One of the ILO's largest technical cooperation projects, PROSPECTS is a new and ambitious partnership initiative on forced displacement that focuses on improving the access of refugees and their host communities to educational and employment and livelihoods opportunities, while strengthening the protection environment.
 
The programme is being rolled out in eight countries in the MENA region and the East/Horn of Africa.
PROSPECTS is also pioneering a “One ILO” integrated and innovative approach to project design, bringing together a number of ILO technical departments and field offices. 

This innovative partnership is spearheaded by the Government of the Netherlands and brings together the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Bank and the ILO.  Working through their institutional mandates, each partner is bringing its expertise and experience to tackle specific vulnerabilities in three intervention areas: education and learning, decent work and protection.

New ways of working together

The concept and contours of the partnership emerged after 18 months of engagement between the partners, including an exploratory phase which allowed the ILO to test new ideas and explore new opportunities. 

"They trusted us to come up with a new design and to bring in the necessary stakeholders. They knew of our track record in building labour market resilience in communities hosting refugees." Tine Staermose, Special Adviser in the Policy Portfolio (DDG/P)

“When the Government of the Netherlands first approached us, they knew the impact they wanted and were looking for further support in how the programme should be designed. We saw that this was an opportunity for the ILO to work on issues within our mandate spanning the humanitarian-development divide,” said Tine Staermose, Special Adviser in the Policy Portfolio (DDG/P).

  “They trusted partners to come up with a new design and to bring in the necessary stakeholders. They knew of our track record in building labour market resilience in communities hosting refugees”.

“PROSPECTS uses a holistic, gender-responsive, rights-based integrated approach designed to strengthen labour markets, business development and social protection as well as policy and legislative environments,” explained Nicholas Grisewood, PROSPECTS’ Global Project Manager.

"We needed to have systems and structures in place to manage and coordinate a partnership of this scale, so this was a great opportunity to re-evaluate how we work together and adapt our existing tools and address any gaps." Nicholas Grisewood, PROSPECTS’ Global Programme Manager

Building on a truly holistic foundation, PROSPECTS embraces a multi-stakeholder and whole-of-government and society approach involving central and local government, social partners and civil society, private sector, academia, host communities and forcibly displaced persons, donors, multilateral and international organization and the media.

Internally, the project team sits in the Office of the Deputy-Director General for Policy (DDG/P), which has guaranteed an increased collaboration with all departments in the Policy portfolio, as well as with departments in the Field Operations and Partnerships (DDG/FOP) and Management and Reform (DDG/MR) portfolios.

“To develop this approach, we work with all policy departments, with colleagues in the field and with our constituents. We called upon the expertise of gender and disability experts, we included skills, social protection, employment, enterprise, fundamentals and nearly all other specialists in the design and development process,” Grisewood confirms.

“We needed to have systems and structures in place to manage and coordinate a partnership of this scale, so this was a great opportunity to re-evaluate how we work together and adapt our existing tools and address any gaps. We worked as a group right from the outset, with the field, technical branches and decent work teams,” Grisewood explains about the concrete expression of the “One ILO” integrated approach in the framework of PROSPECTS.

"We have built the capacity of constituents to conduct analytics, particularly in refugee-hosting districts." Stephen Opio, Chief Technical Advisor in Uganda

At the country level in Uganda for instance: “We have built the capacity of constituents to conduct analytics, particularly in refugee-hosting districts, to identify entry points for workers’ and employers’ organizations to increase decent work and livelihoods opportunities for refugees and host communities through growth potential value chains,” Stephen Opio, Chief Technical Advisor in Uganda, explains.

  “The ILO has also supported the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development to develop a Comprehensive Jobs and Livelihoods Programme as part of Uganda’s commitment to the Global Compact on Refugees”.

Fast facts PROSPECTS

• Four-year programme, 2019-2023.
• Funded by the Government of the Netherlands.
• Implemented in eight countries across the MENA and Horn/East Africa:  Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Sudan.
• Focuses on strengthening knowledge and learning in relation to more developmental approaches to forced displacement, thereby drawing upon a range of ILO experiences, such as the Syrian crisis response, and contributing to ILO engagement in other crisis areas.

Funding an innovative partnership

According to Peter Rademaker, Head of Development Partners Relations (PARDEV), this level of recognition was unprecedented for the ILO. 

One lesson learned is the critical role of initial investments made by the ILO from the Regular Budget Supplementary Account (RBSA) in Ethiopia and Jordan in 2016-17, which really paid off in terms of having strong local partnerships with the constituents engaged, providing the leverage needed to become a key player in PROSPECTS.

"We were a full player in designing this project, equal partners to UNICEF, UNHCR, World Bank and IFC. This was a rare occasion; normally we are junior partners or brought in for specific components of an overall programme already designed." Peter Rademaker, Head of Development Partner Relations.

That initial investment paid off. In October 2019, the ILO signed a new agreement with the Government of the Netherlands to implement the project in a four-year phase (2019-2023). This is the biggest single voluntary contribution given to a development cooperation project in the last decade, making it the most ambitious partnership opportunity for the ILO.

A development approach to humanitarian crises

When the first Global Refugee Forum opens in Geneva on 16 December 2019, the ILO will be reporting on its actions following the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants (2016). The Declaration calls for the need for displaced persons and host communities to enjoy enhanced economic opportunities and for children on the move to have effective and inclusive access to protection and education. 

As displacement has reached record levels and, at the same time, has become increasingly protracted, responses are focusing more on durable solutions backed by more dignified, inclusive and comprehensive programmes for refugees and the communities that host them – bridging the divide between humanitarian action and development cooperation. 

Following the adoption of ILO Recommendation No. 205 on Employment and Decent Work for Peace and Resilience (2017) and the Guiding Principles on the Access of Refugees and other Forcibly Displaced Persons to the Labour Market, the ILO will step up its efforts to support access to resilient labour markets through decent work and inclusive economic growth.

"We need to make sure that when the ILO, for example, intervenes to provide market access for refugees, that we also have very much in our minds the needs of host communities, which are already suffering from frequently difficult labour market conditions and high levels of unemployment." Guy Ryder, ILO Director-General