Call For Consultancy -Phase 2 Ecosystem Assessment – RTI International 54 views0 applications

Background and Overview

KYES is a five-year program funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by RTI International and a consortium of partners: International Rescue Committee (IRC), Synergies Strategic Group Advisors (SSG), Geopoll, Land O’ Lakes and Mckinsey & Company. The program aims at enhancing youth employment opportunities and the overall labor supply in focus geographic areas and sectors, through both wage employment and self-employment, for unemployed and underemployed youth (aged 18–35) who have not completed secondary education. The program is being implemented in 9 counties: Bungoma, Garissa, Kericho, Kwale, and Nairobi in Phase 1 (Years 1–2) and Kisii, Migori, Nyeri and West Pokot in Phase 2 (Years 3–5).

To this end, KYES has expanded its program to Phase two counties. KYES has expanded to the Phase 2 counties beginning October 2017, and one of the foundational activities to conduct a youth employment ecosystem assessment that will help in designing county specific program interventions, mapping of key resources and partners as well us understanding implications for implementing KYES activities in these counties. The program is currently sourcing for a consultant to carry out a quantitative ecosystem assessment in four target counties, as from 30^th October to 20^th December 2017.

Therefore, working with the Kenya Youth Employment and Skills Program (KYES), the consultant will collect and analyze primary and secondary data on labour market situation in two counties to produce two county-level Youth Employment Ecosystem Assessment reports. The counties of focus are Nyeri, Migori, Kisii and West Pokot.

KYES Ecosystem assessment

The main objective of the Youth Employment Ecosystem assessment is to gather and analyze data to develop an in-depth and specific understanding of the workforce situation in the target counties to inform the following program design questions:

Ecosystem Assessment Questions

• What is the existing landscape supporting youth to gain employment vocational/wage employment, enterprise/self-employment and agribusiness (on and off-farm) through improved technical and vocational skills participants?
• In the context of this landscape, what interventions should K-YES implement to increase employment opportunities (vocational/wage employment, enterprise/self-employment and agribusiness (on and off-farm) for KYES youth cohort?
• How should these interventions be designed to ensure demand-driven interventions that respond to the needs, assets, opportunities and challenges of key stakeholders: employers, youth, and employment skills providers, national and county governments?
• Which stakeholders should KYES work with and what are the potential areas of partnership?

Consultant Scope of Work

The consultant will perform the following activities:

1. Review all existing youth employment literature in the target counties, specifically; national and county government development plans, strategies, policies and program documents, development partner programs and strategies relevant to counties, National and county specific research employment, labor markets, value chain, economic growth, social protection and education among others
2. Support development and adaptation of data collection protocol and tools including surveys, key informant interview guides, Focus group discussion guides, stakeholder mapping tools, value chain and industry assessment tools, etc.
3. Conduct field work in two counties to collect data using finalized tools in two counties following agreed upon data collection protocol.
4. Create clean data sets, analyze data and present preliminary finding to KYES team and stakeholders
5. Develop final report (25 pages maximum) detailing findings, and program design recommendations and incorporating stakeholder inputs and feedback. KYES will provide report format.

Assessment Design, Methodology and field plan

The methodology will follow a model that KYES employed in similar Ecosystem assessments for Phase 1 counties. In consultation with KYES, the consultant will undertake the following tasks:

1) Identification of target respondents in business, retail, education, vocational training, agriculture/agribusiness sub-sectors, value chains, and geographic locations within the county.

2) Finalization of the development of data collection tools:

1. a) Economic and Labor Market Context
2. i) Data Collection Tools to determine:

• Sectors and value chains that include wage and or self-employment opportunities for the KYES youth cohort. Key areas where young people without secondary school education can initiate business activities with low entry barriers.
• Specific wage employment and self-employment opportunities, recruitment practices, minimum requirements for hiring entry level employees, and any gender differentials related to hiring young employees; use of incentives for employee training programs (on-the-job, apprenticeship, secondary schools, business night classes, etc.);
• Impact of county investment climate and current policy environment on business decisions to invest as well as hire/fire employees;
• The supply of and demand for skills in identified sectors along with identification of “Missing” skills and businesses that could be filled by the development of new youth skills development and enterprises creation

1. ii) Select of a representative sample of employers / business owners in the sub-sectors identified. Ideally, the sample will allow for meaningful comparison between different geographic areas within the county. The survey will target a cross section of enterprises (by sub-sector, size, and formal/informal status), interviewing a selection of human resources managers, project managers, executives, and business owners. National business and county specific directories and employer associations will be used to identify the business sample for formal enterprises. Informal enterprises will be captured using a separate methodology based on input from the consultant (simple random sampling of enterprises may be sufficient). The consultant together with KYES team will be responsible for the scheduling of in-person interviews and administering the labor market survey with selected employers and institutions.
2. b) Employment Support Services:
3. i) Development of a key informant interview guide to determine availability and capacity of service providers including training services, skills building services, career development services, employment information, market information, technical expertise, mentorship, apprenticeship etc. Assessment should consider quality, gaps, access barriers, and impact of policy/fiscal environment on education/training institutions.
4. ii) Selection of a small sample of key stakeholders (educational institutions, training and business development service providers, public sector officials, donor agency representatives) to investigate availability of relevant training/services in the county; scheduling and administration of in-person key informant interviews.

iii) Review the situation of vocational trainings in the county, key programs they offer and the status in terms of equipment, staffing, diversity of programmes, student population among others. Ultimately, the consultant will propose an initial shortlist of VTCs KYEs can work with in each county based on the economic situations, courses being offered, alignment with strategic sectors with high potential for employment and VTCs readiness.

