Livelihood Assessment Consultant

Organizational background

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) responds to the world's worst humanitarian crises and helps people whose lives and livelihoods are shattered by conflict and disaster to survive, recover, and regain control of their future. IRC Yemen began its projects in October 2012 and currently operates in the south and north of the country through direct programming and local partnerships.

The country program operates in Aden, Abyan, Lahj, Al Dhale'e and Shabwa, Hodeidah and Sana'a governorates and continues to assist the affected population through:

•         Provision of health, reproductive health, nutrition, water and sanitation services to more than a quarter-million people.

•         Helping people to meet their basic needs through multipurpose cash assistance (MPCA) and cash for food

•         Delivering essential drugs and medical supplies to hospitals.

Purpose and objective

The main objective of the livelihoods and market assessment is to provide practical and technically sound recommendations and inputs to inform IRC Yemen Economic Recovery and Development (ERD) programming in line with the ERD sector 2022-24 strategy, which aims to enable and prepare vulnerable Returnees, IDPs, and Host Communities in Yemen to proactively position themselves for livelihoods recovery and to participate in income-generating activities. The recommendations shall consider the Food security and agriculture Cluster and cash and market working group Strategic Objective priorities, similar surveys conducted by other agencies, existing market opportunities and the beneficiaries' specific needs, skills and aspiration. The study will inform IRC of any existing age, gender and disability-related barriers or other obstacles to access livelihoods opportunities for vulnerable individuals within different categories (IDP, returnees, and host communities), which shall be considered for future planning. It shall also analyze beneficiaries' livelihoods and labor market participation, existing skills, behaviors, resilience status, and preferences. All data shall be disaggregated by age, gender, disability status / settlement types and locations.

Goal of the assessment:

1.       Identify current livelihoods needs, existing skills (including basic literacy and numeracy) and aspirations of identified target groups, including young girls and boys (ages 18-30), women and men (ages 30-59) from vulnerable households IDPs and living in conflict affected host communities, and socially marginalized groups such as People with Disabilities and Muhamasheen;

2.       Recommendations for how to support target groups (address skills gap, provide start-up capital etc..) to meet their basic needs and protect livelihoods (according to the IRC Economic Wellbeing outcome 1 “People meet their basic needs and protect livelihoods during emergencies”), taking advantage of existing market opportunities to improve household level food security and/or income (in both rural and urban areas) through an appropriate mix of these activities:

• Cash for Work/Assets activities
• Technical (including farming, livestock and fishing), vocational, entrepreneurship and job skills trainings
• Access to productive assets through grants or in-kind kits

Scope of Work:

• To provide an overview of the general livelihood context on the national level and specific for the special focus areas, including decision-making processes; areas and population information; social and gender profiles as relevant; relevant national or international organizations in the sector; vulnerability and marginalization context; national and state trends; economy, and the institutional context as it relates to livelihood including private sector; and areas where livelihood interventions are likely to produce synergy benefits when combined with education or peace components.
• Compile and analyze available data and information about targeted locations to provide an overview of the number of residents and displacement/movement and settlement patterns, food security situations, shelter conditions, income level, education, hygiene and sanitation situations, livelihoods experiences and capacities, coping mechanisms, and financial and security risks and management strategies.
• Analyze technical vocational skills providers including private technical vocational institutions training government technical training center, local NGO center, and their approach to technical vocational training.
• To provide an overview of the national framework for livelihoods, concentrating on the policy and strategy level at the national or subnational level. This could include examples of successful interventions, current gaps, and needs regarding the rural and urban population, particularly youth and women, and, more specifically the bridge from vocational education and training to working life, following IRC approach “Learn to Earn (L2E)”.
• Conduct a livelihoods stakeholders mapping and describe the relationship lines between specific actors and the status quo of the relationship, and the possible impact of insecurity on livelihoods, mobility, markets, and economic conditions, particularly among vulnerable communities.
• Provide practical recommendations for appropriate livelihoods strategies and methodologies adapted to identified most vulnerable communities. Priority should be given to livelihoods approaches that are both practical and likely to have an effective impact in the targeted areas. The recommendations should consider geographic, demographic (i.e. gender, age, disability status etc.), and socioeconomic (i.e. education, skills levels, displacement status, etc.) variations. Recommendations on how emergency relief activities can be combined with livelihood development opportunities.
• Analyze the proposed livelihoods solutions and recommend what would be more appropriate to implement with local partners (preferred option) vs what should be directly implemented by IRC.

Location

Aden, Lahaj, Abyan, Al Dalee, and Hodieda

 The assessment will support the IRC to: 

-          Determine key livelihoods activities for future interventions aligned with the country program strategy, according to clients’ needs and humanitarian context.

-          Identify interventions that are more tailored to women’s needs and thus mitigate the risks faced by women participating in livelihood activities particularly women involved in the Women and Girls Safe Centers (Women Protection and Empowerment sector).

-          Provide ideas on possible entry points for local partnership.

-          Improve understanding of labor market functioning and existing clients’ skills gaps.

-          Improve understanding of livelihood strategies of different categories of households (social differentiation); their levels of livelihoods security; and the principal constraints and opportunities that can be addressed by programming, and identification of risk factors facing households and identification of key leverage points and opportunities to pursue in future programming.

-          Identify key livelihoods response priorities, and institutions likely to be involved in recovery.

-          Assist in the identification of the most appropriate agricultural (farming, livestock, fishing and agroforestry) interventions in emergencies.

-          Assessexisting livelihoods landscape, including:

• Analysis of private technical vocational center and government technical vocational centers and the relative offerings of each
• Analysis of the status of enterprises at different scales (small, medium, and large) and which scale are most needed in country and what is the estimated value for each.

Deliverables:

• Develop the livelihood assessment tools in coordination with the IRC’s Economic and Recovery Development team.
• One assessment report for livelihood projects including agriculture (farming, livestock, fishery and agroforestry), technical-vocational, entrepreneurship and job skills trainings and cash for work) in English.
• Submit a final report (of not more than 30 pages) for the livelihood assessment in line with the IRC’s reporting requirements and standards in English which includes:

                     I.            Table of contents.

                   II.            Executive summary of methodology, overview, key findings and recommendation.

                 III.            Background information (livelihood project specifics).

                IV.            Methodology: objective, data collection and analysis of the research.

                  V.            Recommendations and conclusions 

• Desk review of existing assessments, materials, strategies on livelihoods research.
• Original data to be submitted to IRC.
• Report summary maximum five page.
• Power point presentation.