Review of National Policy, Legislative and Regulatory Frameworks, and Practice: A Baseline Study for Jordan*

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.

Jordan Context

Jordan is facing a historic forced displacement crisis and as the crisis extends into the next decade, the country is at an inflection point, given the scope, scale and protracted nature of the displacement. As of January 2020, Jordan hosted over 745,000 refugees, including over 655,000 Syrians and almost 100,000 other nationalities. Children represent a little over half of the refugee community. With refugees constituting almost seven percent of Jordan’s population, the Kingdom is one of the top refugee hosting countries per capita worldwide. Over 80% of refugees live outside of camps, concentrated in the governorates of Amman, Mafraq, Irbid and Zarqa. The current COVID emergency has added additional complexity to the already difficult economic situation the country finds itself facing.

Jordan’s recognition as an upper-middle income country belies underlying socio-economic vulnerabilities. Despite its human development ranking (102 out of 188 countries in 2018), it has seen an increasing poverty rate in recent years from 14.4 percent in 2010 to an estimated 15.7 per cent in 2019. Poverty is more likely to affect children and young people: a 2018 assessment showed that 20 per cent of children in Jordan are multi-dimensionally poor and the majority of Jordanian poor are under the age of 20. Jordan also has one of the lowest levels of labour force participation in the world, with only one of every three working-age Jordanians having a job. Additionally, despite increases in college graduation figures, most women in Jordan never enter the labour market. Among the approximately 16 percent of Jordanian women who do, about 40 percent become inactive before age 40. Persistent job vacancies exist due, in part, to skills mismatch and undesirable working conditions. Forty-seven per cent of youth 15-19 years of age are unemployed, and 38 per cent of those who are over the age of 20.

Whilst Jordan’s economic situation pre-dated the Syrian crisis, the impact of its forced displacement crisis has worsened the situation. The IMF has estimated that Jordan’s economy lost one percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) each year of the crisis due to investment and export losses. Syrian and Jordanian households across the Kingdom continue to live in highly vulnerable conditions, with all communities dependent on overstretched and weak education systems; limited, and often informal, employment opportunities; poorly coordinated protection systems; and nascent social safety nets.

Despite early action to combat the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic has seriously affected the Jordanian economy for the worse. World Bank analysis suggests that the Jordanian economy contracted by 1.8 percent in 2020; unemployment rose to 24.7 percent in Q4-2020, with youth unemployment rates reaching an unprecedented 50.0 percent; and central government debt is projected to reach almost 109 percent of GDP in 2020, compared to 97.4 percent in 2019.

In terms of employment, firms and businesses face high levels of uncertainty, alongside interrupted supply chains and reduced consumer spending. The private sector continues to be constrained by high business costs, unpredictable policy environment and excessive labour market segmentation. Workers are confronted with an uncertain future, with a transition to remote work, reduced hours and in some instances, permanent layoffs. A rapid assessment launched by the ILO and FAFO Institute found that 47% of surveyed Syrian and Jordanian workers employed before the pandemic had either been permanently laid off, temporarily laid off or put on paid leave. The employment impacts of the pandemic are also not even, with Syrian workers more likely to have lost their jobs than Jordanians- 35% of surveyed Syrians had lost their jobs by April 2020, compared to 17% of Jordanians. For both groups, this translated into an average wage reduction of 40%. Household duties also increased. More female workers (74%) reported increases to their household work than male workers (59%).

In line the PROSPECTS global objective, the partnership in Jordan has the overall objective to support more sustainable livelihoods for host communities and forcibly displaced populations, which is done through the three main PROSPECTS pillars. In particular, ILO PROSPECTS Jordan’s contributions to the Education Pillar aims to enhance the market relevance and quality of national skill training and certification systems. Under the Employment pillar it aims to increase the number of forcibly displaced and host community members with enhanced livelihoods and/or decent work. This targets improvements in the total number of persons, as well as improvements to income, job stability and various measures of job decency. Under the Protection Pillar, ILO PROSPECTS Jordan aims to increase government protection, social protection, and inclusion for forcibly displaced and host communities. ILO PROSPECTS Jordan works towards this change through strengthened legal, policy and regulatory frameworks and strengthened government capacity to extend social security coverage to excluded groups.

Objectives

The consultancy entitled, “The National Policy, Legislative and Regulatory Frameworks and Practice Review”, aims to establish baseline situations in Egypt, Ethiopia, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Sudan and Uganda, in the area of 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 (or not) of these frameworks and how they are being applied (or not).

Before the Partnership can begin 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 (national and governorate level) 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 in Amman, Mafraq, Zarqa and Irbid, to better assess knowledge and understanding of these policy, legislative and regulatory frameworks.

• Conduct validation exercises in Jordan 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 Jordan 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 Jordan 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 in so far as these pertain to the access of refugees to labour markets, employment and self-employment (formal and informal), training, business development, other income-generating activities and social security and protection. It would also examine and allow for the comparison on identified national 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, access to employment-based national social insurance programmes, 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 and procedures applying to these systems, including quotas and fees. 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 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 technical and 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 and the right to collective bargaining 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 shows 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 should also 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 should 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 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 will be provided with a global-level methodology and assessment framework developed by ILO and IMPACT to form the basis of the study. The consultant will adapt this methodology to the context of their country of study, and will be responsible for developing their own plan and tools for to collect and analyse data within the confines of the assessment framework.

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.

Duration

The consultancy will be for 12 weeks, starting on the 12th of July 2021 and concluding on the 7th of October 2021.