy analysis of migrant flows

Summaries of the studies are available for external use using the links above.

The 34 months First Implementation Phase (2021-2024) of the project – building on the Inception Phase – has four main Outcomes:

1. Children and youth in vulnerable situations have their rights respected and possess sound self-reliance capacities that allow them to improve their life perspectives.
2. National and community organizations provide effective protection and life self-reliance support services for children and youth.
3. Migration policies and strategies are inclusive and needs focused, addressing the vulnerabilities of children and youth through holistic protection protocols and treating support for self-reliance as integral part of protection.
4. Switzerland profiles itself as a champion for the protection of children and youth in vulnerable displacement situations and promotes the corresponding agendas in national and regional coordination and policy fora.

The First Implementation Phase has been launched on the 1^st of April 2021, which focused on protection and self-reliance of children and youth in vulnerable displacement situations in three countries: Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan. This opportunity constitutes a key deliverable: labor and enterprise market assessment. For the Ethiopia program, target geographies for this assignment will be in Addis Ababa.

The project will target vulnerable children, defined as under 18 years of age, and youth, defined as 15-24 years of age, on the move. Specific attention will be given to migrant children and youth who are often the most vulnerable to abuse and exploitation.  That include hard to reach migrant children and youth (including those potentially to engage in risky onward/ cross boarder irregular migration), unaccompanied, unregistered, migrant children and youth living and/or involved in street work, trafficked children and youth; refugee children and youth who are at high risk of or engaged in risking onward migration (crossing boarders). Save the Children will use the term ‘children and youth on the move’ which is defined as “children or youth moving for a variety of reasons, voluntarily or involuntarily, within or between countries, with or without their parents or other primary caregivers, and whose movement, while it may open up opportunities, might also place them at risk (or at an increased risk) of economic or sexual exploitation, abuse, neglect and violence”.

The overall all aim of the assessment is to inform and influence workforce development and employability activities such as providing concrete information about market opportunities; determining which trainings will provide job seeker with skills being sought after by local employers; enabling key stakeholders such as local government, private sectors and NGO communities, to coordinate efforts in addressing constraints in the labor market; and to have better understanding of the skills employers are seeking, as well as mechanisms for finding work.

objective and Scope of the study

The main objective of the assessment is to provide a comprehensive and detailed analysis about the current and future employment opportunities and constraints, and serves as a basis for analysing the areas of the economy that generate more jobs in order to enable us to further sharpen the approaches to holistic youth skills formation, financial inclusion, targeted business, and expansion of value chain inputs, outputs and services.

Methodology

The overall methodology should be participatory, inclusive (gender, age, disability, migration status and other vulnerability to be considered), sensitive of social norms and practices, and should follow ethical data collection (safety, informed consent, etc.).

The labor and enterprise market assessment methodology shall utilize both qualitative and quantitative approach to address study objectives; and triangulation of secondary and primary data sources, as well as will rely on multiple methods. The secondary data sources will involve both internal as well as external resources, including national data, reports by different NGOs, academia, grey literature, etc., in order to carry out comprehensive literature review which will help in understanding the context as well as will help in triangulating the data.

The consultant will develop detail and quality proposal indicating the methodology that will be used. The proposal should be designed in participatory and youth friendly research methodology that extensively involve adolescent and youth to have a substantial contribution in grasping their perspectives/experiences. In addition to this, the study should give equal attention to the perspective of public and private organization. In line with that, the consultant is expected to deliver among others the following:

• Study design: Develop and utilize appropriate study design to address the objectives of the assessment. Clearly outline the proposed methodology and/or approach expected to be employed including the use of primary data or review and analysis of relevant secondary data sources.

·      Study setting:  Addis Ababa; four sub-cities will be part of the study.

·      Study population: The survey will focus on (i) migrant adolescent and youth: Most vulnerable migrant youth (female and male) and other most vulnerable adolescent and youth from the host community between 14 to 24 years; (ii) out of camp refugees; and (iii) Ethiopian migrants (mainly rural to urban migrants) who are highly to migrate across the border and returnees; (iv) enabling environments for example labour policy, wage rate, work environment, access to labour market information, business licensing, documentation/ID, etc; (v) dropped out youth from business both from host and migrant community; and (iv) relevant key stakeholders at the federal, Addis Ababa City Administration and Sub city/Woreda level: entrepreneurs, new business ventures, active business owners, sectors working on BDS support and market linkage, TVETs, MFIs, etc, among others.

