With 27 percent arable land and no permanent crops, the West Bank and Gaza suffer from periodic food insecurity. Using proceeds derived from the monetization of commodity donated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, ACDI/VOCA funds drought relief and agricultural training activities for Palestinian farmers and pastoralists.

The ACDI/VOCA program in the West Bank and Gaza works with agricultural communities to mitigate the devastating effects of recent drought and reduce the risk of future drought loss. Under the project, the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) distributed emergency coupon subsidies and feed. From November 2001 to January 2002, the ministry distributed a total of 13,453 out of 13,582 subsidy coupons, supporting 912,000 sheep and goats in 12 districts. ACDI/VOCA reimbursed feed/fodder suppliers for 13,303 coupons totaling approximately $1.2 million. The feed subsidy program also served to strengthen cooperation between the extension service and MOA district offices, and provided economic stimulus to the livestock sector.

ACDI/VOCA is also working with at-risk agricultural communities to improve local community preparedness and response capability to drought events through the build-up of water catchment and collection structures, improved community awareness and water conservation education. To build capacity among rural inhabitants to better manage scarce water resources, PARC held training workshops for women, as well as students on water awareness and conservation, benefiting 1,098 participants. PHG held 60 workshops and conducted 49 home visits for 500 women, visited 27 schools to conduct awareness campaigns for 450 male and 455 female youth and held 20 workshops benefiting 130 men. These training workshops complement the building of water catchment structures in many of the localities where rainwater harvesting is carried out and an important source of water for irrigation.

In Gaza, ACDI/VOCA worked with World Vision to complete the construction of 36 agricultural ponds, and also led in projects to rehabilitate wells and conduct training workshops covering the following topics:

• strategies for reducing water consumption,
• maintenance of irrigation networks,
• water efficient irrigation systems and
• crop diversification

Alex Gebrehiwot
agebrehiwot@acdivoca.org

Feb 2001 – Dec 2001

The USAID-funded Community Action Program (CAP) III builds upon the successes of CAP I and II in strengthening local government institutions and grassroots democracy in Iraq. ACDI/VOCA and its sub-partner, International City/County Management Association (ICMA), are implementing CAP III in four of Iraq’s northern provinces: Kirkuk, Salah ad Din, Diyala and Ninawa. The goal of CAP III is to increase the ability of local government to identify, articulate and better meet the needs of its constituency.

The program’s objectives are:

• Communities better articulate their needs and mobilize resources within and outside the community to solve common problems;
• Local executive and representative government in CAP communities better meet articulated needs of the community; and
• Civilian victims of conflict assisted by the Marla Ruzicka Innocent Victims of War Fund.

Meeting the needs of local youth is important to achieving these objectives, so CAP III incorporates several youth components:

• Apprenticeship Programs for Youth in Private/Public Sector
  The Apprenticeship Program was designed and implemented under the previous CAP programs to improve youth workforce capacity in areas of high youth unemployment. The apprenticeship program currently provides short-term jobs in combination with on-the-ground training for over 460 youth between 18 and 24 years old who are graduates of technical institutes and universities.
  
  Under CAP III, supervisors are being trained in how to mentor and coach apprentices, which improves employers’ human resource management. This addresses the needs of youth in the community, and also has the benefit of strengthening human resource capacity within the local government, which will be critical as local government becomes more decentralized. In addition, CAP III is introducing an apprenticeship program targeted at public health outreach. Through this program, young graduates, will assist health specialists in developing outreach and training materials targeting maternal and child health, water-borne diseases, and other community-identified critical public health issues.
  
  
• Youth Civic Action and Governance Summer Camps
  ACDI/VOCA will conduct two Youth Civic Action and Governance Summer camps for a total of 120 youth in the summer of 2009. The camps will bring together male and female youth from all four provinces who represent diverse ethnicities to engage them in activities that will teach community governance strategies through active simulation and participation. Through the camps, youth will be exposed to both diversity and commonalities among themselves, and they will learn how to effectively use conflict-mitigation strategies, team-building, and advocacy strategies as responsible citizens.
  
  
• Development of Youth Community Action Groups (CAGs)
  Under CAP II, the Quratoo Community Action Group in northern Diyala developed a strong focus on advocating for youth issues and developing youth leadership. It formed a Youth Action CAG, predominantly composed of men and women under 30 years of age who work in the public sector as teachers and government employees, to support and inform its work with and for young people. Currently, the Quratoo CAG focuses on promoting and advocating youth leadership to their sub-district council and higher levels of government.

