Jobs Marker consultant 1

1. Context

Skills development and employment, especially for youth, has always been an important dimension of the African Development Bank’s activities. Today, the central element of the promotion of the employment dimension within the activities of African Development Bank (hereafter ‘the Bank’) is the Jobs for Youth in Africa strategy, which will create 25 million jobs and positively impact 50 million youth (2016 – 2025) with the aim to increase inclusive employment and entrepreneurship, strengthen human capital, and create durable labor market linkages.

The Bank internally uses several tools and frameworks to appraise, monitor and report different dimensions of jobs impact but these systems and methodologies are not integrated nor harmonized, hence creating inconsistencies in measuring and reporting. Harmonizing and integrating jobs within the entire operations of the Bank’s projects life cycle is therefore a major challenge. The development of the Jobs Marker lays the foundations for this profound transformation.

Within this background, the Jobs Marker aims to enhance employment impact by integrating employment considerations into the Bank’s operations at project and portfolio levels. The Jobs Marker is currently envisioned as an internal Bank tool to pay more attention primarily to jobs impact at the design and appraisal stage of its sovereign operations projects. It is also expected that the Jobs Marker will allow for the identification and realization of job creation and improvement potentials within the individual prospective Bank operations as part of project-specific employment action plans.

2. Objective and scope of work

This assignment consists of providing technical assistance to the joint ILO-AfDB project and more specifically to contribute to the design of the Jobs Marker.

Although the Jobs Marker is an evolving concept, it is currently envisaged to work at two levels:

• At the aggregated level, it will allow the tagging and tracking of employment-focused projects thus adding an employment dimension to the portfolio management of the Bank. Tracking the share of such projects in the Bank’s portfolio of investments will provide evidence of the development outcomes potential for employment in the Bank’s operations. The evaluation of such projects will provide further insights into projects’ design and characteristics for effective, efficient, and sustainable employment creation, with important learning for future project selection and design.
• At the operations level, the Marker will allow for the identification and realization of job creation and improvement potentials within the individual prospective Bank operations as part of project-specific employment action plans. Based on generated insights, suggestions for project modifications will be introduced during project preparation and appraisal. The experience of the existing Gender Marker is deemed very instructive and will inform the Jobs Marker design.

The consultant is thus expected to provide technical assistance in the design of the Jobs Marker. In addition, the consultant will coordinate the ILO internal working group and provide technical inputs to ensure the pilot Jobs Marker contributes to further enhancing and integrating employment and skills considerations into the Bank operations as well as providing a mechanism to appraise public sector operations of the Bank in terms of jobs impact and skills development.

3. Timeline, deliverables and fees

• First deliverable to be delivered by 20 September 2022 (15 working days):
  • Provide inputs and technical assistance in the drafting of the situation analysis report
  • Draft the section of the situation analysis report focusing on other IFIs/DFIs’ approach towards maximising employment impact (about 30 pages) and consolidate/address comments from the Bank. This section should detail the respective approaches of a minimum of 8 other IFIs/DFIs to enhance employment impact within their operations and deep dive into a selected 2-3 who have employment impact at their forefront in order to get inspirations from, for the Jobs Marker.
  • Conduct online meetings with some of the Bank colleagues and/or other IFIs/DFIs to clarify and/or get further insights or information useful for the situation analysis report.
• Second deliverable from September 1st to 10 December 2022 (5 working days):
  • Steer, coordinate and provide technical assistance to the ILO internal working group on the Jobs Marker
• Third deliverable to be delivered by 30 November 2022 (35 working days):
  • Elaborate a pilot Jobs Marker tool and consolidate/address comments from the Bank

The total number of working days for this assignment is 55 working days. Deviations from these deliverables can occur according to the evolution of the assignment; however, any changes observed or anticipated should be consulted with the focal person at the ILO.

4. Payment Terms

The ILO will only pay for services that have been performed and for deliverables that are successfully completed to the satisfaction of the ILO. The payments will be made according to the following schedule:

• The first payment of 35 per cent of the contract volume will be made upon receipt of deliverables 1 to the satisfaction of the ILO and presentation of the invoice.
• The second and final payment of 65 per cent of the contract volume will be made upon receipt of deliverables 2 and 3 to the satisfaction of the ILO and presentation of the invoice.

5. Staffing, Roles, and Reporting

The consultant will provide regular updates for the work carried out, and report to, the Youth Employment Technical Specialist, from the ILO Regional Office for Africa who is managing this project. The consultant is also expected to collaborate closely with ILO colleagues from Geneva providing backstopping support to the project, as well as with the Bank’s counterparts working on this project.

Since there will be a team of two consultants working on this project, with interrelated and interdependent deliverables and workstreams, the two consultants will have to closely work together.

6. Specific Clauses

Throughout the course of this assignment, the consultant will report regularly to the ILO for coordination and follow–up. All communication to other relevant stakeholders should be coordinated with the ILO. If it appears necessary to modify the tasks of work or exceed the time allocated, the consultant must discuss the circumstances with the ILO and obtain prior written approval. ILO may disclose the draft or final documents and/or any related information to any person and for any purpose the ILO may deem appropriate.

Kindly note that for the tasks mentioned in this TORs, the consultant is expected to work closely with the Youth Employment Technical Specialist based in Abidjan within the Regional Office for Africa of ILO.The consultant is not expected to enter into any legal arrangements with third parties or finance those as part of their assignment with the ILO.

7. Required experience and qualifications

• Post-graduate qualification in a relevant field (social science, social policy, economics, development studies, etc.). PhD in economics and/or related to employment is considered an advantage
• Experience of a minimum of 10 years working on growth and/or employment issues in Africa
• Demonstrated experience and/or knowledge of Sovereign Operations within International Financing Institutions
• Familiarity with internal quality control and review processes and tools, and/or safeguards and/or corporate reporting requirements of International Financing Institutions
• Familiarity with ILO and/or the United Nations policies, technical programmes and procedures would be an added advantage
• Exceptional organizational and communication skills, ability to work independently as well as in teams in order to meet deadlines.
• Publications in the fields related to this assignment are a distinct advantage
• Excellent English communication and drafting skills.