Terms of Reference – Service Providers

Background

The world is witnessing the highest levels of displacement on record. In recent years, forced displacement has increased in scale and complexity. According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), in 2019 there were over 79.5 million forcibly displaced persons, of whom 30.2 million were refugees and asylum-seekers. Eighty-four percent of the world’s displaced are in developing countries and more than half are women. As displacement has become increasingly protracted, responses are focusing more on durable solutions backed by more dignified, inclusive and comprehensive programmes for refugees and
the communities that host them. The aim is to enhance self-reliance, facilitate empowerment and strengthen social cohesion.
These responses need to be rapidly consolidated through significant international support built on a foundation of robust and effective partnerships that maximize synergies and leverage comparative advantages. With this in mind, a new Partnership for improving prospects for forcibly displaced persons and host communities (PROSPECTS) has been formed.
The Partnership is spearheaded by the Government of the Netherlands and 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. PROSPECTS is targeting forced displacement situations in eight countries in East and North Africa and the Arab States: Egypt, Ethiopia, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Sudan and Uganda.
The Partnership is the concrete expression of the consensus that has emerged around the need for displaced persons and host communities to enjoy enhanced economic opportunities and for children on the move to have effective and inclusive access to protection and education (New York Declaration, 2016). Benefiting from a four-year time horizon (2019–2023) and financially supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, the Partners, together with national and local institutions, will join efforts to develop a new paradigm in responding to forced displacement crises, particularly through the involvement of development actors.
The Partnership hopes to transform the way governments and other stakeholders, including the social partners and the private sector, respond to forced displacement crises, by:
• fostering an enabling environment for socio-economic inclusion;
• improving access to education and protection for vulnerable children on the move; and
• strengthening the resilience of host communities.

The Partnership will also be grounded in results-based and country-led approaches. It aims to develop and implement evidence-based solutions, tailored to each context, as well as to test and learn from innovative operational solutions. The Partnership focuses on three critical areas of intervention that enable forcibly displaced persons to overcome their specific vulnerabilities and host communities to pursue their own development efforts in transformed environments. These are: education and learning; employment with dignity; and protection and inclusion.

In this partnership, ILO brings significant expertise and experience in supporting enabling environments to underpin inclusive socio-economic growth and decent work, strengthen labour markets and promote access to improved working conditions and fundamental rights at work, including through the involvement of its tripartite national constituents. The ILO stimulates labour market demand and immediate job creation through employment-intensive investment, local economic and business development and promotion of specific value chains and market systems. It provides targeted support to labour market institutions, services and compliance and monitoring mechanisms that facilitate the integration of refugees into the labour market in accordance with its strong normative foundation of international labour standards. The ILO brings also expertise on technical and vocational education and training and on the recognition of prior
learning for certifying the skills of refugees to better ensure access to the labour market, and methods for assessing labour market demand to provide the right skills to refugees needed by employers.

To ensure coherent and mutually reinforcing action, the ILO connects its work under each of the three pillars through cross-cutting interventions implemented in close coordination, collaboration and complementarity with the other Partners.

Lebanon Context

The current unstable situation in Lebanon is impacting at nationwide level, but in particular women, girls, men and boys who are socio-economically vulnerable in both Lebanese and refugee communities. Since October 17, 2019, a serial of civil protests took place to demand political changes and the resignation of the government triggered by planned increase of taxes on services and products such as communication, gasoline, etc. This led to the Prime Minister’s resignation, and in January 2020 a new government took office who has approved the 2020 budget. The economic situation in Lebanon however continues to deteriorate, which is impacting the Lebanese population and in effect also Lebanon’s ability to host 1.5 million refugees. While the economic crisis had already led to high levels of inflation, job loss and increased vulnerabilities and protection risks for the most vulnerable sections of the population, the COVID-19
outbreak and the preventative measures undertaken to slow the pandemic is further battering the economy and exacerbating economic and social vulnerabilities, as well as drastically increasing basic survival needs for the most vulnerable, including single mothers, children, youth, elderly, and people with disabilities.

Lebanon has been at the forefront of one of the worst humanitarian crises of current times: the Syrian crisis. According to the Lebanese government estimates and the Lebanon Crisis Response Plan 2017-2020 (LCRP), up to 1.5 million Syrian refugees are currently hosted in Lebanon, equivalent to a quarter of the Lebanese population. With the highest per capita concentration of refugees in the world, Lebanon’s social stability in many municipalities is fragile as large numbers of people increase pressure on already stretched services, infrastructure and jobs. According to the 2019 Vulnerability Assessment of Syrian Refugees (VaSyR), for which data was collected in April 2019, 73% of the Syrian refugee families are living under the poverty line and 55% under the extreme poverty line; 88 % of Syrian refugees have an average debt of USD 1,115 per household. In addition, 31% of refugee children of primary school age (56% of refugee
children with disabilities) and 4% of Lebanese children aged 6-14 remain out of school (with dropout spiking up at age 12-13 and escalating after); and approximately 7% of Lebanese and Syrian children continue to engage in child labour.

