Piloting a training guide to promote social cohesion in collaboration with TVET practitioners in various countries.

Promoting Social Cohesion and Peaceful Coexistence in Fragile Contexts through TVET is a guide that was developed to strengthen the role of TVET practitioners as active promoters of social cohesion. It provides practical guidance to trainers and managers of training centres on how to adapt delivery to mixed groups of students; embed conflict-resolution skills, cooperation and other relevant core skills into training curricula; and create conflict-sensitive, inclusive and diverse learning environments for all. The guide sets out a four-day curriculum to build the capacities of TVET trainers in facilitating core skills in social cohesion, so that they are able to include social cohesion elements in their skills development curricula.

Sample four-day curriculum:

• Day 1: Creating the learning group and wider context
• Day 2: Understanding social cohesion in fragile contexts working with youth and adults – the role of the trainer
• Day 3: Exploring resources: what we bring and what else is out there to promote inclusion
• Day 4: Assessing social cohesion and preparing for change

The guide was piloted under PROSPECTS in Kenya, Jordan, Ethiopia and Uganda, in cooperation with the Peaceful Change Initiative. A total of 73 trainers took part in a training-of-trainers session on incorporating conflict-sensitive methodologies and elements into the design and planning of vocational training programmes. In the Kenya pilot, occupational standards for technical trainers and the corresponding teacher-training curriculum were revised to take account of the role of trainers in promoting social cohesion and peaceful coexistence, following the guide. 
 

In this video, Dickson Njoroge shares his inspiring journey through the beauty industry and how his diploma has opened doors for him, including the potential to apply for government jobs as a trainer.

Encouraged by his family, Dickson pursued cosmetology after high school and spent over three years honing his skills. With extensive experience, client recommendations, and photos of his work, he earned a Level 6 Diploma in Cosmetology through the Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) process. He reflects on how the beauty industry has evolved with new technologies and specialised treatments. He shares experiences starting from childhood visits to his auntie's salon, where his passion for beauty began, till the date he graduated with accreditation.

PROSPECTS helped design and develop an inclusive RPL system to certify the  skills of refugee and host community workers.

The value of RPL has long been recognised in Kenyan legal and policy frameworks. The National Industrial Training Authority (NITA), part of the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection, has implemented a type of RPL since the 1960s, in the form of Government Trade Tests. In an effort to standardize these tests, the Kenya National Qualification Framework Act No. 22 of 2014 mandated the Kenya National Qualifications Authority (KNQA) to coordinate the development of national policies on RPL. A national policy was drafted in 2018, but not implemented. PROSPECTS responded to this gap in application by supporting the KNQA and relevant national bodies to develop a framework, implementation guidelines and assessment tools that were piloted with groups of refugees and host community members.

Under PROSPECTS, the ILO’s first line of support was to the Ministry of Education, through the KNQA,
and involved setting up a National Implementation Committee on RPL (NIC-RPL) and a National Advisory
Committee on RPL (NAC-RPL) and building their capacities. The next stage involved providing technical
assistance and guidance on developing an RPL policy framework and implementation guidelines. In doing
so, the PROSPECTS team was able to encourage the inclusion of language that made the extension of RPL
services to refugees and asylum-seekers explicitly. This then provided grounds for piloting in the refugee hosting
areas of Garissa and Turkana Counties, particularly as PROSPECTS Kenya already had memoranda
of understanding with the County governments.

To give practical effect to the policy framework and guidelines, support was also provided for capacity-building
and piloting. Fifteen members of the NIC-RPL received training and extended coaching sessions,
which proved critical in the development of RPL national training standards and practitioners’ guidelines.

In May 2021, an RPL assessment conducted in collaboration with the NITA and the TVET Curriculum
Development Assessment and Certification Council identified five occupational profiles for a pilot
intervention: textiles, automotive mechanics, welding, hairdressing, beauty therapy and agriculture. In all,
38 young refugee and host community members were assessed in these different occupational profiles.

