ILO in partnership with UNDP, FAO and BRAC, together with Department of Youth Development (DYD), Ministry of Youth and Sports (MoYS) has launched a new skills and livelihoods programme with the financial support of the Global Affairs Canada and Kingdom of the Netherlands.
The Programme will implement the following two interrelated interventions:
Improving skills and economic opportunities for the Women and Youth in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.
Strengthening skills and entrepreneurship in agro-food Systems for the Host Communities in Cox’s Bazar.
The programme aims at the economic empowerment of the NEET youth, women, and other vulnerable groups in the Cox’s Bazar district through gender responsive market-relevant skills and entrepreneurship development initiatives linked to employment creation and self-employment opportunities in emerging economic sectors.
Specific objectives
Improve the resilience and self-reliance of NEET youth, women, and other vulnerable groups of Cox’s Bazar district.
Create employment and entrepreneurship opportunities through skills development training, capacity building of entrepreneurs and value chain actors and market linkages.
Increase access to markets for local Bangladeshi communities in the agri-business sector to take advantage of emerging demands for agricultural products in camps and local/overseas markets.
Increase participation of ultra-poor, climate vulnerable and reverse migrant populations into mainstream economic activities of Cox's Bazar.
Improve the capacity of the Cox’s Bazar DYD Office to manage and operate functional Labour Market Information System (LMIS) for effective governance of the labour market and employment outcomes.
Build the capacity of local farmers to maintain good labour and decent work practices to enhance productivity and profitability in the horticulture sector.
Catalyse market linkages including vertical integration for the supply of horticultural products in the FDMN camps.
Duration March 2022-March 2025
Target Beneficiaries: The Project targets an estimated number of 24,000 women, NEET youth, Persons with Disabilities, and other vulnerable groups in the Cox’s Bazar district.
Programme Budget:
Government of Canada
15.12 million
Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands
1.48 million
Background of the Programme
Cox’s Bazar District, with a total Bangladeshi population of just over 2.6 million, is one of the country’s least developed districts. Approximately 33% of the population of this region are living below the poverty line compared to the national average of 31.5%. The poverty rate and subsequently low literacy rate (71.45%) has been directly associated with the very low female labour force participation rate (25.7%) while male labour participation rate is 81.5%. The major economy consists of agriculture, marine fishing and tourism. The total NEET youth in the Cox’s Bazar are pegged at 4,74,745 (female 4,03,213 and male-71,532) (Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics 2022).
The situation has been compounded by the population increase following the FDMN influx, which has adversely affected the food security and nutrition situation in some areas and stretched the capacities of local governance institutions and civil servants, resulting in constraints on the delivery of public services. Furthermore, Cox’s Bazar has high youth unemployment, which can create social tensions as competition for work increases. Women are still at a stark disadvantage in skills development and access to the labour market. To address these challenges, the International Labour Organization (ILO) in partnership with UNDP, FAO, and BRAC designed two Projects on strengthening skills development and livelihood opportunities for host communities in Cox’s Bazar.
The programme is designed to address major local and regional market development challenges, as well as barriers to develop skilled manpower as per the local labour market demands, potentially also for women and migrant workers. Programme Strategy The programme adopts a Leaving No One Behind strategy by identifying challenges of women, NEET youth, persons with disabilities and ethnic and religious minorities who are facing constraints to access and benefit equally from the services. Women will be the core group targeted by the programme, with no less than 40% of the overall targeted beneficiaries.
The Programme will involve multi-level stakeholders relevant to skills and enterprise development, employment generation, value-chain and market linkage development in the tourism and agri-business sectors.
The Programme builds on the continuing focus of ILO Bangladesh ‘transferable skills development’ as a way, lifelong learning to promote decent jobs.
Alignment with Government policy The programme has a robust alignment with the Government of Bangladesh’s National Youth Development Policy 2017 and 8th Five Year Plan which focuses on skills development and employment growth of youth and entrepreneurship as tools to attain a higher economic growth and reduce multidimensional poverty. Both the national macroeconomic and development strategies of the Government have identified skills gaps, lower access to skills training in disadvantageous geographic locations, and among youth (18 to 35 years of age) as major challenges faced by Bangladesh. Therefore, this Project will strongly support the targets of the Government in youth development and economic development.
The Programme is also aligned with various operational skills policies and regulations such as the revised National Skills Development Policy 2021, SDG action plan to name a few. In addition to these national goals, the Programme also contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals.
SDG 4 – Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.
SDG 5 – Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.
SDG 8 – Promote sustained, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work for all.
Programme outcomes
Ultimate Outcome: Strengthened economic empowerment and economic participation of youth, especially women and person with disabilities in Cox’s Bazar. The Programme has three interrelated intermediate outcomes.
Increased access to enterprises, business, and employment opportunities: It will be achieved through entrepreneurship and enterprise development in sectors and value chains that have the potential for inclusive growth, emphasizing opportunities for women, youth, ethnic, and religious minorities, and people with disabilities. Interventions will focus on promoting community tourism and agri-business sectors and will follow the principles of ILO’s Market Systems Development (MSD) approach to create opportunities for inclusive growth that benefit the people of Cox’s Bazar.
Increased participation of women and youth in the quality-assured market-driven skills training programmes: It will be achieved through interventions to improve the competencies of NEET youth, women, member of ethnic and religious communities, and people with disabilities. To achieve long-term, sustainable results, the interventions proposed entail a significant amount of capacity development of actors targeted for their existing or potential ability to deliver inclusive gender-responsive and environmentally friendly skills development training, including apprenticeship and RPL aligned to the Bangladesh National Qualification Framework (BNQF).
Increased effectiveness of Cox’s Bazar District government office to manage and monitor the skills and livelihood programmes: It will be achieved through, firstly, the capacity building of the district administration and DYD office to lead the coordination among the private sector, training providers, and government/development organizations on economic development, employment, and self-employment aspects, promoting core principles for effective skills development and to adapt and operate a functional labour market information and skills anticipation system for oversight and effective governance of the labour market and gender-responsive employment outcomes.
Role of ILO
As a consortium lead, the ILO will be responsible for the overall delivery of the programme. It will work closely with its tripartite constituents in this programme. It will also coordinate with the Ministry of Youth and Sports, Department of Youth Development, sister UN agencies and consortium partners, District Administration Office, Skills training providers, the private sector, and workers' organisations during the implementation. The ILO will also technically lead the interventions on inclusive and gender-responsive skills development and sector/ value chain coordination and enterprise development and oversee the implementation of these initiatives. It will ensure that International Labour Standards are adequately mainstreamed throughout the project design, implementation, and evaluation. ILO will coordinate the design of policy recommendations to the Government and social partners on all aspects of skills development and work, for the mainstreaming of lessons learned and the sustainability of the initiatives.
Finally, the programme will ensure significant impact in improving employability and decent employment, through skills and enterprise development, especially for youth, women, and disadvantaged groups, and contribute towards realizing national goals of building a SMART and prosperous Bangladesh.
