Consultant to support drafting the Social Development Fund (SFD)/ILO project proposal documents for large scale Employment Intensive Investment Prog

1.0 General Background

The ILO in Yemen has worked on building peace and resilience by creating jobs and income opportunities, enhancing employability as well as strengthening institutional capacity in conflict-affected areas. The ILO’s work in Yemen centres around three priority areas:

– Promoting employment and private sector development

– Enhancing efforts to address child labour

– Strengthening labour governance and international labour standards.

Since the conflict began in 2015, Yemen has witnessed severe infrastructure damage and the economy has contracted by more than 40 per cent. Conflict and related factors have led to an overall increase in poverty, estimated at between 71 to 78 per cent, with 24.3 million people in need of humanitarian assistance and protection, as two thirds of the population – some 20 million people – are food insecure, 40 per cent of Yemeni households live without a regular source of income, and with women being more severely affected than men. The COVID-19 outbreak has profoundly affected Yemenis’ and women’s ability to maintain their livelihoods, forcing them to earn less, save less and live with poor resources.

Integrating Employment Intensive approaches in infrastructure investments can create new productive and decent jobs and strengthen capacity in the domestic construction industry. Furthermore, it advances socio-economic development and contributes to national cohesion and solidarity through income-generating jobs, skills development and improved public services.

Planning Employment Intensive works and managing the implementation of the works require the knowledge of specific technological and work operational solutions combined with cost conscious decisions.

Given to the crucial role of the Social Fund for Development in providing jobs, livelihoods as well as enhancing the local community assets, and in order to keep the trust of development partners on the one hand and the authorities and local communities on the other hand, the SFD will mobilize efforts and resources to enhance the Fund’s capacity in developing the labour-intensive investment programmes and shift from cash for work. SFD is considering the implementation of EIIP methodology as an important step in that facilitates the recovery and reconstruction phase. SFD will lead and support the process of institutionalization of the programme at the national level and in partnership with the Ministry of Public Works and local authorities, in addition to the private sector and civil society organizations. This approach will apply the general principles of the labour-intensive investment methodology, and the approach based on international best practices, and the guiding principles manual prepared jointly with the ILO.

Based on the extensive experience of the International Labour Organization, which implements EIIP since the mid-seventies in more than 50 countries as part of the response to the deteriorating labour market and employment conditions in developing countries to support governments on how to plan, construct, and maintain infrastructure works in a cost-effective, labour-reliant manner as a competitive alternative to traditional construction methods.

The ILO and SFD will work together to design and implement a large scale EIIP programme that focuses on creating decent jobs, enhance roads connectivity and mitigating the impact of climate changes in selected local communities.

2.0 Objective of the assignment

Draft the project documents to implement the EIIP in Yemen jointly with SFD. This includes the project proposal narrative (30 pages), detailed logical framework (logframe) that includes Outcomes, Outputs, Activities, Indicators as well as a detailed Workplan.

3.0 Scope of work

The consultant is expected to perform the following work:

• Desk review of available related information and materials to support the drafting of project proposal documents
• Consultations with relevant SFD and ILO technical staff
• Convene consultation/validation meetings with stakeholders
• Prepare the required project proposal documents and finalize them based on feedback from ILO/SFD

4.0 Outputs

Deliverables Workdays Timeline
Draft Project logical framework (Logframe), 5 days, July Week 3-4
Draft Project narrative, 7 days, August Week 1-3
Draft work plan, 5 days, August Week 4
Facilitating two days partners consultations in Amman, 3 days, September W2
Final versions of the above 4 deliverables, 5 days, September W3

Total 25 days

5.0 Implementation arrangements

This assignment will be supervised by the ILO regional resilience and crisis response specialist and carried out in close consultation with ILO team in Yemen and Yemen Social Fund for Development. There will also be technical oversight and support from the EIIP team at Headquarters.

The cost of face-to-face consultations in Amman will be shouldered by ILO. Invitation to target stakeholders will be facilitated by ILO.

6.0 Timeframe and payment

The assignment will take place between 08 July 2024, to 30 September 2024. The total number of working days is 25 days. The full amount will be paid in one instalment upon ILO satisfaction and presentation of invoice.

7.0 Required qualifications

The consultant for this assignment will be selected based on the following qualifications:

• University degree in Engineering, or Master’s Degree in Social Science, Development Economics or equivalent
• Minimum 5 years relevant development work with professional experience in developing and drafting manuals/guides, preferably in the Middle East region (working experience in Yemen is an advantage)
• Thorough knowledge, demonstrable experience, and familiarity on the application of employment intensive investment in fragile context
• Solid experience in reviewing and evaluating initiatives related to employment intensive investment approaches.
• Working with stakeholders from government, UN and civil society and experience with facilitating stakeholders’ consultations
• Fluency in Arabic and English.