Call for Applications: National Consultants

The ILO Country Office for Nepal is inviting a call for applications for the position of Consultant.

News | 19 February 2019

Call for Expression of Interest: National Consultant
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Lead a research on “Employment Relationship in Brick Production Process in Nepal” in collaboration with the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS)

 

The International Labour Organization (ILO) Country Office for Nepal, is working in Nepal for the last 50 years, promoting and protecting rights of workers through fostering tripartite plus social dialogues. The mandate of the ILO is to promote opportunities for all women and men to obtain decent and productive work in conditions of freedom, equity, security and human dignity.

 

The ILO has been implementing various projects and programs to promote decent work agenda in Nepal in close collaboration and coordination with its tripartite constituents. The Project - From Protocol to Practice: A Bridge to Global Action on Forced Labour (The Bridge Project) aims to support global and national efforts in combating forced labour under the 2014 ILO Protocol and Recommendation on Forced Labour. The Bridge Project will work globally, as well as in four priority countries, to advance and provide a concrete grounding to this strategy. Priority countries include Mauritania, Nepal, Peru and Malaysia. The project aims to harness and build on the momentum that led to the adoption of the Protocol and Recommendation and to foster an understanding of their effective implementation at the global, regional, national and local levels.
The project will strive to eliminate traditional and state-imposed forced labour systems and to significantly reduce contemporary forms of forced labour, which are often linked to human trafficking. This will be done through the following intermediate objectives:

1.       Increased knowledge, awareness, and ratification of the ILO Protocol and Recommendation;

2.       Improved and responsive national policies and/or action plans and/or legislation on forced labour with strong implementation, monitoring, and enforcement mechanisms;

3.       Increased efforts to collect reliable data in order to carry out research and share knowledge across institutions at national, regional, and global levels;

4.       Workers’ and employers’ organizations actively support the fight against forced labour; and

5.       Increased awareness and access to livelihood programs for victims of forced labour. In connection to this, the ILO Country Office in Nepal is seeking Expression of Interest from national consultants to carry out the tasks as listed in attached Terms of Reference.

 

The Nepal component of the project follows the above intermediate objectives, including awareness raising on P29 and R203 and policy advocacy and research in combating forced labour and trafficking with an ultimate goal of creating conducing environment to ratify the protocol. In addition, the project will provide support to the government of Nepal for implementing its re-habitation plans of freed-Haliyas through livelihood supports to the victims of forced labour, particularly the freed-Haliyas, in selected districts in far western region.

Nepal has made some progress on fighting traditional bonded labour practices through ban on the bonded labour practices (Kamaiya, Kamlhari and Haliya). However, there still other sectors in which the practices of bonded labour exists. One such sector reported by different development agencies is Brick Industry[1] which is reported to using the worst forms of child/bonded/forced labour in Nepal[2]. It is also listed, by the USDOL, as one of the production by using forced/child labour in Nepal[3].

Despite these reports, real picture with empirical evidences is not available which can tell about exact numbers of child/forced/bonded labour and its extent. On the other hand, being a seasonal work with simple technology and labour intensive work, the brick making process is often performed by poor and marginalized peoples, particularly internal migrant workers. The industry report to face labour shortage in current years and the employers are compelled to invest heavily on advance payments to ensure workers for next years. These payments are made through labour contractors who have their network to bring workers in the kilns. Workers are provided with residence facilities within the brick kiln premises, however their living conditions are pretty lower than average standards.

A comprehensive study of the employment relationship is thus realized necessary to investigate and estimate the workforce with age/sex/origin/geography and caste and ethnicity disaggregation and also figures in debt bondage situations. ILO and UNICEF have agreed to support Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) providing technical and financial support for this research. Further details of the study/research are mentioned in the Terms of Reference (ToR) attached.

The CBS Establishment Survey Section Team will lead the study design, data collection procedures with hired enumerators and also will complete the data analysis. To facilitate the work and support CBS team, a leading expert is required who will primarily work in the following areas of work during the survey period (March – June, 2019):


Organizing consultative workshops with key stakeholders (Brick Producers’ Associations, Trade Unions, Labour Suppliers in Brick Kilns and other interest groups) through focused group discussions and/or key informants interviews (15 days)

2.       Writing up the report compiling of all data information collected by the CBS and also from focused group discussions and key informant interviews  (10 days)

3.       Presentations and disseminations of findings (5 days)

 

Interested candidates should have the following qualifications:

 

  • Master’s Degree in relevant field, particularly in labour, social, development or sociology;
  • At least 10 years’ experience in the field of research including qualitative and quantitative data analysis and report preparation;
  • Excellent knowledge and understanding of partnership and collaboration issues; 
  • Good  understanding of forced labour, child labour and human trafficking issues in Nepal
  • Good inter-relationship with government and non-government organisations working  on labour issues;
  • Understanding of employment relationships in the brick making or similar supply chain would be an added advantage;
  • Excellent spoken and written English and Nepali.

 

Interested and qualified candidates are invited to apply by including:

  • Curriculum vitae
  • A list of previous research or survey experiences relevant to this assignment
  • Statement of availability for the assignment
  • Proposed professional fee (daily basis).

 

The candidate need to provide his/her time specified above at different stages of the research that will be completed during March to July 2019. This requires a flexible in availability of the candidate with the span of the research which would be decided in consultation with the CBS Brick Research team. An Expression of Interest should be sent to KTM_HR@ilo.org indicating in the subject line as "EXPRESSION OF INTEREST: NATIONAL CONSULTANT – BRICK KILN RESEARCH including an Annex 1.

Your submission should reach the office at the latest by 17:30 hrs, Friday, 22 February, 2019



[1] Brick production is reported as one of the worst forms of child and bonded and forced labour in Nepal. The production takes place during November – April each year in which majority of workforce is internally migrated seasonal labors.