Bangladesh Youth Champion Green Skills for Youth Impacted by Climate Crisis

ILO news (Dhaka) - The Bangladesh Youth Environmental Initiative (BYEI), winners of the Accelerating Green Innovation for Youth Entrepreneurship 2022 challenge, are implementing a Green Skills Program aimed at mitigating against youth unemployment that may result from displacement and dislodging of coastal communities from their homes and jobs as a result of climate induced coastal flooding.

Ranked as the seventh most vulnerable country to climate change in the world, Bangladesh’s coastal communities bear the brunt of frequent cyclones, high tides, surging seas, and salinity intrusion. It is estimated that 14 percent of the country’s GDP is vulnerable to natural disasters, and that moderate increases in sea levels would inundate 18 percent of the country, resulting in mass displacement of people and loss of jobs and livelihood activities.

To address these risks, the BYEI developed and successfully pitched a project on ‘Empowering Youth on Green Transition (EYGT)’ to the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) Youth Green Skills Accelerator Challenge and was awarded the first prize worth USD50,000 in November 2022 at the COP27 held in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.

With technical support and guidance from ILO, BYEI conducted an in-depth analysis of the skills and entrepreneurship ecosystem related to solar energy in Bangladesh. They found that approximately six million solar PV units had been installed in Bangladesh since 2000, but nearly 70% of them were not in use having been rendered redundant by rural electrification.

The youth study also found that as a result of the fossil fuel energy and cost of living crisis triggered by the Russia-Ukraine conflict, solar energy was increasing in among rural communities, especially given recent falling prices of modern solar technologies.

However, the potential for solar adoption in the country is undermined by lack of critical skills for installation, maintenance, and repair of solar PV systems.

BYEI, in collaboration with ILO and in partnership with the Bangladesh Technical Education Board (BTEB), developed a comprehensive training curriculum on solar PV that led to upgrading of the National Technical and Vocational Qualification Framework (NTVQF) Level-2 competency standards for 'Solar Electrical Systems.'


In tandem, the BTEB established partnerships with three Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutes this year to train the first 100 youth (including 27% women, 46% underprivileged individuals, 2% from ethnic community, and 1% persons with disabilities) on solar installation and repair.


The trainees, drawn from flood-prone coastal areas, received both vocational and practical on-the-job training through a one-month internship in relevant industries. Impressively, 83% of the students demonstrated competence (100% in Khulna, 90% in Sathkhira, and 62.5% in Barishal). The qualified students are now working with reputable solar PV Engineering and Procurement Contractors (EPC), distributors, and manufacturers.