Gender sensitive Labor Market Assessment

1. BACKGROUND

Asmae-Association Soeur Emmanuelle ("Asmae") is a French international NGO and registered charity, specialised in the education and protection of vulnerable children. Independent, secular and apolitical, it is open to all. Founded in 1980 by Sister Emmanuelle, based on her experience with rag pickers in the slums of Cairo, Asmae continues its actions in line with the values and methods inherited from its founder: listening and proximity, pragmatism, taking account of differences, professionalism and reciprocity. Asmae's actions aims to support vulnerable children and their families through personalised and continuing support for local actors working in the fields of education and child protection.

Nabaa has been a registered independent NGO (License number 104/AD) since 2001, before when we were part of the program of Save the Children UK in Lebanon targeting Palestinian refugees. However, SC-UK is still today one important and valued program funder and partner of ours. Contributing to our 2009 income up to 1 127 544 USD, these furthermore include: AECID, ECHO, Netherlands Embassy, Karim Rida Said Foundation, MAP, Movement for Peace, Palestinian Group Solidarity, Save the Children Sweden, Terre des Hommes Italy or UNICEF. Our projects take place throughout all Lebanon within several communities within the Palestinian refugee camps and unregistered gatherings. Such an implantation requires a solid organization among our 74 employees, 12 of whom are actually local volunteers. Internal management structures and capacities are always being reviewed to be sure we properly meet our scope of actions and efficiently manage our integrated community approach.

Farah Social Foundation (FSF): Farah Social Foundation is a non-governmental and nonprofit organization, committed to the International human rights law and International humanitarian law and abides by their provisions; founded in 1988 and registered in Lebanon under number 320/20. Farah supports best practice in community development and is recognized by the Lebanese Government as a national NGO for community development Socio-Economic level. Contributing to the development of community on a social and economic level, especially the disadvantaged. Working to eradicate poverty and empower individuals to participate in the development of themselves and their communities.

2. Project Description

Project Location: Beirut (Areas affected by Beirut Blast)

Country: Lebanon

Project Calendar:

Project duration: 36 months

Start Date: January 1st, 2022

End Date: December 31st, 2024

The overall objective is to improve psycho socio-economic situation of youth affected by Beirut blasts by supporting and strengthening the capacities of two local partners.

Specific Objectives:

• Fostering better socio-economic opportunities for youth affected by Beirut blasts through skills development
• Ensuring youth are protected by providing psychosocial support and enhancing youth`s life skills.
• Strengthening the organizational and technical capacities of two local civil society organizations

The project adopts a series of diverse yet coherent activities that include:

1-         Activities related to youth employment:

A-        Youth skills:

-           Gender-sensitive youth needs and labour market assessment

-           Identification and selection of 270 youth

-           Implementation of 6 vocational trainings (3 per year)

-           Capacity to lead initiative and campaigns

-          

B-        Incomes generation:

-           Facilitation of 2 entrepreneurship trainings for 165 youth

-           Provision of support to start a business (seed fund and mentoring, or business kits)

-           Linking 105 trainees to 2-month on-job training, follow-up and support to access job opportunities

2-         Activities related to youth protection:

A-        PSS:

-           Facilitation of psychosocial training sessions to youth using DEAL curriculum

-           Individual psychosocial support: identification of youth in need for more support, referral (internal & external), individual sessions with psychologists and other relevant professionals

-           Youth-led awareness-raising activities (including building the capacities of 20 youth prior to this)

B-        Life skills:

-           Facilitation of 9 half-days life skills session on positive leadership

-           Facilitation of 9 half-days life skills session on positive team building

-           Facilitation of 9 half-days life skills session on positive employability

3-         Activities related to capacity building:

A-        Technical:

-           Technical capacity-building on vocational training and education (needs assessment, development of a plan, implementation and evaluation) for both partners

-           Technical capacity-building on protection and gender mainstreaming (needs assessment, development of a plan, implementation and evaluation) for both partners

-           Coordination, referral and sharing between both partners (including the development of a referral mechanism between partners and other actors, training by Naba’a on complaint mechanism, etc.).

B-        Organizational:

-           Conduct of a full organizational capacity assessment for Farah Social Foundation

-           Participatory development of Farah Social Foundation’s organizational capacity-building plan

-           Implementation and evaluation of the capacity-building plan

3. OVERVIEW AND OBJECTIVES

Vulnerable youth often have limited access and awareness of safe and decent employment opportunities which can further hinder their ability to set long-term goals and meet their psychosocial and economic needs. To better support young people to identify and access these opportunities, Asmae, Nabaa and FSF aim to provide additional guidance and support through conducting a a gender sensitive labour market assessment (LMA) as part of the YEP program.

