Women in the coastal areas of Kenya and Tanzania face many barriers to entering the labour market. These include cultural and social norms that prioritise domestic roles over professional careers, limited access to education and training in remote and rural areas, and economic segregation in low-paying sectors. In this context, employment growth in the tourism sector offers a unique opportunity for women's economic empowerment (WEE) in coastal regions. By combining community sensitisation and targeted mobilisation campaigns with direct access to labour market-oriented training and labour market services, this potential can be realised. Sustainability and green practices are becoming increasingly important to tourism operations in Kenya and Tanzania, as environmental concerns directly affect the viability and attractiveness of the countries as tourist destinations. However, current and future employees in the tourism sector often lack the necessary skills to effectively implement these green practices. To address this, it is essential that training programmes for tourism related occupations include a focus on green skills. Such training can cover areas such as waste management, energy efficiency, water conservation and the use of sustainable materials. The Women employment for sustainable tourism (WEST+) project in Kenya, Tanzania and Zanzibar focuses on improving the employment and economic situation of women and youth, particularly in enterprises driving the green transformation of the tourism sector, and building a more inclusive, skilled female workforce for the tourism sector. The public-private partnership project aims to improve employment opportunities for youth and women in the coastal regions of Kenya and Tanzania/Zanzibar, with a particular focus on providing green skills for the usage in the workplace in and around the tourism sector. This initiative addresses critical issues: limited employment opportunities for women and youth, the lack of green skills in training curricula, and a gap between the skills provided by training institutions and those required by the tourism industry. The project consists of three components: (1) multi-stakeholder dialogue; (2) training and employment; and (3) regional and international exchange. Component 1 multi-stakeholder dialogue: Facilitating regular dialogues and exchanges between the tourism industry and training providers (linking public and private stakeholders). The main emphasis of this service contract is on component 2 Training and Employment, which includes conducting a market survey, adapting and developing curricula, preparing TVET centres (equipped by the partner), sensitising local communities about training and employment opportunities for women in the tourism sector (registration and facilitation and application process), advising hotel partner companies on gender-sensitive/gender-transformative HR practices, providing capacity building for teachers and trainers, conducting short courses, reviewing training and curricula, organising work placements (internships) and organising job fairs.
The final component 3 Regional and international exchanges: organising study and training visits for TVET staff (and/or students) from TZ to KE and possibly vice versa to facilitate regional exchanges; development of a knowledge product that assesses the impact of the partnership, captures beneficiary stories and presents a scalable, replicable solution for potential replication; development of a communication strategy and presentation of lessons learned in international tourism fora.
The contributions of the two partners complement each other. The TUI Care Foundation, part of the TUI Group, brings expertise in the tourism industry, market access, a network of hotels and existing implementation structures in Kenya and Tanzania. WE4D offers long-standing expertise in employment promotion and experience in contributing to the green transformation through skills and private sector development.
For further details on the tender, including detailed specifications of the experts, work packages and other considerations, please refer to the Terms of reference.