Following the pilot, the Cabinet approved the RPL policy framework in April 2022, preparing the ground
for country-wide implementation. In the same month, the ILO supported the development of a national
implementation plan, in which stakeholders from, among others, accreditation bodies, TVET colleges and
employers’ and workers’ organizations participated. In May 2022, a costing exercise was commissioned
to calculate the Differentiated Unit Cost of RPL, in order to determine the cost of RPL processes and
put forward recommendations for financing models. PROSPECTS also provided technical assistance to
identify occupations that required proof of competency in sub-sectors that were attracting foreign and
domestic investment and that showed potential for considerable decent-job creation. This helped focus
efforts on operationalizing RPL based on demand and contributions to economic development.

The ILO also provided support to train national RPL practitioners on assessment tools and methodologies to scale RPL nationally. This included the development of an RPL Management Information System with the KNQA and TVET Curriculum Development, Assessment and Certification Council (CDACC). The MIS was integrated into all TVET CDACC centres nationally, including in Turkana and Garissa counties.  PROSPECTS also trained and accredited RPL assessors, facilitators and verifiers. This included development of an RPL Practitioners Continuous Professional Development (CPD) curriculum at the national TVET trainers college, the Kenya School TVET (KSTVET). 

As of April 2025, he national RPL system that PROSPECTS has helped operationalize certified 4,741 candidates, of which 905 were refugees. In one pilot,  PROSPECTS collaborated with
Base Titanium, a subsidiary of an Australian mining company, whereby 28 refugee and host community
employees of the company were assessed, 22 of whom were found to be competent and so were certified
through RPL. This helped the employer facilitate the movement of staff between its various locations in
Kenya and abroad. Other private sector actors, such as Kengen (an electricity producer) and the Kenya
Power and Lighting Company, invested their own resources in implementing RPL exercises and having
their employees assessed.

The PROSPECTS team also coordinated with other donors in Kenya to encourage them to include RPL as part of the skills development programmes they were funding. In the absence of RPL, individuals trained through these donor-funded projects would ultimately lack formal certification. PROSPECTS complemented activities under the Swiss-funded Skills for Life programme in Kakuma, for example, by certifying trainees through RPL, so that they graduated with a qualification.

Building on its active role in supporting the development and rollout of RPL, PROSPECTS Kenya leveraged opportunities to invest in further RPL curriculum development. For example, the ILO had established a partnership with an ICT training organization, Learning Lions, to train young people in coding, web design and animation. However, the certificate issued at the end of the course was not nationally recognized. In collaboration with the Technical and Vocational Education Training Authority (TVETA), PROSPECTS supported a review of the Learning Lions curriculum and used this as a basis to establish an RPL curriculum in creative design and web development. Refugee and host community trainees then had the opportunity to access the national RPL process and have their credentials certified. 

Read about success stories:

• Kenya’s Journey to Recognizing Informal Skills: The Making of the Recognition of Prior Learning Policy
• ILO and Partners Bring Industry-Recognized Digital Skills Certifications for Kenya’s Youth
• Bringing recognition to the skills of informal “Jua Kali” sector workers in Kenya
• From volunteer to firefighter: Sara's journey of saving lives with Recognition of Prior Learning
• Transforming informal skills into formal opportunities: Theresa's journey of self-empowerment in Kenya
• Rising from informal work to a government employee: the story of Florence Wambui
• Success story: how obtaining a cosmetology diploma opens new doors

Find out more about the PROSPECTS programme’s wider learning on the digital and gig economies.

The ILO and UNHCR conducted a study in Ethiopia and found that enrolling urban refugees and asylum-seekers on to a community-based health insurance scheme is feasible, improves financial protection and could reduce UNHCR costs.

In Ethiopia, the ILO and UNHCR conducted a study to assess the feasibility of enrolling urban refugees and asylum-seekers in the community-based health insurance (CBHI) scheme in Addis Ababa. The study found that this was feasible and offered advantages over the UNHCR-provided life-saving and emergency treatments, in that CBHI inclusion would not only improve the financial protection of the target group when accessing health services but also potentially reduce UNHCR costs, as life-saving treatments were much more expensive.

