Promoting decent jobs for youth in Rwanda’s digital economy

The project “Boosting Decent Jobs and Enhancing Skills for Youth in Rwanda's Digital Economy” is implemented by the International Labour Organization (ILO), with financial support from the Government of Luxembourg. It is part of the ILO/ITU/AU Joint Programme on Decent Jobs for Africa’s Youth in the Digital Economy, under the umbrella of the Global Initiative on Decent Jobs for Youth.  The Joint Programme is implementing interventions that empower African youth, ensure they benefit from new opportunities in Africa’s growing digital economy and steer it forward with their energy and creativity. The joint programme is continental in scope and is implemented across nine countries: Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa and Uganda.

In Rwanda, the project aims to support Rwanda’s structural transformation and contribute to a just transition towards an economy and society enabled by digital technologies. Its main goal is to enable more young women and men in Rwanda to access decent jobs in Rwanda’s digital economy, focusing on the youth between the age brackets of 16 and 30 years from Secondary Cities as well as Kigali. The three main components of the project are: (i) Promoting decent job creation and entrepreneurship opportunities in the digital economy, (ii) improving digital skills of young women and men, and (iii) facilitating young people’s transition to decent work in the digital economy.

As Rwanda advances toward its goal of becoming a knowledge-based economy, digital transformation is creating new pathways to employment—particularly for young people. However, despite the expanding opportunities, many youth continue to face significant barriers in entering the workforce. These challenges include a mismatch between skills required by employers and those taught in the formal educational system. Young people often also lack work experience, including opportunities to practice and strengthen core and soft skills such as communication, time management, and adaptability, which are critical for professional success.

The Government of Rwanda has emphasized the need to equip youth with both technical and soft skills to meet the evolving demands of the labour market. Despite the growing availability of internship opportunities, recent assessments highlight critical challenges related to soft skills and workplace readiness. Feedback from employer companies—particularly in ICT—indicates that fresh graduates often lack essential interpersonal, communication, and time management skills, even when technically qualified.

The project supports national efforts to equip young people for the transition from education to decent work. This includes strengthening the role of existing internship programmes as a catalyst for young people to further strengthen their skills, gain critical work experience and facilitate their transition to decent jobs.

Expansion of the National Internship Programme (NIP) in Rwanda’s Digital Sector

Rwanda’s National Internships Programme (NIP) is led by the Ministry of Public Service and Labour (MIFOTRA) and offers recent graduates with a university degree the possibility to apply for a 3 to 6 months internship. Interns are placed nationwide either in public sector institutions or in private sector companies. During their internship, interns receive a monthly stipend through the NIP – which employers may choose to top-up.

MIFOTRA and the ILO are partnering in developing a comprehensive and structured approach for the National Internships Programme (NIP) in the digital economy to embed soft skills development throughout the internship experience. As part of broader efforts to further strengthen the NIP, the intervention contributes to improving the quality and relevance of internship experiences through the development of contextualized soft skills content and updated guidance tools for interns and host institutions. This initiative recognizes that soft skills are essential for young people to thrive in the workplace—and that accessible, engaging training delivery can significantly enhance their confidence, adaptability, and long-term employability.

Through close collaboration with the private sector—particularly in digitally enabled sectors—the project will support the expansion of the NIP programme as well as a mechanism for the continuous improvement of the quality of internships to maximize the learning experience of young people and their chances to use internships as a catalyst to secure future employment. This involves the development soft skills training material and targeted training modules informed by employer feedback and aligned with workplace realities. These modules will cover key areas such as digital etiquette, remote collaboration, adaptability, problem-solving, and professional communication, among other areas.

Contributions also include technical inputs to strengthen existing training frameworks and digital platforms, reinforcing national efforts to embed soft skills development within the internship ecosystem. In parallel, the intervention supports ongoing engagement with the private sector to promote greater participation in the NIP—particularly in digitally enabled sectors and occupations. Collectively, these contributions aim to reinforce the NIP as a responsive and future-oriented platform for youth employability in Rwanda.

