Consultant – IT Support to Pilot LMIS in South Sudan

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) is the UN Migration Agency. With 174 member states it is committed to the principle that humane and orderly migration benefits migrants and society. Established in 1951 and now active in over 400 field locations worldwide, IOM works with partners, government and civil society to:

1. Assist in meeting the operational challenges of migration and mobility
2. Advance understanding of migration issues
3. Encourage social and economic development through migration; and
4. Uphold the human dignity and well-being of migrants and mobile populations.

IOM is committed to a diverse and inclusive environment. Internal and External candidates are eligible to apply to this vacancy. IOM’s Regional Office for the East and Horn of Africa supports and monitors the following countries: Burundi, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. Through a team of specialists, the Regional Office supports the development, implementation, monitoring, reporting and evaluation of projects and initiatives undertaken by country offices and regional programmes.

Purpose of the Consultancy:

To provide IT expertise to pilot a comprehensive need driven LMIS systems through a multi-stakeholder approach in South Sudan. The consultant will also provide expertise on LMIS to initiate inter-state dialogue through the RMFM TWGs and cascade and strengthen sharing labour migration information among member states.

Specific Objective of the Consultancy:

The primary objective of the consultancy is to establish and develop a LMIS in South Sudan with the support of the relevant stakeholders. The specific objectives of the consultancy are:

• Identify relevant stakeholders and establish a multi-stakeholder coordination committee to guide the production of labour market data, including data on return and reintegration of labour migrants needed by the various key policy makers, planners and other users in South Sudan.
• Identify data and information needs of various key policy makers, planners, and other users of labour market data, including data on return and reintegration of labour migrants in South Sudan
• Collect or consolidate existing datasets to respond to the identified data and information needs
• Establish LMIS hosting infrastructure (hardware and software) to collect, analyse and disseminate labour market data, including data on return and reintegration of labour migrants
• Ensure sustainability of LMIS through capacity building of the coordination committee and staff

Background

Economic growth has the power to transform societies, boost incomes, and enable citizens to thrive, but growth alone is not enough. To reduce poverty and ensure shared prosperity, growth that creates more, better, and inclusive jobs is needed. Good, inclusive jobs are the surest pathway out of poverty. Countries that have focused on providing employment opportunities for all have seen significate sustainable socio-economic transformation. The LMIS is a tool to collect, analyse, and disseminate labour market information to support active labour market policy development.

Understanding the domestic and international labour market is one step closer to ensuring employment opportunities for all. Systematic and consistent collection, analysis, and dissemination of labour market information for policy development are critical to the process. A key barrier to understanding labour market management in EHoA is the lack of a consistent data collection and storage method on labour market movements and statistics. To enhance understanding of the existing approaches used by countries to data collection, analysis, and sharing on returning migrant workers and members of their families in selected EHOA Member States, a mapping was conducted under Phase I of this project. The mapping explored avenues for integrating return and reintegration data with ongoing exercises in selected MS for the development of a Labour Market Information System (LMIS). This exercise illustrated that the absence of legal and policy frameworks supporting data collection, organization, analysis, and dissemination systems on return and reintegration of migrant workers is a critical issue throughout the region. It further noted widely varied approaches to collection of data from different ministries (MFA, MOL, etc) on labour migration overall, from which information on returning migrant workers should ideally be extracted.

Kenya, for instance, has several databases, including the National Employment Agency’s Job Seekers and Labour Migrants Database, the Kenya National Recognition Equation and Verification Portal (KNREV), and the National Diaspora Council of Kenya’s Diaspora Database. Somalia has the Migration Information and Data Analysis System (MIDAS), used by the Immigration and Naturalization Directorate (IND) to manage entry and exit of individuals from its borders while Uganda uses MIDAS, PISCES, E-VISA, and EEMIS. Burundi was observed to be recording data relating to entry, exit, stay, and work permits in hard copies using Microsoft Excel, while South Sudan had numerous data bases for such data collection. The mapping concluded that the effective management of data in the region is hampered by manual, ad-hoc data collection, and unstandardized data practices. It also noted the presence of multiple avenues through the RMFM Roadmap that can be used as leverage for a more coordinated approach in the region to ensure that data collected from various MS can be analysed and compared effectively. To curb the aforementioned issues, it is critical building the capacity of the EHOA countries to have data based on labour migration and specifically on return and reintegration through reviving, integrating, or setting up model database systems. To address these critical issues, IOM will pilot an LMIS in South Sudan under BRMM Phase II, to cascade build up on the pilot to other countries aligning with ongoing LMIS-related activities.

