YouMatch – Toolbox Project
Context and objectives
Bringing young people into employment is one of the central issues to be tackled worldwide, especially in the Mediterranean region. Southern and Eastern Mediterranean countries have rapidly growing working-age populations, with 33%-50% of the region’s population under the age of 30.
Currently, there is a mismatch between labour supply and demand, caused in part by a lack of effective job guidance and matching mechanisms in the labour market, contributing to high unemployment rates among young people.
The Global Initiative on Innovative Labour Market Services for Youth – YouMatch focuses on the link between labour supply and demand with the aim of improving job matching for young people. The project addresses the challenge of bringing young people, especially young women, into sustainable employment and aims to offer them long-term prospects through innovative solutions. YouMatch offers stakeholders from labour ministries, business associations, civil society organisations and employment promotion programmes a platform to discuss the success factors of existing youth employment services. It helps to identify good examples, further develop and implement innovative labour market solutions, transfer tailored models to different countries and share lessons learnt. To support this process, a toolbox was developed together with the participants of the platform through the YouMatch – Toolbox project.
In order to achieve sustainable results, the process incorporated the expertise, knowledge and experience of international organisations, participating countries, and other areas around the world.
Location
Key figures
Duration:
2016 – 2018
Case studies:
15
Total cost:
€1.05M
Countries:
6
Financial contribution
Promoter
The promoter of this project is the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH. It provides services worldwide in the field of international cooperation for sustainable development and has over 50 years’ experience in a wide variety of areas, including economic development and employment, energy and the environment, and peace and security.
Beneficiaries
- Stakeholders from labour ministries, business associations, civil society organisations and employment promotion programmes.
- Young people.
Key actions
YouMatch tackles some of the structural problems of the labour market by:
Establishing a platform for stakeholders on employment promotion programmes and existing labour market services for young people.
Developing a demand-driven toolbox together with the participants of the platform to support this process.
Launching a virtual platform to enhance innovative labour market solutions and targeting young people as the main beneficiaries of these services.
Results
Promoted innovative employment services.
Built on knowledge generated within the focus regions.
Shared good practices and lessons learnt.
Increased the visibility of the approach.
Found partners to help adapt and implemented promising solutions.
Encouraged young people to engage in the development of innovative matching services and improved their chances in the labour market.