OVERALL OBJECTIVE

The objective of this assignment is to strengthen the National Internship Programme (NIP) by identifying gaps and opportunities for expanding ICT-enabled internship placements through targeted private sector engagement and soft skills development institutionalisation. The consultant will assess the needs of both employers and interns, develop practical tools and manuals to strengthen NIP’s employer and private sector engagement in the digital sector, and implement a comprehensive strategy to secure at least 100 ICT-related internship roles. This assignment aims to contribute to aligning NIP processes with industry expectations and enhance overall programme outreach and impact.

SCOPE OF WORK

(1) Soft Skills Identification: Mapping employer and private sector demands and identifying gaps among interns that hinder their access to ICT-enabled roles (10 days). This to include:

• In partnership with the NIP, map the current private sector engagement in the NIP, with a focus on ICT and digitally enabled sectors. Reaching between 15-20 employers.
• Consultations with at least 15 employers in the digital economy (not in the NIP programme) to identify the key gaps in internship roles, placement practices, and readiness to host interns.
• Interviews with at least 20 interns to assess perceived barriers to effective internship experiences, including expectations, preparedness, and skills gaps.
• Informed by ongoing assessment of Government of Rwanda and employers representatives and the Development Partners, analyse the potential sectors and occupations within the ICT ecosystem that could absorb interns, differentiating between self-employment opportunities and structured internships.

Deliverable 1: Rapid Soft Skills Identification Report (Presentation format) including findings from employer and intern consultations, sectoral mapping, and recommendations for scaling internship placements in ICT-enabled roles. 

(2) Informed by the above, develop a soft skills curriculum tailored to ICT-enabled roles (15 days), including:

• Design and structure modules based on identified gaps and employer feedback, focusing on digital etiquette, communication, teamwork, and adaptability, among others.
• Develop facilitator guides, session plans, and participant handouts to standardize training delivery.
• Create pre- and post-training assessment tools to measure learning outcomes and gather feedback from participants.
• Propose a training schedule that ensures a total of 40 hours of face to face training per intern. The proposed schedule will be reviewed and validated by ILO prior to implementation.
• Deliver one round of Training of Trainers to 30 trainers selected by the NIP team and the ILO.
• Validate all of the above with relevant stakeholders.
• Integrate feedback from the validation workshop and finalize the course curriculum. 

Deliverable 2: A comprehensive soft skills curriculum package, including facilitator guides, session plans, participant handouts, assessment tools, validation and a 40-hour training schedule and Training of Trainers.

(3) Develop tools and manuals that facilitate implementing the NIP’s vision of delivering impactful national internship programme and engaging employers from the digital sector (15 days), including:

• Develop a user-friendly Internship Management Manual for NIP staff, outlining key processes for selecting, onboarding, and supporting interns throughout their placement. This may include template and practical tools to facilitate communication between NIP, interns and host companies.
• Create an Employer Guidebook for companies hosting interns, with best practices for onboarding, supervision, and inclusive mentorship practices in ICT-enabled roles.
• Finalize both the Internship Management Manual and the Employer Guidebook, incorporating feedback received from ILO and NIP and conduct extensive briefings (training) with NIP staff on the finalised documents.
• Propose modalities to disseminate the Employer Guide using formats that are accessible and convenient for employers.
• All of the above to be validated with relevant stakeholders.

Deliverable 3: Internship Tools and Manuals Package (Word/PDF format), including the Internship Management Manual, Employer Guidebook, and associated templates finalised.

(4) Implement a targeted private sector engagement strategy to increase the number of ICT-related internship roles available through the NIP (10 days), including:

• Mapping and profiling of at least 100 private sector companies in ICT-related sectors with the potential to host interns, focusing on both large firms and SMEs.
• Conduct targeted outreach and engagement meetings with mapped companies to present the NIP, gather interest, and negotiate internship placements.
• Develop a Private Sector Engagement Plan outlining specific strategies for increasing internship placements in ICT-enabled roles, including partnership models and incentive structures.
• Provide feedback to NIP on employer engagement practices, identifying areas for improvement in communication and follow-up mechanisms.

