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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 local services marketplace 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 through digital local services marketplaces.
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.
For this reason, ILO intends to engage an organization that operates digital local services marketplaces – platforms that connect clients or customers with local service providers through digital intermediation. This refers to platforms that connect clients or customers with workers such as artisans, technicians, home service providers, resellers, beauty workers, creative service providers, and other location-service-based workers through profile-based digital intermediation and client selection.
The organization should be able to demonstrate one or more of the following characteristics:
They have an operational digital platform that enables individuals or service providers to create profiles, showcase their skills or services, and connect with clients or customers.
They facilitate client discovery, provider selection, service visibility, and access to paid work opportunities through digital intermediation.
They have an existing or emerging user base, client base, marketplace activity, service demand, or commercial demand relevant to the target groups under this assignment.
They are able to onboard, activate, and support participants, including refugees and host community members, to strengthen profile quality, visibility, customer engagement, and access to work opportunities.
They are able to support or facilitate skills recognition, upskilling, tooling and retooling, mentorship, soft skills development, and work-based learning.
They are willing and able to strengthen platform practices in line with decent work principles.
The selected organization will therefore be engaged to identify, onboard, activate, support, and track participants on their platform to access paid work opportunities.
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 local services marketplace.
The ILO seeks to engage an organization to support the transition of up to 200 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 activation in digital service marketplaces.
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 service that begins with verified marketplace demand or credible client demand and ends with measurable activation 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.
Required experience and qualifications
Organizations responding to this ToR should demonstrate strong institutional capacity and relevant experience operating a digital local services marketplace. 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:
Operation of digital local services marketplaces
Digital marketplace management
Client acquisition and service intermediation through digital platforms
Platform-based business development
Digital intermediation of local services or work opportunities
An operational local digital platform that enables individuals or service providers to create profiles, showcase offerings, and connect with clients or customers.
Evidence of existing or emerging user activity, marketplace demand, client traffic, service requests, transactions, or other credible indicators of platform use and commercial viability.
Proven experience in onboarding, activating, supporting, or managing participants or service providers in platform-mediated environments.
The ability to support or facilitate skills recognition, upskilling, tooling and retooling, mentorship, soft skills development, work-based learning, or related capability-building functions that contribute directly to improved marketplace outcomes.
The ability and willingness to strengthen platform practices in line with decent work principles, including transparency, inclusion, fairness, accountability, and grievance-handling.
Organisations that are primarily training institutions, or whose main comparative advantage lies in delivering training without demonstrated platform activity or credible marketplace demand, are not the target of this assignment.
How to apply
Applicants should apply through the track that matches their organizational status, to ensure their application reaches the right evaluation process.
For Profit Firms
For profit firms will be engaged as the service provider under a Service Contract. Full terms of reference and application instructions are available at: https://www.ungm.org/Public/Notice/307862
Non-Profit Organizations
Non profit organizations full terms of reference and application instructions are available at: https://www.ilo.org/prospects-kenya-engagement-implementing-partners-digital-local-services
Applications submitted through the wrong channel will be rejected. Non-profit organizations must apply only through the instructions provided in the above link, and for-profit firms must apply only through UNGM.
For questions, contact [email protected]