Individual Consultant - Baseline Assessment for Safe Roads, Safe Lives Regional Programme (SRHR ...

Established in 1951, IOM is a Related Organization of the United Nations, and as the leading UN agency in the field of migration, works closely with governmental, intergovernmental and non-governmental partners. IOM is dedicated to promoting humane and orderly migration for the benefit of all. It does so by providing services and advice to governments and migrants.

Home-based with travel within the region

45 working days over 3 months

Conduct a Baseline Assessment for the Safe Roads, Safe Lives Regional Programme (SRHR and Labour Mobility)

• Establish baseline data on women's participation in the transport and logistics sector across Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, and Namibia, with particular focus on professional driving roles and related occupations.
• Assess the availability, accessibility, and implementation of gender sensitive workplace policies and practices within transport and logistics companies, including recruitment, retention, workplace safety, anti harassment, grievance/reporting systems, and equal opportunity measures.
• Identify structural, institutional, workplace, and sociocultural factors that influence women's entry, retention, and advancement in the transport sector, including employer attitudes, peer and male driver attitudes, and community perceptions.
• Assess the level of knowledge, awareness, and service utilisation related to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and HIV, and mental health among mobile and vulnerable populations, including truck drivers, sex workers, migrants, and cross border traders.
• Map the availability and functionality of SRHR HIV service delivery points, including the presence and use of e lockers and other innovative service modalities along key transport corridors and within 20km radius from the border.
• Generate baseline data and analysis disaggregated by sex, age, country, and target group to inform programme design, target setting, implementation planning, and future monitoring.

The Safe Roads, Safe Lives programme is a potential regional initiative designed to address the underrepresentation of women in the transport and logistics sector while promoting safe, decent, and inclusive employment opportunities. Implemented by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) with support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), the programme builds on a proven training model that equips women with the technical, practical, and life skills needed to become professional heavy duty truck drivers. The initiative combines structured classroom learning, hands on driving experience, and employability and life skills training, with a strong emphasis on workplace safety, gender equality, and job placement. Previous iterations of this model, implemented in multiple regions globally, have demonstrated strong results: participants graduate with formal driving certifications and successfully transition into employment through partnerships with transport companies. This regional initiative seeks to combine life skills training and job placement with IOM's expertise in cross border health programming (SHRH HIV and MHPSS in particular), labour mobility and social protection.

The programme will adopt an integrated approach, linking skills development and job placement with essential support services, including health awareness, facilitated access to care, psychosocial support, and protection from gender based violence. It will also be expected to contribute to shifting harmful gender norms by promoting the visibility, participation, and success of women in the transport sector. The proposed regional initiative will be aligned with regional health and labour mobility frameworks i.e. the Strategy for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in the SADC Region () and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Protocol on Employment and Labour as well as the Government of Sweden's Strategy for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) in Africa . It's aim is to support safer and more inclusive cross border employment systems. In addition, it will be positioned to contribute to global development priorities, including the advancement of gender equality and expanded access to decent work, while reinforcing IOM's commitment to safe, orderly, and regular migration and improved health outcomes for mobile and vulnerable populations.

The baseline assessment will have a dual focus, reflecting the integrated nature of the Safe Roads, Safe Lives Regional programme:

The assessment will examine women's participation in the transport sector, with focus on professional driving and related occupations in select companies and training/employment pathways in the four target countries whilst also identifying sociocultural and institutional barriers that hinder women's entry, retention, and advancement in the transport sector, including workplace culture, peer attitudes, employer perceptions, family and community norms, and practical constraints such as sanitation, security and work life balance. It will also assess the extent to which participating companies have policies and practices in place to support gender inclusion, decent work, workplace safety, and prevention of harassment. The labour component of the baseline assessment will generate quantitative and qualitative indicators pertaining to women's workforce inclusion and serve to inform programme design and policy engagement efforts in the transport industry.

This component will assess SRHR and HIV related knowledge, awareness, and service access among mobile and vulnerable populations along transport corridors and cross border settings. The baseline will focus on groups connected to the project's operational context including long distance truck drivers (male and female), migrants, cross border traders, and sex workers operating in transit hubs and border communities. It will document baseline levels of comprehensive SRHR knowledge (e.g. understanding of HIV prevention, contraception, rights), current HIV/STI prevention practices (such as condom use, HIV testing uptake), and accessibility of SRH services (availability of condoms, STI treatment, antenatal care, etc.) for these populations. The assessment will also map the locations and capacity of health service delivery points along targeted transport routes within 20 km radius from the border and evaluate the utilisation of innovative service modalities (e lockers) where available, including how many are in place and how frequently they are used by the target groups. Additionally, the SRHR component will assess mental health and psychosocial needs and exposure to sexual and gender based violence (SGBV) among these mobile populations and identify contextual and structural barriers to service uptake (e.g. stigma, legal/documentation issues for migrants, discontinuity of care across borders, gender norms affecting health seeking behaviour). The SRHR baseline will provide initial values for the project's health related indicators and shed light on gaps in service provision and knowledge that the programme's health interventions should address.

Department: Migration Health Division (MHD)