Deliverable 4: Private Sector Engagement Report (Presentation format) summarizing employer outreach efforts, identified internship roles, and recommendations for ongoing private sector engagement.

REPORTING LINES

The selected Consultant will work under the direct supervision of ILO Project Team and the Specialists of the Decent Work Country Team and the Regional Office. This engagement includes regular planning and progress meetings, joint discussions and missions, and agreement on research methods for the various technical areas covered under this intervention.

KEY DELIVERABLES

The Individual Consultant will undertake the tasks outlined in the Scope of Work section across the timeframe detailed below: 

PAYMENT SCHEDULE

SUBMISSION

Interested candidates are invited to submit the following documents to darprocurement@ilo.org by 13 June 2025, 4:00 PM Kigali Time:

The submission should include:

• a detailed technical proposal and a financial proposal. The technical proposal must describe the consultant’s approach and methodology for delivering the assignment, including alignment with the four key deliverables outlined in Section 3. The proposal should present a context-specific strategy for designing and validating soft skills curricula, developing the Internship and Employer manuals, conducting Training of Trainers (ToT), leading private sector outreach, and providing feedback on digitized content.
• The consultant must submit an updated curriculum vitae highlighting relevant qualifications, including nationality and date of birth, Sample of prior work (e.g., toolkit, curriculum, digitized course)
• As evidence of experience, candidates should submit at least one sample of a relevant previous assignment, such as a training manual, communication toolkit, curriculum, or youth employability programme documentation.
• The financial proposal should present a breakdown of professional fees by deliverable and should be accompanied by a budget narrative. Consultants may use the costing format provided separately, and all costs must be expressed in USD. Only complete submissions will be considered. All documents must be submitted in a single PDF and will be treated with strict confidentiality.

Note: The following Table has been prepared to assist the Consultant in reporting their respective financial offers. Some deliverables have been reflected in the table as an example. However, all deliverable are to be reflected in the table.

*Deliverable Activity Cost = Daily Professional Fees X Total Activity Deliverable Days + Travel cost (mission days X DSA) + flight/travel cost

All the above to be submitted to darprocurement@ilo.org no later than 13 June 2025, 4pm Kigali local time. Only shortlisted candidates will be notified.

 SELECTION CRITERIA

The successful candidate will have a mix of expertise and qualifications in the focus areas related to this assignment. Evaluation of the suitability of the Consultant to work on this assignment will be made against the following technical criteria:

Total Maximum Score: 100 points

Minimum Acceptable Score for the Proposal to be Reviewed: 60 points

Note to Consultants

• All CVs submitted should include the Date of Birth and Nationality of the Consultant;
• Consultant should quote in USD prices and/or using prices calculated using the Official UN Exchange Rates for the country;
• Candidates should be prepared to submit a copy of their national Passport upon Notification of Award.
• Candidates planning field visits, movements, and/or DSA travel dates are required to completed the UN BSAFE security training course upon Notification of Award. Failure to complete the course will prevent the finalization of contracting between the Consultant and the ILO;
• Professional Fees should include all costs associated with the Activity
• Consultants are responsible for arranging their own travel arrangements to project sites;
• Consultants agree to be paid based upon compliance with UN Harmonized DSA rates set for the country;
• All mission cost days will be paid based upon actual receipts paid by the Consultant and actual travel/mission dates;
• Consultants are not to add the VAT to their financial offer unless they are a VAT Registered Individual with the VAT Authority;
• Consultants should be aware that all intellectual property rights arising from the contract are vested with the ILO however authorship will be acknowledged by the Organization; and
• Consultants will bear all charges levied by their own bank in receiving of managing funds transferred by ILO.