Call for proposals for Implementing Partners: Promotion, inclusion and protection of refugees in the in the gig economy in PROSPECTS countries

Access the detailed ToR and description here. Call for proposals for Implementing Partners: Promotion, inclusion and protection of refugees in the in the gig economy in PROSPECTS countries

Context

The numbers of refugees and internally displaced people continue to proliferate at unprecedented levels. In 2021, estimates by the UN Refugee Agency, establish that displacement has surpassed 84 million, of whom 31 million were refugees and asylum-seekers. Developing countries host 85 per cent of the world’s refugees and Venezuelans displaced abroad, and the Least Developed Countries provide asylum to 27 per cent of the total.1 As displacement has become increasingly protracted, responses are focusing more on sustainable interventions for refugees and their hosting communities. This new approach proposes policy interventions linking humanitarian support with development goals to increase resilience. Access to decent work is an integral part of sustainable responses strategies for refugees and the host countries.

At the same time the digitalization of the world of work is fundamentally transforming how refugees can make a livelihood and gain access to jobs. The rapid emergence of gig economy platforms that use digital technologies to intermediate labour on a per-task basis is fast growing.2 While the digitally mediated remote work has the potential to become a source of economic livelihood for refugees; it also poses a range of challenges and risks linked to low payment levels, informal work patterns and connectivity barriers. 3 With over 12 million forcibly displaced and stateless people across the eight PROSPECTS countries, the scope of potential of digital livelihoods to bring positive change to peoples’ lives is vast. Seizing this potential requires adapting policy frameworks to promote decent work and creating conducive business conditions for digital employers to operate in compliance with fair work conditions. These types of solutions can be an alternative to existing approaches and are particularly important in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, which has underlined the need for national level engagement to promote decent work for all.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) together with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) are responding to this challenge through a joint project on the “Promotion, Inclusion and Protection of Refugees in the Gig Economy: Realizing rights at work and mitigating digital risk”, funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs through its ‘PROSPECTS Opportunity Fund’. The project has an 18-month time horizon (2022-2023) and funding to implement in eight countries (Egypt, Ethiopia, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Sudan and Uganda).

The Opportunity Fund objective is to improve the working conditions of forcibly displaced people and their hosting communities on digital labour platforms, and mitigating associated digital risks, while working towards conducive and inclusive national and local employment strategies in an increasingly digitalized labour market. This objective will be achieved through three main outcome areas:

Outcome 1: Policy solutions developed to promote employment opportunities, improve rights at work and mitigate risks for digital workers;

Outcome 2: Enhancing capacity through tool development and technical guidance;

Outcome 3: New models for safe, secure refugee inclusive digital platform work or digital-enabled livelihoods are tested, documented, and put on a pathway to scale.

The immediate outcome of this project is to identify, mitigate, and operationalize risks for refugee and host community workers when engaging in the digital economy, with a specific focus on worker’s rights in digital labour platforms. The project will result in digital refugee and host community workers being aware of their rights at work and how to realize them, while improving their working conditions, including access to social protection and digital protection. This emphasis will be complemented by awareness on broader digital risks, including privacy, exploitation, misinformation and disinformation.

The long-term outcome will be that policymakers in government and industry will be not only more aware of issues relating to digital labour rights and digital risks faced by forcibly displaced groups, and indeed host community members too, but better equipped to address challenges through their respective areas of influence. Practical findings and learnings from innovative ways of working undertaken under the project will generate evidence of what works and can be scaled, as well providing direct impact to community members involved in these projects. By building partnerships, ensuring actors are trained, that approaches have been field tested, this project aims to carve out a pathway for change to ensure that future efforts to pioneer digital livelihoods for refugees and host communities are free of risk and cemented in fair labour foundations.

This Opportunity Fund project will complement and provide added value to both the current and upcoming PROSPECTS country and global level programming and will link to broader global efforts to promote fair digital livelihoods and safely engage refugees and host communities in the gig economy.

General objective and scope

This implementation agreement is contributing to ensure delivery of the following items of the Opportunity Fund project results framework under Outcome 1, “Policy solutions developed to promote employment opportunities, improve rights at work and mitigate risks for digital workers”:

› Regulatory, policy and legal analysis across PROSPECTS countries on digital risks.

› A global forum in Africa in partnership with relevant platform companies, gig workers and their associations and governments, to advocate for and enable access to better quality employment, and inclusion of forcibly displaced on digital labour platforms.

› Development of employment strategies for more and better jobs that promote inclusion and protection in the gig economy will be supported.

Main deliverables

Product 1. Conduct a desk-based regulatory, policy and legal analysis across the eight PROSPECTS countries on the digital economy with a focus on the gig or digital platform economy), digital risks and labour market inclusion (Egypt, Ethiopia, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Sudan and Uganda).

This will consist of a comprehensive stock-taking and analysis of the policies, legislative and regulatory frameworks shaping the digital work and digital livelihoods among refugees, other forcibly displaced people and the host communities on national and international level. Such analysis will also identify opportunities and limitations of the digital economy with a focus on the gig or digital platform economy4 to become a source of economic relief and employment for refugees and other forcibly displaced populations.

The mapping of relevant international policy and regulatory frameworks will serve as a benchmark for country analysis. The analysis will cover eight countries in Africa and the Middle East (Egypt, Ethiopia, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Sudan and Uganda), in alignment with priorities of this Opportunity Fund project and under the umbrella of the multi-stakeholder PROSPECTS partnership, focusing on age, gender, and diverse characteristics of forcibly displaced populations. This review will provide baseline information to support planning and activity development, for example, for policy advocacy, as well as training and monitoring, and will be available to the PROSPECTS Country Teams as well as other national, development and humanitarian actors.

