Employment Fund

• Project Name	Employment Fund
  Donor/s	SDC, DFID, The World Bank,
  Client/s	Employment Fund Secreteriat/Helvetas Swiss Intercooperation Nepal
  Country	Nepal
  Project Duration	2008-2014

   

  Project Description:

  The Employment Fund Project established under SDC through the Employment for Youths (EfY) Project and DFID through its Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA) with Helvetas Nepal aims to provide skill training linked to employment to youths who have left school after the primary, lower secondary or secondary education and are from marginalized and disadvantaged groups. The overall aim is to enable them to compete in the national and international labor market equipped with the gained skills from vocational trainings. The project is managed by Employment Fund Secretariat (EFS) of Helvetas Nepal.

  The project is being implemented through number of local partners, Training and Employment Service Providers (T&Es). As one of the partners, Alliance Nepal is responsible to organize and provide vocational training for beneficiaries ensuring minimum 80% of employment. Indicator also specifies that they should be continuing to be employed even after the training (at least beyond 6 months) and earn not less than Rs. 4,600.oo per month in Nepal, 7,000.oo per month in India and 15,000.oo per month in abroad.

  Alliance Nepal has trained to 2,983 youths in the period of 2009 -2012. For the year 2013, 1080 youths (800 in regular program and 280 in innovation) are receiving training in different trades in five development regions of the country.

  Innovation 1:  Micro-enterprise with job creation

  Employment Fund Secretariat (EFS), through the intervention of innovation program, ‘Micro Enterprise for job Creation’ aims to contribute to increase the GDP growth which is very low currently in the national economy, as millions of low educated Nepali youths lack mainly the entrepreneurial skills, technical skills and capital to establish a microenterprise.

  New small and micro-enterprises will be established which offer job opportunities to unemployed disadvantaged youths. This guideline will facilitate to the Training and Employment Service Providers (T&Es) for the effective implementation of micro enterprise development for job creation.

  The target group of the program will be youth aged 18-40 years, skilled or unskilled, educated or uneducated, normally who are ready to invest, who are willing to start their enterprises and can create job for disadvantaged people.

  Alliance Nepal, as one of T&E; is implementing skills training for 80 youths in this innovation 1 for the year of 2013.

  Innovation 1:  Path to Prosperity (Samriddhiko Bato)

  EFS is piloting the innovation “Path to Prosperity” in parallel to another innovation on “Enterprising for job creation” The two components are however closely interlinked: While this innovation “Path to Prosperity” envisages the skilling of poor and vulnerable people, the other one focuses on the creation of jobs for this target group and the establishment of small enterprises to support economic growth.

  While the vast majority of trainees of the Employment Fund programme undoubtedly belong to the poor, the group of the very poor and youth with special needs is often excluded from the trainings as for them the opportunity costs of attending training are usually too high. This particular target group has to earn a living on a daily basis and cannot afford to forego their daily chores in order to attend training over a period of several weeks. Furthermore, their chances to access a skills training programme and more importantly subsequent employment are often limited by a large range of factors such as very low levels of literacy/ illiteracy, social stigmatization as well as their place of living (slums, rural poverty pockets) reducing access to labour mar-kets. However, the number of the very poor in search of skills training and gainful employment is continuously growing.

  Alliance Nepal, as one of T&E; is implementing skills training for 200 youths in this innovation 2 for the year of 2013.

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