Review of National Policy, Legislative and Regulatory Frameworks, and Practice: A Baseline Study for Uganda Consultancy

https://www.ilo.org/global/programmes-and-projects/prospects/countries/u…

Background

The world is witnessing the highest levels of displacement on record. In recent years, forced displacement has increased in scale and complexity. According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), in 2019 there were over 79.5 million forcibly displaced persons, of whom 30.2 million were refugees and asylum-seekers. Eighty-four percent of the world’s displaced are in developing countries and more than half are women. As displacement has become increasingly protracted, responses are focusing more on durable solutions backed by more dignified, inclusive and comprehensive development programmes for refugees and the communities that host them. The aim is to enhance self-reliance, facilitate empowerment and strengthen social cohesion.

These responses need to be rapidly consolidated through significant international support built on a foundation of robust and effective partnerships that maximize synergies and leverage comparative advantages. With this in mind, a new Partnership for improving prospects for forcibly displaced persons and host communities (PROSPECTS) has been formed. The Partnership spearheaded by the Government of the Netherlands, brings together the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the International Labour Organization (ILO), the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Bank. PROSPECTS is targeting forced displacement situations in eight countries in East, Horn and North Africa and the Arab States: Egypt, Ethiopia, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Sudan and Uganda.

The Partnership is the concrete expression of the consensus that has emerged around the need for displaced persons and host communities to enjoy enhanced socio-economic opportunities and for children on the move to have effective and inclusive access to protection and education (New York Declaration, 2016). Benefiting from a four-year time horizon (2019–2023) and financially supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, the Partners, together with national and local institutions, have joined efforts to develop a new paradigm in responding to forced displacement crises, particularly through the involvement of development actors.

The Partnership hopes to transform the way governments and other stakeholders, including the social partners and the private sector, respond to forced displacement crises, by:

· fostering an enabling environment for socio-economic inclusion;

· improving access to education and protection for vulnerable children on the move; and

· strengthening the resilience of host communities.

The Partnership will also be grounded in results-based and country-led approaches. It aims to develop and implement evidence-based solutions, tailored to each context, as well as to test and learn from innovative operational solutions. The Partnership focuses on three critical areas of intervention that enable forcibly displaced persons to overcome their specific vulnerabilities and host communities to pursue their own development efforts in transformed environments. These are: education and learning; employment with dignity; and protection and inclusion.

In this partnership, ILO brings significant expertise and experience in supporting enabling environments to underpin inclusive socio-economic growth and decent work, strengthen labour markets and promote access to improved working conditions and fundamental rights at work, including through the involvement of its tripartite national constituents. The ILO stimulates labour market demand and immediate job creation through employment-intensive investment, local economic and business development and promotion of specific value chains and market systems. It provides targeted support to labour market institutions, services and compliance and monitoring mechanisms that facilitate the integration of refugees into the labour market in accordance with its strong normative foundation of international labour standards. The ILO brings also expertise on technical and vocational education and training and on the recognition of prior learning for certifying the skills of refugees to better ensure access to the labour market, and methods for assessing labour market demand to provide the right skills to refugees needed by employers.

To ensure coherent and mutually reinforcing action, the ILO connects its work under each of the three pillars through cross-cutting interventions implemented in close coordination, collaboration and complementarity with the other Partners.

Uganda Context

Uganda is currently the largest refugee-hosting country in Africa and the third largest host in the world, with over 1.4 million refugees and asylum seekers. The Country is implementing one of the most progressive refugee policies in the world. The Refugee Act (2006) guarantees refugees’ fundamental rights, including the right to participate in gainful employment; freedom of movement and to establish businesses. Refugees are also entitled to access social services provided by the Government, including education and health care, and can settle alongside their host communities. However, host communities are burdened by the presence of the large refugee population and face their own economic, environmental and development challenges that continue to require support. Equitable attention to the needs of both communities is essential to sustaining peaceful co-existence and to mitigate shocks to the existing basic service systems.

With challenges finding employment or livelihoods sufficient to meet basic household needs, 54% refugees continue to depend on humanitarian aid as their main source of income. While food insecurity and access to basic needs are certainly pressing and urgent issues in refugee hosting districts, refugees represent an untapped source of labour. This presents an opportunity for local economic development that can address market constraints by opening up value chains to offer greater employment for refugees and nationals. However, the majority of the refugees and host communities in Uganda grapple with an education and skills gap making it difficult for them to graduate from unemployment or vulnerable employment into decent jobs.

Government of Uganda is implementing of the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF) in 2017, which is incorporated into the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) adopted in 2018. Uganda’s National Programme of Action to implement the GCR (2018-2020), the GOU comprehensive sector plans, the Refugee Response Plan (RRP), the ILO’s DWCP and respective ILO Country Programme Outcomes (ie; CPO UGA128) all cascade and mutually reinforce each other to meet the protection and solutions needs of refugees living within their host communities in Uganda.