• Circumstances from the SS (job seekers) side, potential employers side (DD) and supporting systems/ enabling environments and barriers from both sides.

·      Sampling technique: The consultant should propose a feasible sampling technique to ensure the representation of the study areas and the study population groups. The consulting firm will develop appropriate data collection tools to match with the study objectives identified above.

·      Employ acceptable analytical methods on data collected; ensure that the data collection methods can be repeated in the future.

·      The possible options for use in the assessment should include Save the Children global Labour Market Assessment tool and guiding questions

The assessment should provide disaggregated analysis of wage and self-employment services and gaps, and related recommendations in terms of including location, gender, age, and migration status.

• Gender:  It is important to ensure that gender lens is considered across the outputs of the assessment.  That include in the design of the methodology, ensure that the assessment clearly considers these differences as it identifies actors and activities, and identify and analysis gender implications of service gaps and shortcomings of the existing system and services, recognizing differences and challenges that male and female adolescents and youth are facing
• Age: The report should provide age disaggregated analysis in line of the different age groups (adolescent and youth), and specifically looking at the mapped actors and their activities with reference to the age groups they target.
• Dropped out and active wage employed youth (male female): This need to be considered and analysed taking youth that are from formal and informal businesses/employers.
• Migration status:  The report should provide disaggregated analysis by migration status (internal migrants, returnees, refugees) considering their areas of business engagement, income status and barriers etc…

Adolescent and youth participation

Adolescents and youth are among the key target groups of the project and the mapping/ assessment should include some direct input from adolescent and youth, including those internal migrants, returnee, refugee, and highly vulnerable adolescent and youth in high out migration communities.  That could be done in the form of focus group discussion or having a consultation meeting with child and youth led structures.

Ethical consideration and child safeguarding

Ethical and safeguarding considerations must be taken into account during all stages of the research (including data collection, handling of data and analysis), avoiding causing harm to children, youth and their caretakers. Ensuring that children are protected in all activities undertaken or funded by Save the Children is fundamental. Any participation of children, especially given the possible sensitivity of their migration status, must follow Save the Children’s Child-Safeguarding Policy and standards. For research activities, this includes the submission and approval of an ethical protocol outlining the participation of children and their safe-guarding (including minimum standards, such as consent and confidentiality).

Although the aim is to be as participatory as possible, children and youth are under no obligation to participate in any of the research activities and they will need to be assured that there will be no negative consequences if they choose not to participate. During primary data collection, the consultant needs to ensure participants’ anonymity and confidentiality, as well as assuring them that the data collected is protected and will be used for agreed purposes only.

deliverables and timeline

As part of both phase I and II, the consultancy assignment is expected to produce four deliverables (inception report and methodology, data collection tools and techniques, draft report and final report). The inception report, methodology and data collection tools should be reviewed and approved following a technical consultation meeting involving key staff from SCI. The draft report should be reviewed and presented to relevant stakeholders from the study sites.

Progress updates shall be provided every two weeks throughout the implementation of the study to Livelihood Advisor and Sr. Programme Manager, more frequent updates will be expected during data collection; once in a week to the minimum.

Phase 1:

Responsibilities of consulting firm

Based on the background information and purpose of the labor and enterprise market assessment provided above, the consulting firm shall:

Develop technical proposal for the study:

• Attend briefing on the Save the Children Child Safe Guarding Policy and Code of Conduct, The Consultant shall sign the code of conduct and adhere to it.
• Review extensively the ToR and all the relevant project documents that will be shared by Save the Children.
• Brief introduction and objectives of the study
• Detail methodology on the study design on how to carry out the proposed assessment in line of the details presented in the ToR
• Indicate the sampling frame, sampling techniques and determine sample size.
• Data collection procedures and data collection tools
• Quality assurances

Carry out the field work:

