ILO ProAgro Youth – Rural Employment Diagnostic, Malawi

1. Context

Youth unemployment and, especially, underemployment is a significant and growing problem in Malawi, particularly in rural areas. This situation has led to high levels of informality and working poverty. The formal private sector creates an insufficient number of jobs, and vocational training institutions have difficulties preparing their graduates for the existing positions. Thus, even within a context where labour supply vastly exceeds demand, companies cannot find qualified employees to hire. The most likely option for youth is a job within the informal sector which is low-paying and often precarious. Opportunities for self-employment are similarly limited and often who low levels of productivity. Entrepreneurs have difficulty accessing finance and receiving quality business development services. In the absence of opportunities, rural youth may be left with few other options than to migrate out of rural areas.

ProAgro YOUTH (under the IFAD grant “Support to integrated agribusiness hubs initiative”) is coordinated by the International Labour Organization and implemented by national level partners. The project’s overall goal is to increase decent self and wage employment for rural youth through integrated agribusiness hubs. This project will support the establishment and testing of innovative agribusiness hubs – applying: (i) an integrated and holistic approach; (ii) targeting rural youth, tapping into their talent and exposing them to new technologies and know-how; (iii) linking them to capital to accelerate self-employment; and (v) providing them opportunities to take advantage of labour demands in all segments of commodity chains (market driven production, agro processing and goods and services) – with the outcome of skilled agri-prenuers, new and profitable rural enterprises and jobs for youth.

Based on the model of implementation for integrated youth agribusiness hubs, the ILO will coordinate the project, with the ILO Malawi office hosting the Principle Hub location. TEVETA (Technical, Entrepreneurial and Vocational Education and Training Authority) will host the Hub Satellites, acting as the main implementing partner. TEVETA will host three satellite Hubs in each in the three main regions of Malawi: Chitipa (Northern Region), Dedza (Central Region) and Chikwawa (Southern Region). The Hubs will be based in Community Technical Colleges (in regional capitals) and Community Skills Development Centres (village level).

Northern region:

• Kasama CTC located in Chitipa
• Mpamba CSDC located in Nkhatabay

Southern region:

• Mgabu CTC located in Chikwawa
• Mphuka CSDC located in Thyolo

Central region:

• Chongoni CTC located in Dedza
• Kawamba CSDC located in Kasungu

The Hubs will implement training and incubation. Farmers Forum for Trade & Social Justice (FAFOTRAJ), the non-profit arm of the Tradeline Corporation, will act as technical partner, supporting entrepreneurship training, access to finance, coaching and mentorship across the Hub.

The two main objectives of the project are:

1. To develop sustainable agricultural capacities of rural youth through sustainable and innovative agribusiness hubs
2. To generate empirical evidence of the developed and tested integrated agribusiness hub models to inform policy to drive scaling up the models to create jobs for youth.

To reach these objectives, ProAgro YOUTH will support rural enterprise and value chain development so that the private sector can grow and create more and better jobs while providing young people in rural areas with the skills needed to access employment or start their business. ProAgro YOUTH will create new agribusiness enterprises or assist youth in the transition to quality employment across agriculture value chains. The main activities include access to finance, job placement, technical and vocational training, coaching, incubation and access to finance. The project will result in 1,500 directly supported jobs for young people in both wage and self-employment

The project features a strong evidence based knowledge management and policy dialogue component whose goal is to support the design and implementation of the project through diagnostics, assessment and M&E while actively informing key rural employment policy processes. In this context, ProAgro Youth will conduct a rural employment diagnostic to provide recommendations and advice to the project about the composition, challenges and opportunities for rural youth employment in the targeted areas. The study will contribute to understanding decent work deficits and their underlying causes and identify sectors and value chains with potential for growth and job opportunities for youth.

2. Objective and scope of work

Objective

The project is currently in the start-up phase where the background and preparation work are carried out. This is a period where assessment and scoping work will be carried out to refine the project design, select value chains and adopt targeting strategies on how to select which young people that will ultimately benefit from the project’s activities. The rural employment diagnostic will be a major feature of the project’s start- up and pre-hub phase***.*** A value chain analysis and sector selection study as well as a institutional capacity assessment will be carried out in parallel and the consultant will be expected to coordinate closely with these other studies.

