TERMS OF REFERENCE

SDEPAY PROJECT:  MARKET ASSESSMENT CONSULTANCY

I. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND INFORMATION 

AKA was established in 2015 as a sustainability initiative of AKAZI KANOZE which was focused on developing the livelihoods of Rwandan youth with financial assistance from USAID through Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC). As a result of this initiative, 65% of the young people from twenty thousand (20,000) young people completing the work readiness training were wage or self-employed after six months of obtaining their certificates.

Since its inception, AKA has engaged in various programs which include employability skills, access to capital and means of production, market access, and advocacy for youth development and youth empowerment.

AKA has a strong experience in working in rural and urban areas of Rwanda supporting economic activities of young people across the country. Past and current interventions strengthen the organization in managing relationships with donors and government, as well as building strong links with beneficiaries and various stakeholders. Geographically, AKA has extensive knowledge and experience of working with young people.

Today, AKA is implementing Skills Development and Employment Promotion among Youth in Rwanda (SDEPAY) project jointly with Plan International Rwanda, supported and financed by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and Plan International Germany. The WRN&BYOB will be the foundation of AKA interventions to support the selected youth in their economic development and improved livelihood conditions.

The SDEPAY project is a three-year project directly targeting 1,200 unemployed young people (55% of whom are women) to be supported through technical and soft skill trainings. Beneficiaries are expected to improve access to employment and thereby contribute to the well-being of their families.

The project is being implemented in the semi-urban and rural areas of Nyaruguru district of the Southern province, Bugesera and Gatsibo districts of the Eastern province.

The SDEPAY project targets youth who are aged from 16 years to up to 30 years. All of them completed primary schools but most of them dropped out after completing primary schools. Their parents and other community members are targeted through gender and social inclusiveness awareness sessions on a regular basis. SDEPAY staff in partnership with partners follow specific criteria to select youth beneficiaries through a community screening process undertaken by SDEPAY trainers.

The service of an external consultant is required to conduct comprehensive market assessment and scanning business opportunities in all the 3 districts (Bugesera, Gatsibo, and Nyaruguru) of the SDEPAY project.

II. DESCRIPTION OF TASKS OF THE LABOR LOCAL MARKET ASSESSMENT   

This assessment will help project to ensure that youth gain a better understanding of the economic system that will put light on market-driven and responsive to the local economic needs. And while there is value in regularly exploring opportunities to improve and grow a business in its existing form, other types of growth are supplementary and may also increase the resilience of a business.

Given that the project is targeting most vulnerable youth, it is expected that the assessment cannot be fully youth-led, therefore it is planned to apply a youth-inclusive process, which will still engage young people in appropriate aspect of the assessment and capture their perceptions and voices.

The assessment will also assess potential job opportunities within the local market, identify the skills in demand and help to understand mismatches and gaps including expectations and perceptions.

The assessment will be done in quantitative and qualitative manner addressing the employer and employee, and other business opportunities in the identified places for primary data collection. During the process the consultant will collect information from different development and business actors in order to map out all job and business opportunities friendly with youth. The consultant will avail a tool for market scanning that will be calling AKA and Plan International Rwanda staff in discussions before its use. To carry out this assignment, the consultant will adapt the existing tool to the profile of youth targeted within the SDEPAY project and train youth accordingly.

The training of data collectors and assessment (if needed), will take place at YEGO centers and the staff of YEGO centers will be involved for their capacity building to further support other youth in related assessment.

The outcomes of the local label market assessment will be summarized in a report, visualized, and availed to the YEGO centers as well as other relevant stakeholders operating in the 3 districts.

The consultant will sign an agreement with AKA to provide some internship opportunities with the assignment to university graduate beneficiaries of the project and secondary school completers to extend the employment opportunity for project beneficiaries and this will contribute to youth job profile that will benefit them in the future.

III. Purpose and scope of the market Assessment study 

Based on the information detailed on the background, SDEPAY seeks to engage a consultant (individuals/firms/institutions...) to lead the local market assessment and scanning of business opportunities mainly affordable to youth located in 3 districts: Bugesera, Gatsibo, and Nyaruguru.

The main objective of this consultancy is to lead the development of local market assessment and scanning businesses and job opportunities for mainly vulnerable youth. The study will be a practical input for AKA in sign-posting the youth towards business and vocational-employment sectors with sufficient profitability and wage margins, whilst helping them avoid over-saturated areas. With this frame, the consultant will work closely with the Project Management team, youth, and staff of YEGO center to mainly carry out the following activities:

• Adapt tool of scanning business opportunities to the profile of youth targeted within the project;
• Prepare the concept for the local market assessment which insure youth inclusiveness;
• What capital requirements are required to set up a business in a range of businesses, what is the growth potential, potential for creating additional employment, survivability rates, etc.…
• Provide information on predicted future economic and market opportunities to allow especially vulnerable youth to proactively position themselves to seize them;
• At the same time as identifying opportunities, the study will identify the real barriers and requirements to accessing these opportunities;
• Train youth and YEGO center staff who will be involved in this assessment;
• Provide recommendations and suggestions for institutionalizing market assessment data collection to feed regularly into the YEGO Centers in order for the latter to provide youth with accurate, up-to-date information. The study is intended as a starting point for exploring different options for the YEGO centers to implement this more systematically going forward;
• Conduct assessment of business opportunities in SDEPAY;
• Produce the inception report and final report of the local label market assessment.