Brandie Maxwell
bmaxwell@acdivoca.org

October 2008 - March 2010

YouthInvest will build on the experience MEDA has gained in youth and microfinance since 2002.

The goals of the project are:

• To support microfinance institutions (MFIs) in developing savings and credit products to strengthen the capacity of youth-run enterprises in Egypt and Morocco
• To assess and improve safety conditions in the workplace
• To support improved education and training opportunities for youth to ensure improved long-term prospects and to contribute to a higher quality workforce.

MFIs will be the primary points of contact with youth clients, delivering financial and non-financial services to young entrepreneurs and enterprises employing youth. MFI staff will be trained in these interventions, and will in turn deliver them to working youth and business owners as appropriate.

Workforce readiness training will be delivered by specialist youth-serving organisations; MFIs could
potentially provide linkage support to trained youth, by connecting them to high-growth clients. Within five years, YouthInvest will directly touch the lives of over 50,000 young people - connecting them with innovative financial products and services that will build their economic prosperity, improve their working lives, enhance their workplace safety, and lead to a better quality of life for their families and themselves.

Jennifer Denomy, Project Manager
jdenomy@meda.org

September 2008 to 2013

YouthInvest will build on the experience MEDA has gained in youth and microfinance since 2002.

The goals of the project are:

• To support microfinance institutions (MFIs) in developing savings and credit products to strengthen the capacity of youth-run enterprises in Egypt and Morocco
• To assess and improve safety conditions in the workplace
• To support improved education and training opportunities for youth to ensure improved long-term prospects and to contribute to a higher quality workforce.

MFIs will be the primary points of contact with youth clients, delivering financial and non-financial services to young entrepreneurs and enterprises employing youth. MFI staff will be trained in these interventions, and will in turn deliver them to working youth and business owners as appropriate.

Workforce readiness training will be delivered by specialist youth-serving organisations; MFIs could
potentially provide linkage support to trained youth, by connecting them to high-growth clients. Within five years, YouthInvest will directly touch the lives of over 50,000 young people - connecting them with innovative financial products and services that will build their economic prosperity, improve their working lives, enhance their workplace safety, and lead to a better quality of life for their families and themselves.

Jennifer Denomy, Project Manager
jdenomy@meda.org

September 2008 to 2013

In every region of the world, youth face difficulty entering the labor market, however particular challenges face youth in the Middle East and North Africa, which has the highest concentration of unemployed young people. Save the Children has been working on different models that look at youth employment/livelihoods/entrepreneurship since 2006, work which has informed the Rural Youth Livelihood Program (RYL), a pilot program launched in 2008 as part of an integrated program targeting adolescents who are both in and out of school in Egypt.

The goal of the Rural Youth Livelihoods Program (RYL) is to equip adolescents in rural Egypt to successfully navigate the transition to work by:

• imparting effective strategies to generate and maintain means of living,
• enhancing youth well-being and ability to plan for their futures, and
• improve youths’ ability to withstand crises and shocks.

In order to achieve this goal the project has the following employment and enterprise development objectives for 2008:

• Build the assets and competencies of 400 young people to make informed choices about market relevant work opportunities.
• Enable 400 young people to map and manage resources available to them including market information and income from subsistence activities.
• Support 400 young people realize the potential of using financial services for themselves or others in their households to invest in skills building or grow a business

SEEP PLP for Youth and Workforce Development

Tamer Kirolos
Deputy Country Director for Programs
tkirolos@savechildren.org

Save the Children USA (SC) and Fondation Zakoura Microcredit (Zakoura) have joined forces to develop a strategic, new microfinance market – vulnerable youth between the ages of 15 and 24, who are among the most excluded in Morocco. SC and Zakoura are committed to exploring innovative modalities to address the financial needs of vulnerable youth and their families. Project implementation is based on market research using the latest youth-friendly tools developed by USAID and applied and adapted by SC in Indonesia, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador.

This three-year USAID-funded Implementation Grant Program (IGP) seeks to achieve the following:

• Enhance and extend access to financial and non financial services to vulnerable, poor youth (15-24) and members of their households in Morocco in order for them to better manage their livelihoods.
• Develop a delivery system to retain vulnerable populations in a pilot initiative.
• Pilot a monitoring and evaluation system that combines financial and social impact assessment tools.
• Participate in a learning forum to answer key industry questions, disseminate lessons learned on successes and failures and learn from others.
• Where possible, support inter-agency linkages for the successful delivery of services, including fostering collaboration among youth-focused organizations and microfinance organizations.

