Terms of Reference
Country: Kenya
Operational coverage: Turkana and Garissa Counties
Type of engagement: Service Contract (for profit) or Implementation Agreement (non profit)
Duration of assignment (TBC): 12 months
The International Labour Organization (ILO) is seeking to engage a qualified organization, whether a for profit firm or a non profit entity, to support the roll out of digital employment interventions under the PROSPECTS programme in Kenya. The assignment will focus on facilitating access to decent work opportunities for refugee and host community youth in Turkana and Garissa counties in the digital economy.
Deadline for applications*: 9 August 2026***
- Background
1.1 Overview
Kenya continues to face significant youth labour market challenges. Employment creation has not kept pace with the growth in the working-age population, and young people continue to experience disproportionately high levels of unemployment, underemployment, informality, and poor job quality. These challenges are more severe for young women, for youth in historically marginalized areas, and for populations with limited access to labour market information, employment services, and professional networks.
Forced displacement adds another layer of complexity. Kenya hosts a large refugee population, with the majority residing in Turkana and Garissa counties, particularly in and around Kakuma and Dadaab. Refugees and host communities in these counties face overlapping constraints, including poverty, fragile local labour markets, weak private sector presence, limited formal employment opportunities, and restricted access to quality livelihood options. While humanitarian and development partners have invested in skills, livelihoods, and entrepreneurship initiatives, the transition from training to actual employment remains inadequate.
At the same time, Kenya’s digital economy continues to expand. Digitalization has created opportunities in software development, digital support services, business process functions, content production, design, online service delivery, platform-enabled business functions, and other digitally enabled occupations. The growth of remote and distributed work models also creates possibilities for participation by workers located outside major urban centres. In principle, this could reduce some of the geographic disadvantages faced by youth in refugee-hosting counties.
Digitalization is also reshaping access to local service markets. In Kenya, digital intermediation models are increasingly being used to connect workers and service providers to clients, customers, and market opportunities. These models can expand visibility, strengthen access to work opportunities, support transitions into paid work, and create a practical entry point for integrating skills recognition, upskilling, tooling and retooling, mentorship, soft skills development, work-based learning, and gradual alignment with decent work principles.
However, these opportunities are not automatically inclusive. Without deliberate intervention, digital labour markets can reproduce or deepen inequality. Access to decent digital work is constrained by several factors, including uneven internet connectivity, limited employer confidence in remote workers from marginalized locations, weak matching systems, poor access to professional networks, and the growth of low-value or exploitative work arrangements. Access to work opportunities through digitally mediated local service markets can likewise be constrained by weak platform practices, limited visibility of qualified providers, low client trust, unequal access to digital tools, and the absence of systems that support fairness, transparency, accountability, and worker protection.
In many cases, programmes marketed as digital jobs interventions have focused on training without demonstrating demand, or have linked participants to fragmented, low-paid, task-based work that does not meet decent work standards.
The ILO’s comparative advantage in this space lies in supporting access to decent work. For the purposes of this assignment, this means work opportunities that are structured, remunerated in a predictable and fair manner, and linked to meaningful work outputs, supervision, accountability, and worker protection. It also means moving beyond training as an end in itself and focusing on actual labour market insertion and measurable work outcomes.
1.2 Operational context of the assignment
In response to the challenges facing both host communities and refugees, a partnership initiative titled: **PROSPECTS - Partnership for improving Prospects for host communities and forcibly displaced persons’**1, funded by the Government of the Netherlands and jointly implemented by IFC, ILO, UNHCR, UNICEF, and the World Bank, the ILO leads on employment and labour market systems interventions. In Kenya, PROSPECTS aims to improve sustainable living conditions for refugees and host communities by increasing access to livelihoods and employment in safe and decent work.
