YEP the Youth Employment Programme for Bosnia Herzegovina

YEP the Youth Employment Programme for Bosnia Herzegovina

YEP is a new departure in internationally sponsored projects. Faced with the massive problem of youth unemployment, in a country already operating in a most complex post conflict environment; it aims to harness local expertise, both public and private sector, developing real and sustainable strategies and solutions.

It starts by aiming to prevent a bad situation from getting worse. Component 1 aims to significantly reduce the flow of underprepared and unskilled youth currently flooding the labour market pool. To do this we have to go into schools, preparing students for the transition to the world of work. They need to see their options, understand the needs of the labour market and prepare themselves accordingly. In this way better career choices will be made and school leavers will be suitably prepared for higher education or the jobs market.  

Unfortunately, many young people, having left their education behind, find out too late that they were unprepared and underequipped for the jobs marketplace. They result is a descent into a debilitating limbo, falling between the familiarity of education and their murky and uninformed vision of some distant employment.  The aim of Component II is to provide a safety net for this group, offering advice and guidance, but backing it up with practical help in terms of active measures targeted to meet their needs. The anticipated result being an increase in numbers employed resulting in a direct reduction in poverty in remote and often neglected areas.

The public institutions of BiH, which in theory are there to support these young people are themselves seriously under-resourced and burdened with other priorities. Under Component III the public services will be strengthened and supplemented through private sector intervention, bringing a new level of experience and placement focus. It is anticipated that this cooperation will improve government institutions and develop into genuine partnership, bringing all their joint expertise together to deal with this most difficult of issues.

Having explored these innovative approaches, the findings and experiences of YEP will be evaluated and disseminated under Component IV, bringing a positive influence to the whole youth employment policy sector. Perhaps even more importantly, bringing hope, direction and jobs to this most vital of national human resources, its young people.     

In simple terms, the overall objective of the Youth Employment Project (YEP) is to make a substantial contribution to the reduction of youth unemployment in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). The relatively underdeveloped economy, the legacy of the socialist period, the consequences of the break up of Yugoslavia, institutional over-employment, privatisation and the consequences of economic restructuring; have resulted in a level of youth unemployment significantly above European norms.

The four components of YEP (see diagram below) are designed to come together as a whole, promoting local ownership of the project, and contributing towards the understanding of the problems of young people whilst working towards practical and sustainable solutions.

The project will seek to convince young people of the need to actively address the labour market, help them to develop skills to improve their employability, provide practical support in terms of active measures and ultimately ease their path into work. To achieve this there is a clear need to institutionally develop local support organisations. Within YEP we have been given that rare, probably unique opportunity, to bring both public and private sectors together in a way that will be mutually beneficial and invaluable to unemployed youth.

It was quickly made clear by the project donors and by participants at the Sarajevo planning workshop 28-29 January 2008, that local ownership was considered to be a priority. Not just in terms of sharing agreed goals, but also using local expertise and knowledge in project delivery. It is not unusual of course for international companies to work with local experts, but in this case local companies and NGO’s will provide the majority of inputs and be responsible for the majority of outputs. To this end, we have in our opinion, been able to put together the strongest possible team of local partners.