• Responsible for translating the data collection tool into local language possibly Amharic
• Train data collectors on the data collection tools
• Pilot/pretest the data collection tools in selected sites and adjust the data collection tools accordingly
• Deploy data collectors and supervisors to the study sites
• Carry out data entry, data coding, data transcription, data cleaning and analysis and interpretation
•  Prepare and submit comprehensive, coherent, well-structured first draft report of the assessment to SC.
• Present the result in the consultation workshops to stakeholders
• Submit the final assessment report including an executive SCI-Country Office, hard copies and a soft copy in CD-Room along with the raw data, and the database.
• Provide the necessary project documents for the consultant
• Facilitate induction session on the Save the Children child safeguarding policy and code of conduct for the consultant team
• Provide timely comments/feedback on the proposal and approve the study design and tools
• Provide timely and comprehensive comments/feedback to the assessment outputs and reports across the study process
• Organize review/ validation meeting for the labor market report with Save the Children technical staff and other key stakeholders engaged in the study to secure feedback
• Ensure that the comments/feedback given on the draft report are fully incorporated in the final report
• Facilitate payments of the service as per the contract agreement and on accomplishment of the task according to the service agreement.

Required qualifications and experience of The labor market assessment team

The consulting firm to be contracted is expected to bring together a balanced level of national expertise relevant for the assignment. Team members should have proven expertise on labor/enterprise market assessment, and strong experience of conducting research with active participation of adolescent and youth. In addition to this, team members should be experienced in participatory methods, qualitative and qualitative research, working with local communities, and in data collection and analysis.

The following are requirements for the team members of the consulting firm:

–       Advanced degree (Masters or PhD) in relevant social science field of study, preferably Economics (Labour Economics), rural development, agricultural economics, entrepreneurship, Development Studies/Business Management, sociology, and social work

–       A minimum of 5 years of practical work experience in labour/enterprise market assessment in urban/semi urban contexts from both the DD and SS side and supportive environments.

–       Proven research and economic analysis experience in area of national and regional strategies and polices on youth livelihoods and workforce development.

–       Experience working in most vulnerable population: migrant and refugee children, adolescent and youth; and good understanding of migration issues, trends its cause and consequences

–       Experience in training and mentoring of qualitative researchers and enumerators.

–       Good analytical skills and report writing experiences to international and national organizations

–       Demonstrated understanding of youth workforce development and readiness, labour market dynamics, entrepreneurship and enterprise and value chain and livelihoods sector.

terms of payment

·         30% of the total amount shall be paid upon signing of the contractual agreement.

·         40% shall be paid up on submission of the draft report, both in hard and soft copies

·         30% shall be paid after submission of the final report both in hard and soft copies.

Evaluation criteria

The technical proposal weighs 60 %.  Technical proposal that scored 50% and above out of 60% will be qualified for financial evaluation. Each criterion has its description as well as value as follows:

 I. Understanding of the ToR (8)

This criterion will cover the consultant’s understanding and reflection on the terms of reference. It considers how deep the consultant understood the work including the scope? How such understanding is explained and linked with the subsequent criteria (e.g., with the approach/methodology, team composition, etc.).  How consistent is the understanding of the ToR reflected in the various sections of the technical proposal?

II. Experience of the Firm in related work (15)

This captures the experiences of the consultant in terms of having specific and hands-on experience on undertaking and applying the assessment tools, conducting similar livelihood and employment opportunities mapping, analysing the labour demand and supply patterns, assessing institutions of private, public and CSOs and their interface, factors influencing the job market, experience on value chain trends and market opportunities etc…

III. Professional team composition and qualifications (8)

The consultancy assignment requires qualified team members who possess Minimum Master’s Degree in Development Economics/economics, business management, development studies and related fields, from a recognized institution and has a team composition of similar backgrounds and related experiences with particular focus on migrant/people with high risk of migration and displaced people is highly desirable. Qualification without proper experience and team composition will result rejection of the technical proposal or very low score.

IV. Methodology (25)

The consultancy firm should clearly describe its choice of approach for the various objectives and scope of works, and with good justification for the choice of methods/tools or design to exactly meet the objectives in clear and coherent way.  The consultant would do generic presentation of the assessment methodology tools and techniques expected to apply to deliver the results expected.

NB: proposing approaches without linking with the objectives and scope of work will result in very low scores. Hence, the technical proposal shall be reviewed with distinct and relevant approaches as per each of the objectives.

 V.        Time frame/Work plan (4)

The assumption is to come up with feasible and cost effective approach as per the time frame suggested in this ToR.  The consultant is encouraged to follow on the proposed timeframe though it is open for feedback.

VI.      Financial application weights 40%

The benchmark for those who could pass to the next level of screening (financial bid) shall be 40%.