Sita Conklin
sconklin@savechildren.org

September 2006 to September 2009

The goal of the New Beginnings program is to enhance the financial and market-based practices of young people so they are able to better contribute to household economic mobility by improving their own economic activities. The program focuses on four results:

• Increased access and availability of youth-friendly services and opportunities;
• Improved quality of youth-friendly services and opportunities;
• Enhanced capabilities, knowledge and attitudes of youth
• Strengthened enabling environment.

Program activities include:

• Working on building self-confidence, market and financial literacy through practical learning, entrepreneurial life skills training (communication and negotiation, positive risk taking, collaboration, valuing of life long learning, ability to learn from others, critical thinking, self-care, responsibility, active listening, money management skills and planning
• Linking and promoting awareness and access to financial (formal/in-formal savings) and non-financial services (mapping, awareness raising, partnerships);
• Promoting awareness of savings practices and planning for the future;
• Building capacity of existing service providers (local NGOs, National Council for Youth and Ministry of Education) on livelihoods programming for young people;
• Exploring practice-based employability skills development (through implementation of small economic activities and/or apprenticeships/internships);
• Supporting youth in identifying livelihood pathways through mentorship;
• Promoting attitude shift by communities about young people’s positive contribution to family and community livelihoods.

Mona Moneer
mmoneer@savechildren.org

Sita Conklin
sconklin@savechildren.org

March 2008 to December 2012

NAJAH is a USAID-funded program aimed at increasing employability among Jordanian youth aged 18 - 24. As part of the program, NAJAH:

• Builds youth employability and entrepreneurship skills with a focus on soft skills that help youth ‘to be’, ‘to do’, ‘to know’ and ‘to relate’.
• Fosters positive attitudes towards work, available job opportunities among youth and their parents.
• Supports youth to put learned skills and positive attitudes into practice.
• Builds youth knowledge of and connection to their community and available job opportunities within it.

Participants are aged between 18 and 24 years, unemployed and not engaged in education. Although they have access to limited skill sets, they have a strong sense of commitment, interest in building their own capacities and becoming active members of their society.

Results to date include:

• More than 300 youth have participated in the six month NAJAH interactive training program in the north, center and south of Jordan.
• More than 70% of NAJAH youth have entered the labor market, continuing to increase their skills and experience base.
• Nearly 20% of NAJAH youth have returned to education or specialized training schemes with a clearer vision of their career paths and interests.
• More than 5,000 parents and family members have supported NAJAH youth during the training and, afterwards, in seeking, securing and remaining in work.
• More than 60 employers have directly supported NAJAH by participating in the training, sponsoring NAJAH components, recruiting NAJAH youth into their businesses and ensuring that the NAJAH curriculum meets the needs of a rapidly expanding economy.

Saba Al Mobaslat
Smobaslat@Savechildren.org.jo

October 2005 to September 2008

Promoting and Protecting the Interests of Children who Work (PPIC-Work) seeks to improve the working conditions and learning opportunities for economically active children and youth (from 6 to 18 years of age) who work in the growing micro- and small enterprise sector in Egypt. The project works with and through locally owned microfinance institutions (MFIs) to pilot and test financial and non-financial services to businesses employing underage workers. Through the loan process, the project supports microfinance institutions in upgrading technology and improving learning opportunities and safety conditions for at-risk and underage workers in the workplace.

The intervention tools have been developed through a child rights-based approach with a strong emphasis on the participation of working children in the design and implementation of the project. Gender equality has also been a strong focus in developing programming with working children and with MFI staff. The application of these intervention tools are consistent with microfinance best practice principles and can therefore be integrated into the on-going, self-financing programming of MFIs, allowing large numbers of children to be reached over time.

Programming is implemented through a series of linked interventions:

Improving working conditions:

• Dual purpose loans that improve business performance and children’s work
• A code of conduct developed with both business owners and working children
• Capacity building of MFIs and loan officers in techniques to identify, analyze and mitigate workplace hazards

Improving learning opportunities:

• Education support programs to help working children perform in school and build self esteem and confidence
• Computer based learning that teaches business principles and business ethics
• Learning through work that strengthens the learning process within workplaces in collaboration with business owners

Key Processes:

• Children’s rights
• Gender equality
• Children’s participation

Surveys with working girls and boys are showing that improvements in their lives and work occur when

• business owners are aware of problems and are ready and able to make changes, and
• children themselves become aware of their rights and are able to negotiate changes with business owners.

Richard Carothers, Project Director
richardcarothers@rogers.com

Jennifer Denomy, Project Manager
jdenomy@meda.org

2002 to 2009