Program

Lead Organizations

French Development Agency (AFD), The World Bank.

Partners

International Labor Organization (ILO) and European Training Foundation (ETF), an agency of the European Union.

Challenges

• Low job creation in MENA and high unemployment rates for young, women and graduates.
• Mismatch between labor market needs and skills as developed by current education and training systems.
• Lack of “decent jobs” involving social insurance and pension schemes.
• Considerably more is spent on universal subsidies than on social safety nets, which are themselves fragmented and poorly targeted.
• Employment programs lack proper M&E frameworks.

Program Objective

The program seeks to promote knowledge sharing and build the capacity of government officials in MENA in the areas of employment and social protection. The aim is to foster job creation, skills development, employability and social integration through active labor market policies involving education and training, entrepreneurship, public works, job-search support, and by recalibrating social safety nets from undifferentiated subsidies to targeted transfer programs.

Selected Results

• Deepened knowledge/informed policy: A multi-partner workshop held in Cairo on October 1-3, 2012 on active labor market policies allowed to sharing knowledge, enhancing donor coordination and fuelling policy dialogue with the Government of Egypt to prepare for donors’ interventions. The need to mainstream Egypt’s institutional setting and move from separate projects to integrated programs making use of a whole set of public policy instruments was emphasized.
• Deepened knowledge/increased capacity: A workshop in Beirut, Lebanon, on technical and vocational education and training (TVET), on September 22-23, 2014, was organized by the French Development Agency (AFD) and the European Training Foundation (ETF). It focused on involving the private sector in TVET, identifying economic sectors with a potential for job creation, and prioritizing reforms in TVET systems in view of the preparation of future projects.