Within this framework, ILO has supported interventions related to digital skills, employment services, career guidance, and transition-to-work models for refugees and host communities in Turkana and Garissa. These efforts have generated valuable lessons. A central lesson is that employability support alone is insufficient where partners do not have direct access to real labour demand or credible market demand. Another is that many conventional providers struggle to deliver employment outcomes in remote counties. A third lesson is that where multiple partners operate at once, duplication in targeting can reduce efficiency and undermine programme credibility.
The organization should be able to demonstrate one or more of the following characteristics:
- They have existing digital work pipelines or client contracts requiring digital talent.
- They are able to place talent into verified work opportunities or delivery projects.
- They have operational models suited to distributed, remote and digital work.
- They provide targeted employability support linked to placement and retention.
The selected organization will be engaged to connect participants to decent digital and remote work opportunities and support their placement and retention.
- Objective
The overall objective of this assignment is to increase access to decent work opportunities for refugee and host community youth in Turkana and Garissa through digital employment services.
The ILO seeks to engage an organization to support the transition of up to 250 youth, previously trained by other institutions, into sustainable local and international work opportunities, including remote and digitally enabled work.
The assignment will focus on demand-driven approaches that combine assessment, matching, activation or placement, and retention support.
Specifically, the selected organization will:
- Assess participant readiness and align skills with labour market or marketplace demand.
- Provide targeted employability support where necessary to enable access to work opportunities.
- Facilitate access to work through placement into digital and remote jobs,
- Provide mentorship, job search support, and follow-up to strengthen retention and progression.
- Engage employers, clients, and platforms to secure and sustain opportunities.
- Leverage partnerships with government, private sector, and digital platforms to expand access to work opportunities.
- Scope of the Assignment
The selected organization will be expected to deliver an end-to-end market access or employment service that begins with verified labour demand, marketplace demand, or credible opportunity demand and ends with measurable placement, work access, and retention outcomes. The work should be practical, demand-driven, and adapted to the realities of Turkana and Garissa.
Full scope details, deliverables, and reporting requirements for this assignment are set out in the track specific terms of reference referenced under How to Apply below.
Inclusion Targets and Equity Requirements
To ensure alignment with the PROSPECTS programme’s commitment to inclusive and equitable employment outcomes, the selected organization will be required to meet minimum inclusion targets in their placement or activation results. Specifically:
- At least 40% of participants placed or activated must be women
- At least 40% of participants placed or activated must be refugees
- At least 5% of participants placed or activated must be persons with disabilities, where feasible and in line with reasonable accommodation practices
The selected organization is expected to:
- Integrate inclusion considerations into their targeting, assessment, placement, activation, and support processes
- Demonstrate how they will address barriers to participation for women, refugees, and persons with disabilities
- Track and report on inclusion outcomes throughout implementation
- Required experience and qualifications
Organizations responding to this TOR should demonstrate strong institutional capacity and relevant experience for the track under which they are applying.
General requirements applicable to all applicants
The selected organization should meet the following minimum requirements:
- Be a legally registered organization (for profit firm or non profit entity) eligible to contract in Kenya or able to operate lawfully in Kenya through an appropriate local arrangement.
- Have prior experience working with youth, marginalized populations, or programmes operating in fragile, refugee-hosting, or low-resource settings. Experience in Turkana, Garissa, or comparable settings will be an advantage.
- Demonstrate sound safeguarding, worker welfare, and grievance-handling practices.
- Have strong financial and operational management systems sufficient to manage a results-based contract.
- At least five years of relevant operational experience in one or more of the following:
- Talent deployment
- Recruitment and placement into digital roles
- Managed remote workforce solutions
- IT consulting
- Software development and digital services delivery
- Demonstrate an existing pipeline of digital work opportunities, projects, or employer demand relevant to the target profile of jobseekers.
- Show proven experience in onboarding, supervising, or managing talent in distributed or remote work environments.
- Have the ability to assess, match, place, support, and retain participants in decent digital and remote work opportunities.
Organisations that are primarily training institutions, or whose main comparative advantage lies in delivering training without demonstrated labour demand or credible marketplace demand, are not the target of this assignment.