Even prior to 2011, economic growth did not translate into sufficient job creation, with an average of 23,000 new entrants to the labor market annually between 2004 and 2007, while formal job creation was just one-sixth this level. In addition, job creation has been concentrated in low-productivity, low-skilled activities. In 2010, prior to the influx of refugees, already half of the Lebanese labour force worked in the informal economy. It is estimated that up to 44% of Lebanon’s tertiary education population has migrated abroad. According to Lebanon’s 2019 Labour Force and Living Conditions Survey (LFLCS), the overall unemployment rate (amongst Lebanese and non-Lebanese residents) was estimated at 11.4%, with 14.3% unemployment rate for women compared to 10% for men, and 23.3% for youth). The multiple and compounding crisis have only further worsened these figures. According to a rapid survey undertaken by InfoPro, it is estimated that more than 200,000 jobs have been temporarily or permanently lost since October 2019. In addition, about a third of firms had “temporarily” reduced their employees’ salaries– by an estimated 40% on average. One third of companies reduced their workforce by 60% on average and 12% have ceased or suspended their operations.

Employment in Micro, Small and Medium sized Enterprises makes up a small, but not insignificant proportion of local employment opportunities in Lebanon. Over 90% of enterprises currently active in Lebanon can be categorized as SMEs (firms with 10 or fewer employees). The large majority of SME owners are Lebanese, as Syrian’s ability to legally run their own business is constrained by residency requirements. Syrians are more heavily represented as SME employees, although often informally. About twothirds of the start-ups surveyed by the World Bank in Beirut reported hiring at least one employee. Women SME owners tend to run a larger proportion of home-based businesses, while men are more heavily represented as owners of medium sized entreprises- three-quarters of the home-based businesses were owned by women based on a rapid assessment of COVID-19 impacts on workers and enterprises.

One pressing constraints for SMEs further growth is lack of access to finance and financial inclusion for SMEs. As of 2017, 45% of adults in Lebanon held an account at a financial institution, with a 24-point gap between men and women and a similar gap between rich and poor (World Bank Group 2017). Without financial capital, constraints to business registration and the provision of decent work for employees is further undermined.

Most vulnerable workers in the informal economy (agricultural workers, seasonal workers, part-time workers, and the self-employed) are excluded from the national contributory system of the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) and only minimum protection is extended to migrant workers. Moreover, the NSSF does not provide adequate coverage in case of retirement or unemployment. A fragmented social health insurance also leads to significant coverage gaps and inefficiencies. Persons with disabilities face significant barriers from accessing contributory and non-contributory
social protection intervention and basic services.

Against this backdrop, the PROSPECTS partnership in Lebanon works through the three PROSPECTS pillars (education, employment and protection) to influence the desired change for more sustainable livelihoods for host communities and forcibly displaced persons. Under the education pillar, ILO PROSPECTS Lebanon focuses on supporting improvements to the quality of training, which will ultimately provide training opportunities for the target population to develop occupation-relevant skills. Under the employment pillar, the overall objective is to enhance access decent jobs. This is approached through interventions that target enterprise development, access to finance and employment services. Under the protection pillar, ILO PROSPECTS Lebanon contributes to the reform of the Social Protection system in the country, in order to extend coverage and services to all population groups, in particular vulnerable Lebanese, refugees and migrants. The ILO focus its interventions on North Lebanon, Beqaa and Akkar.

Objectives

The consultancy entitled, “The National Policy, Legislative and Regulatory Frameworks and Practice Review”, aims to establish baseline situations in Egypt, Ethiopia, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Sudan and Uganda, in the area of relevant policy, legislative and regulatory frameworks and current practice in terms of implementation in relation to the access of refugees to the labour markets, employment, livelihood and training opportunities, including self-employment and business development. This will provide ILO PROSPECTS programme teams a clear understanding of the current status (or not) of these frameworks and how they are being applied (or not).

Before the Partnership can begin planning its interventions around policy advocacy and supporting government and other efforts to develop or reform relevant frameworks on access to education and training, active labour market programmes, the right to work and rights at work, including social security and protection and freedom of association, an understanding of the current political, legal, and regulatory environment in regards to those with refugee status is required for each of the targeted countries.

Importantly, it will also provide a comparison on national policies and legislation against what actually happens in practice thereby revealing the capacities and abilities of government ministries, institutions, social partners and non-government actors to enact and implement and inform further capacity-building interventions.

Specific Objectives

The consultant, in close collaboration with and under the technical supervision of IMPACT Initiatives, an NGO with expertise in designing and conducting research for actors in the humanitarian and development sector, will be required to:

• Identify relevant policies, legislation and regulations and analyse them in regards to the refugees’ access to employment, livelihood, and training opportunities, and to rights at work.
• Identify and review literature and secondary data sources on policy, legislation and regulations, and assess their actual implementation on the ground, thereby avoiding duplication of existing legal reviews and studies and leveraging these sources where relevant.
• Conduct a Gap Analysis against the assessment framework that highlights implementation gaps, and needs and expectations.
• Conduct key informant interviews of identified national (national and governorate level) and international actors to assess the practical application of policy, legislative and regulatory frameworks and identify challenges that will need to be addressed.
• Conduct KI interviews with refugees and host communities, and also focus group discussions in North Lebanon, Beqaa and Akkar, to better assess knowledge and understanding of these policy, legislative and regulatory frameworks.
• Conduct validation exercises to ensure the establishment of key recommendations going forward in terms of identifying gaps and challenges that can be addressed through the PROSPECTS and related programmes, including policy advocacy and supporting either policy, legislation and regulatory development and/or reform as appropriate.
• Develop Lebanon country level report that summarize the main findings and possible recommendations for the PROSPECTS programme at the country level.