The main focus of the diagnostic would be on the rural economies in the three regions, North, South and Central, with an emphasis on the agribusiness sector. .

The main objective of the assessment is to provide operational advice and recommendations to the project based on an understanding of the functioning of rural labour markets for young people. The recommendations should seek to improve and refine the design of the project to ensure beneficiaries are linked to quality wage and self employment opportunities in agribusiness. To achieve this, the study will assess decent work challenges and opportunities for youth in rural value chains with a focus on agriculture and agri-business sectors and sub-sectors

A secondary main objective of the diagnostics (as well as that of the value chain analysis) will be narrowing down the targeting of the project’s focus areas/regions.

Scope of the work

Specifically, the diagnostic aims to provide the project team with evidence and advice on the following issues:

1. Common barriers/constraints and underlying factors that limit rural youth access and participation in selected agricultural value chains
2. Provide more specificity on the intended target groups for the project (i.e. youth already in agribusiness, previous graduates of TVETs or other WBL programmes, workers in on- and off-farm businesses operating along the value chain, rural NEET youth, young women in care economy, skilled unemployed, green entrepreneurs, ect): what are key challenges each of these groups of young people face and what are employment opportunities in rural value chains for them?
3. Examine the feasibility of targeting three different regions (and selected local areas) based on the available resources and make recommendations on further regional and sub-regional targeting;
4. Study the economic growth perspectives in the rural economy with a focus on how to release bottlenecks and productivity growth in targeted sectors and value chains. Recommend the types of interventions that are needed to drive both wage- and self-employment opportunities, i.e. integration in global economy/value chains, market development (i.e. farming inputs: equipment, seeds, fertilizers, post-harvest, agro-processing and service industry needs, etc.), as well as challenges arising from climate change and opportunities in new green markets;
5. Identify skill development needs and skills gaps/mismatches for youth (men and women) in agribusiness in rural areas with a focus on apprenticeships, TVET and other forms of work based learning;
6. Identify business development needs linked to self-employment, such as access to finance and productive resources, with higher potential with specific focus on challenges faced by young women;
7. Map potential agribusiness employers in select sectors and value chains related to agribusiness and assess their opportunities and willingness to take on young people in WBL arrangements (such as apprenticeships, internships, etc.).
8. Provide the project with recommendations to support “green jobs and skills” in selected value chains.
9. Identify key stakeholders to be engaged with in the development and implementation of the specific interventions, such as with potential employers of Hub participants and graduates, to follow as part of the project; conduct a mapping of actors engaged in the areas identified in the analysis above, and suggest areas where the ILO and its partners could have a comparative advantage/add value/fill gaps.

For a comprehensive overview of the labour market (both self and wage employment), it is suggested to organize the analysis according to (1) demand side (employment opportunities, employers), (2) the supply side (profile of youth, training/skilling opportunities) and (3) functioning of the rural labour market (intermediation, career counselling, business development services, etc.).

The assessments methodological approach will be broadly based on the “Employment Diagnostic Analysis: a methodological guide (ilo.org) developed by the ILO in 2012, as well as the ILO’s “Informal Economy Diagnostic tool”[1]. However, depending on the country context as determined during the initial conceptualization of the diagnostic, as well as given the limited availability of secondary data, a context-specific adaptation of these guidelines will be required in order to achieve reliable and useful results. This will include the substantial collection of mainly qualitative primary data at field level.

3. Methodology

The study will adopt the following approaches to understand rural youth employment dynamics in the agribusiness sector in Malawi:

1. Literature/desk review of secondary data including project documents, assessments, evaluations, previous labour market studies and policy documents including those related to food security and nutrition, agriculture & rural development, and climate change frameworks and response policies (adaptation and mitigation).
2. Assess the availability of labour related statistics including from Labour Force Survey or other surveys with rural labour data/rural youth, possibly sex disaggregated
3. Conduct primary research in local areas identified by the project using mainly qualitative and non-representative techniques, key informant interviews, most significant change, focus groups discussions, rapid surveys. Interviews should involve potential project beneficiaries, potential employers, government partners, training providers, business development partners, etc. The consultant should conduct a minimum of 50 interviews. Interviews records are transcribed.
4. Analyse data based on agreed analytical framework
5. Report writing

Potential study participants include:

