Terms of Reference
Building the capacity of One Stop Service Centres (OSSs), TVETs, and Employment Agencies, and Facilitating Employment Linkage

1. BACKGROUND
First Consult is contracted to provide management and technical support services to Mastercard Foundation to support close to 600,000 youth in work (80% women) and 15,000 Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), with 300,000 unemployed youth trained through Industrial Parks (IPs) job creation initiatives and market linkage between IPs and MSMEs.
The BRIDGES Programme is working to address two fundamental, immediate, and complementary challenges to unlock the potential for job creation within IPs and their surrounding ecosystem. (1) Making the industrial workforce markets work, which through the Enterprise Partners Programme, First Consult has successfully piloted in a few IPs and has done a ripe scale-up in 10 IPs. (2) Making the IP- business linkages (MSME) markets work to enhance domestic manufacturing value-added (MVA) for export. This will be done by substituting the currently-heavy import-dependent operations – itself a constraint on the factories – via local suppliers (MSMEs).
Labour Market: BRIDGES under the Labour sector aims to achieve workers’ engagement and retention within the IPs and other private sectors outside IPs through development of standardized manuals and the provision of soft skill training.
MSMEs market: BRIDGES works with MSMEs to enable them to tap into major market opportunities around the 10 major IPs and Anchor Enterprises outside IPs. The work involves major information, coordination, capacity development, and access to finance initiatives to be undertaken in partnership with key IP, AE, and MSME stakeholders at various levels including Demand (IP markets), Supply (MSMEs), Linkage (information, transaction and payment platforms) and Ecosystem (macro and other meso level actors).
Access to finance: This applies to both direct workers within parks as well as MSMEs that BRIDGES will be working with. A2F mainly focuses on bridging the supply and demand side gaps by facilitating linkages, bringing innovative means, building the capacities of both the demand and supply sides, and working on policy and rule changes to narrow the financing gap. A2F envisions increased access to finance to MSMEs through the improved capacity of financial institutions to meet the needs of the MSMEs market in outreach, products, and innovative solutions, resulting in increased access to finance and the creation of dignified and fulfilling work for Ethiopian youth.

2. BACKGROUND SPECIFIC TO THE ASSIGNMENT
One-stop service centers, TVETs, and employment agencies are indispensable spaces that provide different services including job matching of job seekers with employers.
One-Stop Service centers (OSSs) are an integral part of the job creation endeavor undertaken by the Government of Ethiopia. OSSs are centers that attract job seekers and employers with the main objective of facilitating of employment in self- and wage employment. OSSs identify and register job seekers at woreda level where personnel conduct door-to-door registration of jobseekers twice a year and this registration of jobseekers continues at the OSS centers year-round. OSS centers also identify the availability of resources within the community which could be utilized by jobseekers. Furthermore, the OSS experts identify job opportunities/employment potential in a given area so as to make annual job creation projections and accordingly work towards achieving that.
OSS centers in each woreda are established to register job seekers and match them with available and fitting jobs as per the labor needs and specific requirements of various employers. Furthermore, the OSSs also facilitate the formation of enterprises for jobseekers wishing to form their own business.
Some challenges are identified and prove to be monumental when it comes to the achievement of effective wage employment facilitation. Some of the challenges include limited information on job openings reaching jobseekers, and shortage of communication channels (OSS to jobseeker), and (OSS to employer) job-seekers lacking essential employability skills and being indecisive or without urgency for self-dependency, OSSs having limited methods of reaching communities and limited mechanisms of accurately keeping track of identified jobseekers, identified employers and the employment status of allocated workers.
Technical, Vocational and Education Training (TVETs) centers: TVETs are producing jobseekers who are crucial inputs for the industries. The training centers should have created close linkage with industries to smooth the transition of trainees to the world of work through practical training experience. In Ethiopia, to strengthen the linkage, the cooperatives training arrangement with industries modality is implemented by all TVETs. The cooperative training arrangement modality is implemented by providing 30% theoretical training inside TVET school and 70% of the practical training through industry linkage. Accordingly, TVETs have direct linkage with employers by which private sector organizations inform their employee demand to TVETs. Besides, one of the service providers in the one-stop service centers is TVET institutes, which facilitate technical training for job seekers who want to engage in self- employment and create linkage with employers as per demand However, soft skills training is not provided by TVETs, resulting in graduates not knowing what is required by the industry and creating mismatch between demand and supply. Therefore, building the capacity of TVET staff through soft skills training and strengthening their linkage with OSS is indispensable to avail skilled workforce linkage with the industries.
Employment agencies: Private employment agencies facilitate job matching between jobseekers and employers. However, due to poor soft skills of jobseekers and absence of soft skill provision by employment agencies jobseekers are not fully meeting the satisfaction of both employers.
Therefore, the BRIDGES Programme aims to enhance the overall capacity of jobseekers, more specifically on soft skills, through ToT given to OSS staff, selected TVET and private employment agency staff which will then be cascaded to jobseekers at Woreda and sub city level using a standardized training manual by recruiting service provider. Accordingly, the service provider will facilitate the matching of labor supply with that of company demands; aims to create an employment enabling environment in the labor market by advancing the capacities of key stakeholders such as OSS centers, TVETs and private employment agencies, facilitating easy access to information for job seekers, and overall create a seamless standard and procedures to realize the shared objectives of jobseekers, employers and intermediaries. The service providers and stakeholders will focus on wage employment skills capacitation and job matching targeting all primary, secondary and tertiary sectors of the economy.
A service provider will be commissioned to provide a ToT to one-stop service center (OSS) officials, TVET staff specifically industry and job creation linkage coordinators and private employment agencies in different catchment areas to support/facilitate the creation of jobs for trained jobseekers in Amhara, Oromia, Addis Ababa, Dire Dawa and Harar. This will involve identification of employers in different sectors and industries and gauging their labor needs and matching with a supply of a trained workforce.