The LMA will be conducted at the beginning of the programme to understand the demand side of Beirut labor market and youth aspiration for life and career respectively for young women and young men, the findings of the study will lead to better know the sector of employment for youth and to include in the VT curriculum the necessary trainings for getting the skills and knowledge required by the labor market, as well as  the aspiration of the youth

This LMA, in addition to creating linkages with key stakeholders and market actors, will provide the youth with an understanding labour market demands for skills needed in the market, both technical and transferable.

Results of the LMA will be shared with Vocational Training Providers (VTPs) and employment agencies openly to inform their services are demand driven also across the humanitarian actors.

4. Methodology

The first part of the study will explore the labor market by visiting selected hiring entities, stakeholders, potential employers, SMEs and other industries, the number of entities to be selected in each area will be agreed between Asmae and the consultancy firm.

The following highlights the expectations from this section of the study:

1. Identify potential employers in the study area
2. Assess the labor market demand and skills requirements
3. Provide detailed analysis in the study area  taking into consideration the gender sensitivity and gender policies  (Is the sector / company, etc. more “male” or “female” (in terms of social perception as well as objectively, in terms of number of male / female staff)? If it is a male / female sector, what’s the situation of staff from the opposite sex (not only salary or type of contract but also in terms of working conditions and environment)? Are there anything set up for child care? What’s the policy of working from home? What’s the policy for maternity leave? And paternity leave? If there are many more female staff or male staff, what does explain this situation? Is there any policy / any measures set up by the employer to promote more balance / mixity?... Do we anticipate any issues at the recruitment process (female candidate not being recruited in a male sector, etc.)? What’s the perceptions of female/male applicants, female/male staff by the employer? Are there any policies to fight against any discrimination in the company? To prevent and respond to GBV?)
4. Identify possible job creation sector in each area.
5. identify the average wage scales and type of contact provided by each sector, and has there any differences between men and women’s average scales? If so, how can this be explained?
6. Identify workers and skills in high demand by the industry, and what are the opportunity of creating employment for young women, young men displaced people, people with disabilities, to ensure inclusive job creation
7. Produce explorative report on gender sensitive labor market assessment analyzing all the above market conditions. And providing gender-disaggregated data as well as analysis for any gaps

The second part of the study focus on youth aspiration, under this part the following deliverables are expected:

1. Perception, challenges and opportunities for unemployed young men and young women, this analysis should be gender-disaggregated with FGDs that are only men/ women in Beirut area
2. Characterization and mapping of young women’s and men’s aspiration, challenges in getting employed by gender, disability level, nationality and age range.
3. Assess barriers of employment, skills and knowledge, financial situation, social network, discouraging and encouraging factor for employment respectively for young women and young men (lack of startup capital, lack of skills required, lack of training opportunities, legal framework, policies, soft skills, access to market, social barriers / norms, child marriage, early parenting, …)
4. Highlight how the challenges differ among different youth, women, men, girls, boys, PwD, refuges and host communities.
5. Assess the labor market conditions for young women, young men, women, people with disabilities, refugees and current level of barriers to employment in the host community.
6. Identify the needs of the young women and young men to start sustainable profitable jobs

Finally the assignment will provide comprehensive recommendations, including recommendations to deal with gender stakes that have been identified based on the finding of the Labor Market Assessment from the industries side and the young women’s and young men’s aspirations assessment from randomly selected unemployed young women and young men. The findings will be used to guide the program operations. To identify the skills in high demand from demand side, and preferred by the young men and young women to diversify the vocational training in areas where the intervention brings higher impact, and propose the intervention to meet to demand challenges in employment landscape taking gender sensitivity into consideration.

5. Tasks and expected deriverables

Deliverable

Timeline

Kick-off meeting with Asmae, Nabaa and FSF to establish understanding of the scope of the assignment

1 day

Inception report including detailed planned study

3 days

Design of assessment methodology and tools for data collection

3 days

Data collection including meetings with stakeholders and providing updates to Asmae FP

5 days

Data analysis and draft preliminary report with recommendation

5 days

Meeting / workshop to present recommendations and validation of inputs

1 day

Draft final report including with decent design including graphs, photographs and notes where needed

3 days

Second version of final report after HQ revision

1 day

Prepare summary report to be established among relevant stakeholders

1 day

6. Qualifications

This is a freelance post for individuals or companies with the below minimum requirements:

• hold a degree in business, Social sciences, or any other related field;
• Minimum of 5 years in local community development work;
• Minimum of 5 years in design research;
• Proven track record of successful work in similar field;
• Experience working with youth and livelihoods an gender programming
• Professionalism in dealing with a wide range of possible stakeholders;
• Understanding of Cultural sensitivities especially in the refugee’s camps taking into consideration the gender sensitivity.
• Fluency in Arabic and English language skills: Written skills - reporting writing.
• Adherence to deadlines;