• Rural young people (18-29 years): potential beneficiaries
• Education and training institutions for youth (especially those providing technical and vocational education)
• Employer associations/organizations, mostly agricultural sub sector associations including selected agribusiness firms
• Policy makers such as ministries, agencies and departments, including representatives of local governments
• Employment services providers- public, private, NGO, Universities/Colleges, recruitment agencies etc.
• Agencies/institutions with expertise on climate change, sustainable rural development and climate smart approaches in the rural economy
• Relevant stakeholders from the broader farming community
• Development agencies
• ICT firms providing agribusiness related solutions, and private sector agribusiness organisations (national or local) e.g juice processors, milk traders – based on the value chain scope of the agribusiness hubs
• Renewable energy providers

4. Deliverables

NOTE: The level of effort (working days) indicated in the table above should be seen as guidelines for consultants as they develop technical and financial proposals. Deviations from these guidelines are possible and should be justified in the proposal. Consultants may also suggest including research assistants or junior consultants in the assignment (whose management and payments would be the sole responsibility of the lead consultant), provided that the lead consultant will undertake the significant majority of the work required.

Deliverable

Deliverable 1: Inception report which highlights the interpretation of the ToR and how the assignment will be conducted and contains a detailed description of the methodology, incl. the final data collection tools. The inception report is subject to at least one round of revisions to incorporate comments from the ILO.

Deliverable 2: Provide detailed documentation of primary and secondary research (quantitative and qualitative), both desk-based and in the field. This includes a structured recording of all data collected (in the case of surveys or interviews) and summary reports of all consultations that were conducted in formats previously agreed with the ILO.

Deliverable 3: Draft report (in word format) which details findings on all aspects as highlighted in the scope of work.

Deliverable 4: Supported the ILO to organise two validation consultations, one for the ILO and partners of the ProAgro YOUTH Consortium and one for external stakeholders (incl. government social partners and others). Lead the design of the meetings, facilitated discussions, presented findings of the study (in PPT following ILO branding) and provided a summary of discussions.

Deliverable 5: Final report (in word and pdf format) available following the incorporation of feedback received during validation consultations and at least 1 round of feedback from the ILO. All figures and graphs included in the report are available in an editable format. All graphs are provided in one well-documented MS-Excel sheet. In addition, a revised slide deck (in PPT format, following ILO branding) is provided.

Deviations from these deliverables and timeline are possible but require consultations with and written approval by the ILO.

5. Payment schedule

1. A first payment of 20 per cent of the total contract volume will be made upon submission of Deliverable 1 to the full satisfaction of the ILO and upon presentation of an invoice.
2. A second payment of 40 per cent of the total contract volume will be made upon submission of Deliverables 2 and 3 to the full satisfaction of the ILO and upon presentation of an invoice.
3. A first payment of 40 per cent of the total contract volume will be made upon submission of Deliverables 4 and 5 to the full satisfaction of the ILO and upon presentation of an invoice.

6. Staffing, Roles, and Reporting

The contractor will report to the ProAgro YOUTH National Coordinator. The consultant will also receive guidance from the ILO Decent Work Team in Pretoria, ILO HQ YOUTH team, the ILO HQ STRATEGIES Unit and the ILO Regional Office for Africa.

7. Specific Clauses

Throughout the course of this assignment, the contractor will report on a weekly basis to the ILO for coordination and follow–up. If it appears necessary to modify the tasks of work or exceed the time allocated, the contractor must discuss the circumstances with the ILO and obtain prior written approval. ILO may disclose the draft or final report and/or any related information to any person and for any purpose, ILO may deem appropriate.

1. Required experience and qualifications
2. A minimum of a master’s degree in Labour Economics, Labour Statistics, Agricultural Economics, processing statistics or a related field
3. Minimum of 5 years’ experience conducting development research combining quantitative and qualitative methods, or related studies in Agribusiness or related field
4. Good understanding of (youth) labour markets and agricultural value chain development work in Africa, specifically in Malawi
5. Good understanding of climate change and sustainability challenges and opportunities in agriculture/rural areas in the country
6. Knowledge of key gender concepts to be applied to the analysis
7. Good understanding of hub or incubation centre concepts, in particular applied to agriculture and related sub-sectors
8. Excellent analytical and communication & writing skills in English