Against this backdrop, the PROSPECTS Partners in Uganda-ILO, World Bank, IFC, UNHCR and UNICEF- will strive to address barriers that are limiting the ability of refugees and host communities to maximize their productive potential and explore local economic development opportunities in target districts of Arua, Madi Okollo and Isingiro. Each of the three districts represent different socio-economic contexts. Isingiro hosts Nakivale, a 60-year old refugee settlement, hosting the most diverse refugee population and is 60km from nearest city of Mbarara; Arua hosts Rhino Camp settlement which is located 65km from the northwest city of Arua and Madi Okollo, a new district curved out of Arua, and both are close to the borders of South Sudan and the DRC. The settlement existed prior to the establishment of South Sudan as a State and hosts largely South Sudanese refugees.

The Partnership in Uganda aims to enhance the enabling environment for socio-economic inclusion of refugees, enhance access to education; work based skills development and training; protection and strengthening the resilience of host communities through inclusive socio- economic development that benefits refugees. Institutional strengthening and the inclusion of refugees in business development, education, local private-public dialogue and private sector engagement is viewed by PROSPECTS Partners in Uganda as having an effect towards removing de-facto barriers and strengthening the private- public sector capacity from the onset, fostering ownership to allow it to stand on its own as early as possible. This process is facilitated through the Government of Uganda’s initiative to include refugees in its National Development Plan III, District Development Plans (DDPs) and National Sector Strategies.

Objectives

The consultancy entitled, “The National Policy, Legislative and Regulatory Frameworks and Practice Review”, aims to establish baseline situations in four countries in East Africa – Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and Sudan. It will look at relevant policy, legislative and regulatory frameworks and current practice in terms of implementation in relation to the access of refugees to the labour markets, employment, livelihood and training opportunities, including self-employment and business development. This will provide ILO PROSPECTS programme teams a clear understanding of the current status of these frameworks and how they are being applied (or not).

As the Partnership begins planning its interventions around policy advocacy and supporting government and other efforts to develop or reform relevant frameworks on access to education and training, active labour market programmes, the right to work and rights at work, including social security and protection and freedom of association, an understanding of the current political, legal, and regulatory environment in regards to those with refugee status is required for each of the targeted countries.

Importantly, it will also provide a comparison on national policies and legislation against what actually happens in practice thereby revealing the capacities and abilities of government ministries, institutions, social partners and non-government actors to enact and implement and inform further capacity-building interventions.

Specific Objectives

The consultant, in close collaboration with and under the technical supervision of IMPACT Initiatives, an NGO with expertise in designing and conducting research for actors in the humanitarian and development sector, will be required to:

· Identify relevant policies, legislation and regulations and analyse them in regards to the refugees’ access to employment, livelihood, and training opportunities, and to rights at work.

· Identify and review literature and secondary data sources on policy, legislation and regulations, and assess their actual implementation on the ground, thereby avoiding duplication of existing legal reviews and studies and leveraging these sources where relevant.

· Conduct a Gap Analysis against the assessment framework that highlights implementation gaps, and needs and expectations.

· Conduct key informant interviews of identified national and international actors to assess the practical application of policy, legislative and regulatory frameworks and identify challenges that will need to be addressed.

· Conduct KI interviews with refugees and host communities, and also focus group discussions, to better assess knowledge and understanding of these policy, legislative and regulatory frameworks.

· Conduct validation exercises in Uganda to ensure the establishment of key recommendations going forward in terms of identifying gaps and challenges that can be addressed through the PROSPECTS and related programmes, including policy advocacy and supporting either policy, legislation and regulatory development and/or reform as appropriate.

· Develop Uganda country level report that summarize the main findings and possible recommendations for the PROSPECTS programme at the country level.

The consultant will be expected to conduct these activities only for their country of focus, however, it is important to note the consultant’s research and subsequent report will be expected to follow a predetermined assessment framework that will allow for their findings to be comparable against other countries identified for this study. The findings from all countries will be eventually aggregated into a global-level analysis report. Further details are outlined in the methodology section below.

Scope

The scope of work would identify, examine and analyse policy, legislation and regulations as far as these pertain to the access of refugees to labour markets, employment and self-employment (formal and informal), training, business development and other income-generating activities. It would also examine and allow for the comparison on identified national and regional policies and legislation, against the ability and capacity of government ministries, institutions, social partners and non-government actors to enact and implement. Areas of focus should include:

· Current refugee, asylum and immigration policy and legislation and relevant secondary legislation and regulations, with particular focus on issues relevant to access to work (formal and informal), including but not limited to the right to work, to set up business, legal identity, access to mobile services in the context of digital learning and economy access to justice including grievance mechanisms (to protect rights at work), freedom of association, freedom of movement, access to education and training, employment services, limitations on sectors and areas of work available to refugees, etc. This analysis will also consider mechanisms in place to govern the access of refugees to labour markets and economic opportunities, such as having to apply for work permits and the regulations applying to these systems, including quotas. In addition, it will also consider naturalisation pathways open to refugees through immigration/asylum policies and regulations.