The analysis will be primarily a policy-centered desk research with interviews with a couple of key experts agreed by the ILO-UNHCR. Relevant reports from UNHCR and ILO undertaken under the PROSPECTS scope or separately will serve as core resources for consideration in the analysis.

Key guiding questions to consider for this analysis are:

1. What current policies, laws, regulations, and strategies govern the space of digital work and digital livelihoods for forcibly displaced persons and host communities? (Including national strategies and incentives focused on promoting the inclusion of women, youth, persons with disabilities, and refugees in the digital economy).

2. What policies are conducive to the realization of digital employment and livelihoods and which ones are counter-productive by limiting refugees’ participation in a digital economy or exposing them to potential risks (financial, protection, other risks)?

3. What areas of digital refugee employment and livelihoods currently lack defined policies and regulations? And in what ways do refugees remain exposed to precarity and insecurity even though some policies may include or protect other non-refugee workers (‘dualization’ of digital labour markets)?

4. What impact do different policies have on the working conditions, skills, and access of refugees and host communities in relation to online work platforms and digital livelihoods?

5. What policies, laws and regulations exist to mitigate potential risks for refugees and workers in host communities participating in a digital economy? Equally, where policy or regulatory gaps are identified, what risks could these create?

Deliverables and timeline

1. Inception report detailing the work plan, mapping tentative outline of 8 country briefs and synthesis report. Delivery date: within 3 weeks after commencement of the implementation agreement.

2. 8 country briefs will follow a similar structure for ease of cross-comparison. The briefs will include a list of key policy actors and key policies. Delivery date: within 10 weeks after signing the contract.

3. A synthesis report including summaries of policies and analysis of major issues and trends on a national and regional/international level. The report will be written as a publishable document that can serve as a reference work for future digital livelihoods interventions within PROSPECTS and beyond. Delivery date: within 14 weeks after commencement of the implementation agreement.

4. Online workshop (no longer than 0.5 days) to share research findings with ILO and UNHCR, including to discuss implications of policy findings for the rest of the PROSPECTS project. Final reviews will be applied as necessary. errands or cleaning houses. See: ILO (2022) Agenda of the International Labour Conference, Agenda of future sessions of the Conference, Third item on the agenda, GB.344/INS/3/1. 4 Delivery date: within 16 weeks after commencement of the implementation agreement.

5. Final draft of the 8 country briefs and the synthesis report, reflecting comments emerging from the online workshop. Delivery date: within 18 weeks after commencement of the implementation agreement.

Product 2. Conceptualize and coordinate the production of a background paper to be discussed in a multi-stakeholder Global Forum in Africa in 2023.

This assignment consists in preparing a background paper on the digital inclusion of refugees and host communities which provides a set of key findings from the policy and legislation analysis on the digital economy, digital risks and labour market inclusion (see Product 1, above), (good) practices, challenges and recommendations regarding the promotion of employment and risk mitigation strategies associated to the gig economy. The paper should contain concrete and practical recommendations to improve the participation of refugees and host communities in decent work in the gig economy, considering global trends but also the specific context of the PROSPECTS countries (Egypt, Ethiopia, Iraq Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Sudan and Uganda).

A central objective of this background paper is to contribute to the discussions that will take place in a multistakeholder Global Forum in Africa to take place in the second trimester of 2023 (exact dates and location to be confirmed). The paper should cover the different dimensions of work addressed by the Opportunity Fund project, including but not limited to inclusive employment strategies; digital risks associated to participation in the gig economy; skills demanded by the gig economy and existing mismatches; social protection mechanisms, workers’ rights, innovative business practices of digital platforms, companies with platforms and associations participating in freelancing and e-commerce to mention some. Global, regional and country specific examples need to populate the paper and be used to map the emerging practices that could be scaled up and lessons learned.

The implementing partner will ensure the paper is organized by thematic chapters, authored by different experts, identified jointly with UNHCR and ILO. The implementing partner will also draft an introductory chapter setting a conceptual framework anchored in the context of the OF and the global discussion. The implementing partner will also provide a logic narrative connecting the different parts of the paper together while providing technical guidance to authors of individual chapters. An executive summary and recommendations should be available at least three weeks before the 2023 Global Forum.

It is expected that the implementing partner contributes to the discussions as based on his/her experience during the forum and presents the main conclusions and recommendations of the paper, collect participants’ feedback and update the paper accordingly. The final draft should be provided in English in a publishable format.

Deliverables and timeline

1. Concept note on the background paper mapping key issues, challenges, opportunities, potential country examples and main messages. The note should also suggest experts for drafting individual chapters, in addition to a detail work plan and tentative outline. Delivery date: within 18 weeks after commencement of the implementation agreement.

2. Technical inputs and guidance to commissioning individual chapters and a coordination plan and calendar. Delivery date: throughout the length of the Implementation Agreement, specific deadlines to be agreed with the ILO-UNCHR.

3. Draft introductory chapter for the background paper, executive summary, and recommendations. Delivery date: available at least 3 weeks before the 2023 Global Forum. 5

4. Individual chapter summary drafts of findings and recommendations. Delivery date: available at least 3 weeks before the 2023 Global Forum.

5. Participation in the 2023 Global forum to present (in English) the main conclusions and recommendations of the paper, collect participants’ feedback. Delivery date: specific date and venue of the 2023 Global Forum to be confirmed.

6. Full draft incorporating feedback collected during the 2023 Global Forum. An online validation workshop should be organized to collect final comments from ILO-UNHCR staff and other designated reviewers. Delivery date: available at least 8 weeks after the 2023 Global Forum.

7. Final draft provided in English in a publishable format. Delivery date: available at least 12 weeks after the 2023 Global Forum.