1. c) Youth Assessment:
2. i) Develop data collection tools to collect data to determine the youth needs, priorities and perceptions and capture young people’s demographic information, youth perceptions of employment, skills obtainment and training needs, sub-sectors of interest, and perceived barriers to getting jobs or starting businesses in agriculture or other sectors.
3. ii) Selection of a representative sample of youth, ages 18-35, who have not completed high school education and are either unemployed or underemployed in each of the counties.

iii) Field work: Administration of the youth survey and focus group discussions.

Deliverables

The consultant will be responsible for the following deliverables:

1. An inception Report containing

1. Sampling methodologies for the county youth employment ecosystem assessment
2. Survey instruments, key informant interview guide in English and Kiswahili

1. Interim County Youth Employment report and PowerPoint slides in English
2. Draft and final versions of written assessment report (in English) that includes findings from the literature review and primary data collection in the field. At the minimum, the report should include the following:

1. a) County context, research questions, and methodology;
2. b) Findings from the literature and field assessments;
3. c) Conclusions and recommendations;
4. d) Implication of the Findings to KYES Program design
5. e) Relevant annexes such as:

• Mapping of existing, relevant training/service providers;
• List of all interviewees and FGD participants.

1. Electronic copies of all assessment instruments.
2. Electronic copy of all new data collected. Original copies of all completed surveys.
3. Recordings/notes from all interviews.
4. PowerPoint slides of the report and presentation of the findings in the KYES County Validation and Program Launch meetings.

Level of Effort (LOE)

The consultant will be expected to conduct an assessment in one county. The Consultant will work together with respective KYES focal county coordinators as well as technical leads. The county coordinators will support in coordination and logistics during the field work and the technical leads will provide technical backstopping on their respective areas. The entire assignment will take a total of 20 LOE days broken down as follows;

• Inception Report ,Literature review and tools development – 4 days
• Field work – 7 days including 2 travel days
• Data analysis and Report writing – 5 days for each county
• Presentation during validation workshop – 2 days including travel
• Finalization of report – 2 days
• Total LOE – 20 days

Estimated Timetable (subject to change)

Deadline for submission of Inception Report

November 3, 2017

Review of Secondary literature and tools development and refinement

November 8, 2017

Finalize Data tools

November 10, 2017

Launch field work

November 13, 2017

Interim County Ecosystems reports

November 29, 2017

County Validation Workshops Presentations

December 4 -11, 2017

Final report due

December 18, 2017

Expected profile of the Consultant

• Have an advanced degree and experience in Social Sciences, project management, Social protection programming and evaluation, or development evaluation.
• Demonstrable experience and expertise in leading assessments workforce development, youth empowerment and organizational development in developing countries
• Ability to facilitate and relate to stakeholders at multiple levels (e.g. Private sector, Government, staff, youth etc.)
• Strong analytical skills and ability to clearly synthesize and present findings, draw practical conclusions, make recommendations and to prepare well-written reports in a timely manner;
• Experience in qualitative data collection and analysis techniques, especially in youth employment programmes;
• Excellent working knowledge of Kiswahili and with rural communities in Kenya
• Proven ability to conduct field studies and to write clear and concise research reports in English. List of publications and previous assessments will be required.
• Good interpersonal skills and understanding cultural sensitivities.

Evaluation and award of consultancy

KYES will evaluate the proposals and award the assignment based on technical and financial feasibility. KYES reserves the right to accept or reject any proposal received without giving reasons and is not bound to accept the lowest or the highest bidder. Only those shortlisted will be contacted.

How to apply:

Application process

All applications should be sent to [email protected]. Applications should be submitted no later than 27^th October 2017. All applicants must meet the minimum requirements described above. Only short listed individual candidates will be contacted. RTI is an equal opportunity employer.

Each application should include the following:

• CV (s) with details of qualifications, experience, telephone number and names of three referees (preferably those having worked for in similar assignments);
• Technical proposal that summarizes your understanding of the TOR and proposed methodology;
• Financial proposal providing estimates of all assessment costs including daily consultancy fees in Kshs. Daily consulting rate is negotiable, although should be commensurate to RTI consultancy terms and standards; and
• The foreseen work plan for the days.

NB: Applications not including all of the above information will not be reviewed.