In this regard, the Government of South Sudan, with support from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), are seeking to establish a Labour Market Information System (LMIS). South Sudan has been chosen due to its clear need for support to this system. In 2020, South Sudan was believed to be hosting some 882,000 migrants, the majority coming from the East and Horn of Africa, according to the United Nations International Migration Report. In 2020, 49.7 percent of immigrants were female, 34.4 percent were under the age of 20, and 3.4 percent were aged 65 and older. The majority of international migrants in South Sudan are thought to be from the East and Horn of Africa, but because of their often-irregular immigration status, little is known of the true numbers. South Sudan was the 2nd biggest country of destination in 2015 in the IGAD REC, after Djibouti. Considering the issues and the government’s interest and readiness to pilot the LMIS to curb the challenges they face to address migrant workers protection concern, living and working in South Sudan and leaving the country as well, it would be practical to pilot this activity in South Sudan.

Scope and Purpose

Better Regional Migration Management (BRMM), Labour Mobility and Regional Integration for Safe, Orderly and Humane Labour Migration in East And Horn Of Africa is a program funded by to Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) to enhance labour migration governance and protection of migrant workers and their family members’ human, social and labour rights through intra and inter-regional cooperation on a whole of government and whole of society approach, to support regional integration and facilitate mobility for transformative inclusive and sustainable economic growth as well as youth and women empowerment. More specifically, the programme is expected to strengthen national and regional Labour migration governance in accordance with the global and regional frameworks; increase national and cross-border cooperation on labour mobility; promote ethical recruitment and protection of migrant workers’ rights; and enhance avenues for safe, regular, and humane labour migration and mobility pathways through FMPs/CMPs and BLMAs. A robust communication and visibility strategy and action plan will support the aims of the programme.

The programme works at two levels: the regional and national levels. At the regional level, IOM proposes to work with both RECs and their Member States through the Regional Ministerial Forum on Migration (RMFM) and its four Technical Working Groups (TWGs). At the national level, the program will support Member States in enhancing their capacities in policy and practice leading to greater impact and faster results, engaging local government and non-government partners, from the diaspora, private sector, and civil society. The program II phase will run for 3 years, from 1 July 2022 to 31 March 2025.

It is under the scope of this program that the LMI Unit of the IOM Regional Office for East & Horn of Africa is looking to recruit experienced consultant to pilot a comprehensive need driven LMIS systems through a multi-stakeholder approach in South Sudan.

The focus of the consultancy is to identify relevant stakeholders and establish a multi-stakeholder coordination committee to guide the production of labour market data, including data on return and reintegration of labour migrants needed by the various key policy makers, planners and other users in South Sudan. The consultants will also establish conducive environment for LMIS to flourish in South Sudan which will involve establishment of hosting infrastructure and ensure sustainability through capacity building of relevant stakeholders and staff.

The establishment of LMIS will contribute to the development of a systematic and consistent collection, analysis, and dissemination of labour market information for policy development and to ensuring employment opportunities for all. The system will also contribute towards effective implementation of the Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular migration (GCM), Sustainable Development Goals (targets 8.8 and 10.7), African Union`s Vision 2063 and Regional Ministerial Forum on Migration (RMFM) Objectives and other relevant regional cooperation and development frameworks. It will feed into BRMM PHASE II Output 4.3 Returning migrant workers and member of their families’ vulnerabilities, protection needs, and social, economic, labour, and human rights are better met through enhanced, return and reintegration in the East and Horn of Africa; and Activity: 4.3.2 Increase the evidence base to inform decisions related to return and reintegration management, policies, and programming. Pilot the operationalization of the blueprint developed for LMIS and integrate the return and reintegration in South Sudan and benchmarking visit for Somalia.

RESPONSIBILITIES AND ACCOUNTABILITIES

Under the overall supervision of the Senior Regional Policy and Programme Coordinator and the direct supervision of the lead consultant and in close collaboration of the Senior Regional Thematic Specialist on Labour Mobility and Social Inclusion, BRMM Regional Program Management Officer, BRMM South Sudan Focal Persons, RO DTM Team and HQ LMI focal persons, the consultant will have the responsibility for the following duties:

• Design and install ICT infrastructure required to run South Sudan LMIS
• Develop website for South Sudan LMIS
• Develop user guide manual of South Sudan LMIS
• Conduct continuous capacity building of LMIS staff

EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE

• Bachelor in Information technology, computer science or any software development certificate with two years of relevant professional work experience.
• Experience in establishing advanced Management Information Systems (MISs)
• Experience in M&E Systems
• Good command to setup servers running Linux Operating System
• Full stack software developer VI. SKILLS
• Ability to share knowledge with others
• Excellent command in English

LANGUAGES

Required: Fluency in English is mandatory. Working Knowledge of any EAHOA languages and/or other UN official language is advantageous.