Refugees were accessing free primary healthcare services, but had to pay out of their own pockets for secondary and tertiary care. The study evaluated the legal framework and the benefit package and service providers under CBHI. A major difficulty was the limited information that social protection providers had on the contributory capacity of refugees in Addis Ababa, meaning they mainly classified them according to their residential status, that is, under Urban Assistance Programme, Out-of-Camp Policy and self-relocation. The study suggested several ways forward and served as the basis for engaging the government and partners in providing services to refugees. The technical questions were reviewed in a technical working group that was established to address the operational aspects for including refugees and asylum-seekers in the CBHI scheme.

Find out more about this case study: 

• Social Protection in Action: Building Social Protection Floors for All
• Mapping of the National Social Protection System in Ethiopia, including Social Health Protection 
   

Estidama++ extended social security coverage to vulnerable workers, including refugees, women and informal-sector workers.

Estidama++ was designed to extend social security coverage to vulnerable worker groups, including refugees, women, self-employed individuals and those in informal sectors, such as agriculture and small enterprises. Administered by Jordan’s Social Security Corporation (SSC), with technical support from the ILO and initial funding from the Kingdom of the Netherlands under the PROSPECTS Opportunity Fund, the programme has registered more than 37,500 workers as of 2025, more than half of whom are non-nationals, including refugees. It introduced contribution subsidies and tailored communication and outreach strategies to reach previously unregistered groups. Estidama++ was used by the SSC to enhance social protection, while addressing barriers to formalization. 

Estidama++ introduced targeted social security contribution subsidies to workers and employers to address affordability barriers faced by the self-employed and waged workers with low and unstable incomes. It also introduced a child benefit pilot, which paid USD28 per child per month, as a mechanism to improve attractiveness and promote women’s engagement in social security. The programme prioritized outreach for refugees in collaboration with UNHCR to overcome barriers like mistrust of national institutions and limited awareness of social security benefits. This included face-to-face outreach conducted with SSC representatives, the Ministry of Labour and UNHCR, including within the two largest refugee-hosting areas. 

A two-way chatbot was developed and piloted with SSC, allowing it to target communication to and gather information about potential and current members. In analysing data and collecting feedback throughout implementation, the programme identified areas for improvement and adjusted programme design. For example, higher attrition rates were observed among women and self-employed workers. This highlighted structural barriers that these particular groups faced, such as short-term contracts in the female-dominated education sector and irregular monthly incomes of self-employed individuals. This prompted a refinement of the subsidy design. By November 2024, 92 per cent of those who had registered for social security through the Estidama++ programme had transitioned into regular social security and continued to make contributions independently of the programme’s subsidy. 

The achievements of the Estidama++ programme and the way in which it addressed the gaps identified can serve as a blueprint for extending social protection to refugees and other groups of vulnerable workers. Estidama++ began as a targeted effort to use humanitarian funding for expanding social insurance coverage, focusing on contribution subsidies to incentivize formalization. However, expanding the coverage sustainably required a broader, systemic approach. Addressing challenges like affordability, relevance and financial sustainability demands solutions that integrate social protection with fiscal and employment policies, rather than relying solely on financial incentives.

Through Estidama++, the ILO was able to support the SSC in developing a long-term vision for reform. This systemic approach emphasizes addressing structural barriers and aligning social protection with Jordan’s economic modernization goals, ensuring equity and inclusivity for all workers, including those in non-traditional or informal employment. By using Estidama++ as an entry point, PROSPECTS has helped build a foundation for more comprehensive reforms that move beyond fragmented approaches to create a resilient and inclusive social protection system.

Read about Eyad Al Merjawi’s journey to obtain decent work and social protection in Jordan using Estidamaa++

Find out more about the PROSPECTS programme’s wider learning on gender and disability inclusion.