· The baselines will also examine the issue of recognition of education, vocational, academic , skills and professional qualifications of refugees and how this process is managed, if at all, and the onward principle of refugees being able, for example, to practice liberal professions.

· Where governments have established and apply the right to work for refugees, this review should examine how this works in practice, including any barriers that may affect the application of this right, for example, bureaucratic hurdles, lack of information, limited capacity of government institutions to support access to this right, behaviour and attitude of employers and national workers, etc.

· The same will apply for the right of refugees to set up businesses or cooperatives and access to financial services, looking closely at challenges they may face in accessing this right, legal and bureaucratic obstacles, lack of understanding of services they may be able to obtain, etc.

· Freedom of movement and association are two fundamental principles that support the right to work and rights at works and it will be important to examine how these rights are applied if at all and whether refugees are appropriately informed. Freedom of association can apply to refugees being able to join trade unions or businesses/self-employed being able to join sectoral and trade associations, including cooperatives. The other part of this analysis would examine the readiness of these national bodies to accept refugees into membership, including whether their regulations are adequate and appropriate and whether information is being shared among refugees as well as these actors.

· The above show how important it will be for the assessment to cover policy and practice as these are important indicators to address impediments to comprehensive and fair implementation, and therefore critical information for planning and programme design.

· The review will examine policies and national strategies (where these might exist) on a range of related issues, for example, on Employment (including apprenticeships and consideration for youth, gender and disability), Education and Skills Development (including career counselling and guidance), Vocational Qualifications and Competences (including recognition of prior learning), Social Security and Protection (including for example pensions, maternity and child benefits/allowances, health benefits, injury insurance, etc.), Small and Medium Enterprise Development and Urban, Rural and Agricultural Development (including land ownership), etc.

· It will also examine labour legislation in terms of coverage and application and whether public and private employment services can provide support to refugee job seekers.

· National and county development plans and strategies are also important sources of information for this assessment to understand whether refugees are included.

· Central to this broad examination is the principle of non-discrimination and equality of treatment and opportunity for refugees.

Methodology

The consultant/service provider will be provided with a global level methodology and tools developed by ILO and IMPACT to form the foundation of the study. The methodology will employ a qualitative comparative method using secondary data and identified primary literature sources, and combine it with external triangulation via structured / semi structured key informant interviews. The consultant/service provider will adapt the methodology to the specific country context under the guidance of ILO and IMPACT.

Deliverables

Phase 1: Project Planning and Implementation

· Work Plan

· Full body of literature to form the basis of the secondary data review and gap analysis components of the study.

· A full Secondary Data Review on identified literature against the provided assessment plan

· Gap Analysis Report outlining the areas requiring further information and understanding

· Data Collection Plan A data collection plan to fill any identified gaps, and to triangulate desk review findings

Phase 2: Initial Findings, Reporting, and Validation

· Initial Findings Report

· Draft Report

Phase 3: Final Reporting and Project Close

· Final Report

· Lessons Learned Report

Payment Schedule

Payment will be delivered in line with the satisfactory delivery of outputs outlined in the three identified project phases.

Phase 1: Project Planning and Implementation

20 Percent, Within 2 weeks upon signature of the contract

Phase 2: Initial Findings, Reporting, and Validation

40 Percent, Within 8 weeks upon signature of the contract

Phase 3: Final Reporting and Project Close

40 Percent, Within 12 weeks upon signature of the contract

Reporting

Although the consultant will be working under guidance and support from IMPACT, the consultant will report directly to ILO PROSPECTS country programme manager Stephen Opio (opio@ilo.org).

The ILO and IMPACT are available to provide in-country information and resources where possible, but it will be the consultant’s responsibility to collect relevant information as per this ToR, and ensure they are able to work freely and legally in the selected country.

Duration

The consultancy will be for 12 weeks, starting on the 12th of April 2021 and concluding on the 2nd of July 2021.

Ownership of Data and Information

All documents, project data and information obtained in connection with this assignment shall be treated confidential and shall not without the written approval of ILO be made available to any third party. All the documents provided by ILO, both soft and hard copies are to be returned to ILO upon completion of the assignment. All documentation and reports written as, and as a result of this assignment or otherwise related to it shall remain the property of ILO. No part of the report shall be reproduced except with the prior, expressed and specific written permission of ILO.