IV. Methods for Data Collection and Analysis 

The methodology for the assessment is expected to adopt both quantitative and qualitative approaches, and the assessment design should be clearly defined and rationale for the choice provided. The consultant is at liberty to suggest assessment design and assessment approaches to apply as long as reasons for choice are clearly articulated. The approaches and assessment design should be described in enough detail to ensure that the assignment can easily be replicated by any other assessor. The methods should be sensitive to the target population (vulnerable youth) and robust enough to provide adequate responses to the stated assessment purpose. He/she must make sure that the methodology used is also gender sensitive and socially inclusive instead.

Overall, the methodology section should cover details of assessment approaches and design, data collection methods/instruments, data analysis techniques, plan for dissemination of assessment findings, and be cognizant of quality assurance.

V. DELIVERABLE AND SCHEDULE 

It should be rigorously timed and coordinate for the consultant to keep the process on track and for the project coordinator to validate each step taken. The duration for the entire task will be 30 working days.

The consultant will deliver the followings:

Inception report that describes: an updated timeline; detailed methodology, including drafted data collection tools including the inputs/ contributions from AKA and Plan International Rwanda staff; consent forms for any primary data collection; (draft) methods for data analysis; brief justification of the methods and techniques used (including relevant underlying values and assumptions/ theories) with a justification of the selections made (e.g. of persons interviewed).The inception will be presented  to AKA & PIR for inputs and approval.

Capacity building of SDEPAY and PIR& AKA staff and personnel of YEGO centers on how to conduct local labor market assessment for the business opportunities of the youth through training of one-day training.

Other data collection tools for assessment: Consultant can suggest any other relevant tools for local label market assessment and scanning business opportunities. This means that the hired consultant should have presented in English to AKA and Plan International staff for review and inputs as well as acceptance.

Draft Report: A Word draft report will be submitted and presented to AKA and Plan International staff for a review and should follow the following format: Cover page, Table of content, Executive summary (not exceeding 2 pages), Introduction, Description of context, Assignment purpose, and objectives, and scope, methodology used and limitations, Assessment findings, Conclusions and Recommendations, References and Annexes.

Final report: A Word final report will be submitted and presented to AKA and Plan International staff and should follow the following format: Cover page, Table of content, Executive summary (not exceeding 2 pages), Introduction, Description of context, Assignment purpose, and objectives, and scope, methodology used and limitations, Assessment findings, Conclusions and Recommendations, References and Annexes.

Note that this consultancy is expected to be completed in 30 working days (weekends not included) to be ended at the end of November 2021. The consultant should propose a timeline to submit the deliverables in their proposals considering the aspects above.

VI. EXPERTISE AND EXPERIENCE 

The consultant should have the following expertise:

• A minimum of 5 years of experience in conducting labor market assessment;
• At least a master’s degree, in a relevant discipline if it is individual company;
• Proven experience to conduct participatory rapid appraisal or rapid rural appraisal
• Demonstrate high understanding of main challenges and weakness of the entrepreneurship and livelihood of youth who are either educated or not in rural and semi-urban areas of Rwanda;
• To be used pragmatically with the following methods of rapid rural appraisal such as: Secondary data interview, direct observation, semi-structured interviews, group interviews and discussion, workshop and brainstorming, sketch mapping, diagramming, wealth ranking, other ranking, and scoring, etc.;
• Strong analytical and writing skills with proven skills in policy recommendations and advisory work;
• Proven experience to conduct participatory research with different categories of people including youth;

VII. PROPOSAL SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS 

Interested consultant (individuals/firms/institutions, etc.) is required to:

a) Technical Component: 

• Present the technical component of how the market assessment will be based on the requirements provided;
• Any comments or suggestions on the ToRs.

b) A financial proposal: This should provide details in costing of the required resources to perform this assignment with itemized budgets and explanatory notes.

In additional to the technical and financial components, the consultant will indicate and/submit the following:

• CVs;
• At least two (2) examples of previous works related to that assignment;
• Completion of certificates;
• RGB certificate;
• Taxes clearance;

VIII. DEADLINE OF SUBMISSION 

The Proposal must be in English and submitted whether in hard copy and/or electronically (with a mention of “Development of local labor market assessment mainly friendly with youth”, and addressed to:

AKA Human Resource officer,

AKAZI KANOZE ACCESS (AKA),

KG 676 ST 43, P.O.BOX 7047 KIGALI-RWANDA

Use the following email address for electronic submission: info@akazikanoze.org and cc: jnyirahabimana@akazikanoze.org.

The closing date is 15 October 2021 by 5:00 pm (Kigali Time). The interested bidders for the consultancy should ensure that bids are delivered timely and to the correct address as indicated above. In case of late submission, that bid will not be considered for evaluation.