The consultant will be expected to conduct these activities only for Lebanon however, it is important to note the consultant’s research and subsequent report will be expected to follow a predetermined assessment framework that will allow for their findings to be comparable against other countries identified for this study. The findings from all countries will be eventually aggregated into a global-level analysis report. Further details are outlined in the methodology section below.

Scope

The scope of work would identify, examine and analyse policy, legislation and regulations in so far as these pertain to the access of refugees to labour markets, employment and self-employment (formal and informal), training, business development, other income-generating activities and social security and protection. It would also examine and allow for the comparison on identified national and regional policies and legislation, against the ability and capacity of government ministries, institutions, social partners and non-government actors to enact and implement. Areas of focus should include:

• Current refugee, asylum and immigration policy and legislation and relevant secondary legislation and regulations, with particular focus on issues relevant to access to work (formal and informal), including but not limited to the right to work, to set up business, legal identity, access to mobile services in the context of digital learning and economy, access to justice including grievance mechanisms (to protect rights at work), freedom of association, freedom of movement, access to education and training, employment services, access to employment-based national social insurance programmes, limitations on sectors and areas of work available to refugees, etc. This analysis will also consider mechanisms in place to govern the access of refugees to labour markets and economic opportunities, such as having to apply for work permits and the regulations and procedures applying to these systems, including quotas and fees. In addition, it will also consider naturalisation pathways open to refugees through immigration/asylum policies and regulations.

• The baselines will also examine the issue of recognition of education, vocational, academic and professional qualifications of refugees and how this process is
  managed, if at all, and the onward principle of refugees being able, for example, to practice technical and liberal professions.

• Where governments have established and apply the right to work for refugees, this review should examine how this works in practice, including any barriers that may affect the application of this right, for example, bureaucratic hurdles, lack of information, limited capacity of government institutions to support access to this right, behaviour and attitude of employers and national workers, etc.

• The same will apply for the right of refugees to set up businesses or cooperatives and access to financial services, looking closely at challenges they may face in accessing this right, legal and bureaucratic obstacles, lack of understanding of services they may be able to obtain, etc.

• Freedom of movement and association are two fundamental principles that support the right to work and rights at works and it will be important to examine how these rights are applied if at all and whether refugees are appropriately informed. Freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining can apply to refugees being able to join trade unions or businesses/self-employed being able to join sectoral and trade associations, including cooperatives. The other part of this analysis would examine the readiness of these national bodies to accept refugees into membership, including whether their regulations are adequate and appropriate and whether information is being shared among refugees as well as these actors.

• The above shows how important it will be for the assessment to cover policy and practice as these are important indicators to address impediments to comprehensive and fair implementation, and therefore critical information for planning and programme design.

• The review should also examine policies and national strategies (where these might exist) on a range of related issues, for example, on Employment (including apprenticeships and consideration for youth, gender and disability), Education and Skills Development (including career counselling and guidance), Vocational Qualifications and Competences (including recognition of prior learning), Social Security and Protection (including for example pensions, maternity and child benefits/allowances, health benefits, injury insurance, etc.), Small and Medium Enterprise Development and Urban, Rural and Agricultural Development (including land ownership), etc.

• It should also examine labour legislation in terms of coverage and application and whether public and private employment services can provide support to refugee job seekers.

• National development plans and strategies are also important sources of information for this assessment to understand whether refugees are included.

• Central to this broad examination is the principle of non-discrimination and equality of treatment and opportunity for refugees.

Methodology

The consultant will be provided with a global-level methodology and assessment framework developed by ILO and IMPACT to form the basis of the study. The consultant will adapt this methodology to the context of their country of study, and will be responsible for developing their own plan and tools for to collect and analyse data within the confines of the assessment framework.

The methodology will employ a qualitative comparative method using secondary data and identified primary literature sources, and combine it with external triangulation via structured / semi structured key informant interviews.

Deliverables & Payment Schedule

Please review the attached document for detailed information on Deliverables & Payment Schedule.

Reporting

Although the consultant will be working under guidance and support from IMPACT, the consultant will report directly to ILO PROSPECTS focal points Shaza Ghaleb Jondi ([email protected]) and Meredith Byrne ([email protected]).

The ILO and IMPACT are available to provide in-country information and resources where possible, but it will be the consultant’s responsibility to collect relevant
information as per this ToR, and ensure they are able to work freely and legally in the selected country.

Duration

The consultancy will be for 12 weeks, starting on the 12th of July 2021 and concluding on the 7th of October 2021.