3. PURPOSE OF THE TOR
The purpose of this TOR is to identify and hire a highly competitive, experienced and capable service provider for the delivery of ToT training on soft skills to OSS, TVETS and Employment agencies. The service provider will further facilitate the employment of trained jobseekers in different sectors and industries of the economy. The firm is expected to give ToT for a total of 260 staff of 100 OSS centres, 15 TVETs and 15 employment agencies; and ensure through continuous follow up, support and monitoring those 15,000 jobseekers are trained on employability skills and employment achieved for a combined 8,000 of them in Amhara, Oromia, Addis Ababaand Dire Dawa and Harari Region.

4. MAIN OBJECTIVES

• The main objective of the assignment is to address major challenges in the labour market and shortcomings in the area of soft skills. (Both skilled and unskilled segments of the workforce)
• Empower and equip job seekers with the right set of skills, and knowledge to develop their full capacities, to seize employment opportunities and find fitting jobs on their own
• Expediting the job creation efforts of government by providing support to different key stakeholders.
• Building the capacity of OSS centres to create standardized operation and digitize their data gathering and storing process to have reliable information.
• Provide reliable and verifiable information on jobseekers, workforce, and hirers on a modern database system.
• 15,000 jobseekers trained on employability skills
• 8,000 jobseekers placed in jobs
• Digitizing and enhancing the data management facilities of OSSs

5. SCOPE OF WORK
The specific tasks under this assignment will be to: –

1. Prepare a comprehensive action plan
2. Identify OSS, TVETs and employment agencies
3. Organize sensitization workshop and sign MoU with the relevant government stakeholder and establish strong working partnerships with different government and non-government stakeholders
4. Prepare training content and other standard manuals to fit the needs of jobseekers, OSSs, TVETs and employment agencies
5. Administer ToT training to OSS, TVETs, and employment agencies so they can further train job seekers and facilitate employment
6. Improve, digitize/automate the data keeping capacity of OSSs in terms of registering job seekers, identifying employers, allocation of jobseekers into jobs, and tracking the status of allocated workers
7. Provide monitoring and support services to ToT trainees, periodic reports on training and employment status of jobseekers, conduct assessment of impact and collect feedback from stakeholders.
8. Strengthen and support OSS, TVETs and employment agencies in conducting training and creating employment linkage

6. QUALIFICATIONS

1. The service provider should be a licensed and qualified consultant with at least ten years of prior work experience in the field of training and HR development and facilitation of employment
2. Demonstrated knowledge and experience in developing training modules/curriculum, training materials etc.
3. Demonstrated experiences and skills in facilitating stakeholder/working group consultations and training.
4. Strong network and linkage with different public and private employers in the regions
5. The company must have demonstrated operational linkages in the Amhara, Oromia, Addis Ababa, Dire Dawa and Harar region.

7. DELIVERABLES AND TIMEFRAME

8. LOCATION AND DURATION
The service provider is required to work for one year from signing of contract with a scope covering the whole or part of Amhara, Oromia, Addis Ababa, Dire Dawa and Harari Region to realize contractual objectives.

9. WORKING ARRANGEMENTS
The selected service provider will have a contractual relationship with First Consult under the BRIDGES Programme and a close working relationship with relevant regional and city government institutions and administrations.

10. EVALUATION
First Consult will review submitted proposals in accordance with the specific qualification, experience requirements, and specific tasks stated above. The evaluation will be done in a two-stage process. The first stage will comprise the Technical Evaluation which will be based on the technical proposal whilst the second stage will comprise the Financial Evaluation which will be based on the budget proposal. It is the bidder’s responsibility to ensure that it has responded to both evaluation criteria. Failure to meet the evaluation criteria may result in the bidder being disqualified from being awarded. Bidders must ensure that they have included all supporting documentation. Applicants should clearly indicate their experience and previous engagements in line with the specific requirements listed.

11. APPLICATION PROCESS
Applicants should email their proposal (technical and financial) to bids2@firstconsultet.com with the relevant information detailed in the technical and financial sections of their proposal. The subject of the email should read Employment facilitation through OSS, TVET and employment agencies. Proposals must be received no later than 5 PM on 26 August 2022.
For any queries relating to this assignment, please contact Dagmawi Admasu via dadmasu@firstconsultet.com before 5 PM on 23 August 2022.
Technical Proposal: Interested parties should submit a technical proposal providing the following information:

• Understanding of the TOR
• An outline of the preferred methodology and previous relevant experience
• A project timeline detailing the anticipated delivery dates of the defined deliverables in Scope of Work

Financial Proposal: Interested bidders should provide a detailed budget.

• Budget should be indicated in ETB including taxes.
• All costs (e.g. professional fees, travel costs) must be detailed. Lump sum budgets and budgets quoted in foreign currency will NOT be considered.

A separate attachment must be sent to the same email address comprising of the company profile, with relevance to required work, detailed CVs of consultant/s and references on previous similar works.