The objective of the ILO-Sida Partnership Programme in the area of “Jobs and skills for youth” is to support ILO member States in the development and implementation of evidence-based policies, and time-bound action plans and programmes for youth employment. The partnership programme consists of a global component and 10 country-level initiatives. The common of all initiatives is to improve the quantity and quality of jobs for young people.
The global component serves as an umbrella for the 10 country-level interventions. It consists of different actions, such as knowledge development and dissemination, technical assistance, and capacity building which include: i) the development of a learning package on decent work for youth; ii) the provision of capacity building for institutional strengthening on the development of evidence-based policies, strategies and programmes for youth employment; iii) the development of technical cooperation approaches targeting young under-employed, young workers in the informal economy and low-income young workers; and iv) the dissemination of good practices and other youth employment interventions.
More specifically, the so called global component supports the implementation of the country-level initiatives through strengthening the capacities of tripartite constituents to apply innovative approaches in the area of youth employment, setting priorities and influencing the development and implementation of coordinated and context-specific employment policies and programmes that are based on the key policy areas of the 2012 Resolution of the International Labour Conference.
This has been done through the development of a learning package on decent work for youth and its application through a capacity-building programme implemented by the ILO’s Youth Employment Programme in collaboration with the International Training Centre of the ILO. In addition to this, good practices and interventions on “what works for youth employment” have been collected, analysed and disseminated. These good practices are instrumental to shape evidence-based interventions that are at the core of the implementation strategy of the area of “jobs and skills for youth.” Finally, knowing that informal economy is the source of livelihood for a significant share of working age youth in developing countries, a research on employment and livelihood approaches for young under-employed or young working poor has been conducted.
