Terms of Reference (ToR): Hiring a consultant for Feasibility Study: Availability of TVET opportunities in Bangladesh Safe Digital Space for Girls and Youth (SDSGY) Project

1. About Plan International Bangladesh & Grameenphone:
Plan International is an independent development and humanitarian organisation dedicated to advancing children’s rights and promoting equality for girls. Active in Bangladesh since 1993, the organization works to empower girls and young women so they can live free from violence, claim their sexual and reproductive health and rights, and access decent work opportunities. With its country office in Dhaka, Plan International Bangladesh operates programmes across Dhaka, Rangpur, Barishal and Chattogram divisions, and has maintained a strong presence in Cox’s Bazar since 2017.

Grameenphone Ltd. is a leading public limited company in Bangladesh, headquartered at GP House in Bashundhara, Dhaka. Together, Plan International Bangladesh and Grameenphone are implementing the “Safe Digital Space for Girls and Youth” project across the country, with a focus on Sylhet, Chattogram, Barishal, Rangpur, Rajshahi, Mymensingh, Khulna and Dhaka. The project aims to reduce digital risks for girls and young people especially those from marginalized communities by building their knowledge, strengthening digital resilience, and fostering a supportive and safer online environment.

2. About the Project:
In Bangladesh’s fast-expanding digital landscape, millions of young people - particularly girls and young women - continue to face barriers that prevent them from accessing the opportunities the internet provides. Gender norms, poverty, limited education, and online threats such as cyberbullying disproportionately affect marginalized youth, restricting their digital participation and economic prospects. The Safe Digital Space for Girls and Youth project responds to this challenge by integrating digital literacy, online safety, and vocational training to empower the most vulnerable young people across the country.

This initiative builds on a successful earlier partnership between Plan International Bangladesh, Plan International Norway, Grameenphone, and Telenor. Over 2.5 years, the project aims to reach 4 million marginalized youth across 32 districts, with a strong focus on girls and young women. It delivers face-to-face digital literacy and online safety sessions to 500,000 youth, school children, and community members, provides entrepreneurship and skills training to 500 young people, and uses targeted radio messaging to reach an additional 3.5 million individuals. By combining Plan International’s gender-transformative, rights-based approach with the digital expertise of Grameenphone and Telenor, the project ensures safer, more meaningful digital inclusion.

Youth economic empowerment will be a key priority of this project. Young people will receive training in market-relevant, future-ready skills that create clear pathways to income generation. Marginalized youth, especially those in rural and hard-to-reach areas, will be equipped with demand-driven skills and supported in accessing employment opportunities, ensuring their long-term economic empowerment.

3. Objectives of the study
The study will generate critical insights to identify market driven skills, evaluate the capacity of training providers, and strengthen pathways to employment for marginalized rural youth, including within the digital space. The objective is to conduct a participatory, gender transformative, and climate responsive Feasibility Study on the Availability, Accessibility, and Relevance of TVET Opportunities in rural and hard-to-reach districts of Bangladesh, with a particular focus on marginalized young women, that will:

• Identify market-driven trades, future-ready skills, and growth sectors, and analyze their linkages to digital inclusion, narrowing the scope to specific sub-sectors and market systems that offer practical livelihood opportunities for marginalized youth, emphasizing culturally appropriate and sustainable pathways for self-employment and microenterprise development.

• Assess demand-supply gaps in skills, including technical, vocational, soft, and digital skills. Map existing TVET institutes (public, private, NGO-run) in selected districts and assess their training programs, including other TVET interventions, in terms of sectoral/sub-sectoral focus, duration, certification, relevance, and quality.
• Identify and assess key barriers, particularly for young women in accessing training, and generate findings and recommendations that may mitigate these challenges.
• Investigate youth needs, constraints, and aspirations, with attention to gender, disability, and ethnic minority inclusion, ensuring training and employment strategies are responsive to diverse realities.
• Map financial institutions and financial inclusion services (banks, MFIs, mobile financial services including different loan products, and savings groups) that provide youth with access to credit and supportive products for business.
• Assess gaps and opportunities for strengthening TVET provision and employment linkages, ensuring alignment with labour market demand and climate-resilient livelihood strategies. The study will also map safeguarding gaps within training facilities and identify measures required to create an enabling and safe environment for youth, especially young women, to access training.
• Map viable employment, entrepreneurship, and self-employment pathways for marginalized youth.
• Analyze and identify key characteristics of the labour market from a supply perspective, including educational qualifications, skillsets, employment status of youth, youth access to labour market opportunities, and barriers to securing decent work. Analyze and identify key characteristics of the labour market from a demand perspective, including key firm demographics of MSMEs (Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises) and informal enterprises operating in the selected areas/districts.
• Recommend feasible interventions for donor-supported youth empowerment projects, integrating Youth Economic Empowerment (YEE) pillars such as financial literacy, entrepreneurship development, and certification pathways to enhance self-reliance and long-term household resilience

Application Process
The technical and financial proposals should be submitted electronically to the email address: Planbd.consultant.hiring@plan-international.org with the title “Proposals for Feasibility Study: Availability of TVET opportunities in Bangladesh” as the subject line. The technical part of the proposal should not exceed 10 pages (excluding annexes).

Submissions after the deadline 17 June 2026 will be treated as disqualified.

Proposal submitted to any other email account except this and in hard copy will be treated as disqualified.

Two different folders i.e. technical and financial should be submitted into one zip folder with a covering letter addressing to Md. Enamul Haque, Admin & Procurement Specialist, Plan International Bangladesh.

To download ToR, Click this Link.