adminAUC, UNECA, ILO to sign declaration of intent on Joint Youth Employment Initiative for Africa
ADDIS ABABA – The African Union (AU), the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), the African Development Bank (AfDB), and the International Labor Organisation (ILO) will sign a declaration of intent on a Joint Youth Employment Initiative for Africa (JYEIA).
The signing ceremony will take place today, at the headquarters of the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
The initiative addresses the call of the African Heads of State and Government at their Summit in Malabo in July 2011 to tackle more decisively the youth employment challenge in Africa and is part of the follow-up to the 2004 Ouagadougou Declaration and Action Plan to the same effect.
While operating at country, sub-regional, and continental level the JYEIA will be active in three main areas:
1. policy support;
2. support to implementation of national, sub-regional and regional youth employment plans and policies; and,
3. knowledge building and dissemination.
At country level, the initiative will not support particular projects or actions, but, by conducting a thorough diagnostic work, it will provide the basis for an effective, integrated and nationally owned definition and implementation of priorities and areas of interventions.
The initiative will not itself implement activities, but support implementation by relevant stakeholders by offering financial resources and technical expertise. In the selection of activities to support. The initiative will also emphasise such types and approaches of intervention that have proven their value and can be up-scaled in order to achieve sizeable impact. The three areas of labour market (demand, supply and matching) will be simultaneously considered and short, medium and long term interventions will be combined.
The distinctive trait of the initiative is to seek to add value to the on-going youth employment efforts by becoming a catalysing factor of the national and international endeavours. In order to achieve such goal, the comparative advantages and strengths of its four member institutions will be tapped into and active collaboration and coherent integration of the work of national and development partners will be sought. – African Union Commission.
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