AUC/AfDB/UNECA/ILO Joint Youth Employment Initiative

1. AUC/AfDB/UNECA/ILOJoint Youth Employment Initiative A brief presentation Tunis, 17 April 2012

2. Background • Declaration at Malabo Summit, mid-2011 • Youth Decade 2009 – 2018 • Ouagadougou Declaration and Plan of Action 2004

3. Preparation process • AfDB Board decision 2010 • Working Group from mid-2011 • Workshop in Addis, February 2012 • Zero-draft Programme Document • Workshop in Tunis, April 2012

4. Objective • Reduction of youth unemployment and underemployment in Africa • Support for implementation of political commitments • Precise formulation outstanding

5. Justification • Need for intensified efforts • Adding value through building on combined strengths of the 4, taking advantage of comparative advantages

6. Scope I • Three components/pillars: • Policy-level interventions • Policy advice • Advocacy • Resource mobilization • Direct interventions for youth and institutional capacity development • Knowledge production and sharing

7. Scope I.b • Focus areas at country level: • Capacity development for mainstreaming YE into policies • Capacity development for stakeholders to assess impact of YE programmes • Assist stakeholders to • Formulate national YE action plan • Coordinate all YE programmes and projects • Up-scale YE interventions

8. Scope II Interventions at • Regional level • Sub-regional level (RECs) • Country level • Continent-wide, but initial selection of 1 or 2 countries per sub-region

9. Scope III • Demand-side and supply-side interventions • Interaction with all relevant stakeholders (public sector, private sector, civil society, donors, international organisations) • Long-term perspective, sub-divided in phases of 5 years • Evaluation of each phase

10. Principles and approaches I • Forging collaboration and coordination among all stakeholders, maximizing effectiveness of combined efforts • Aligning with national/sub-regional/regional scenes (policies, plans, institutional set-up, ongoing interventions, …) • Responding to demand

11. Principles and approaches II • Basing interventions on evidence and knowledge of existing situation – diagnosing, mapping, learning lessons, evaluating, identifying best practices, establishing baselines, systematic M&E • Up-scaling proven approaches – taking the response from project to programme level, from isolated efforts to interventions with wide impact

12. Organisation and management I • Two basic requirements: • Facilitating application and combination of comparative advantages of the 4, combining their strengths in view of value added • Facilitating efficiency and effectiveness by keeping distribution of roles and responsibilities simple and clear – thus reducing complications and delays stemming from differences in admin and decision-making procedures.

13. Organisation and management II • Following from these: • Joint oversight and decision-making organ: Steering Committee • Strong day-to-day management unit with dedicated staff hosted by one of the 4, operating according to procedures of host. Need for easy access to all 4 partners • Country-level representation by one of the 4 in each country,

14. Organisation and management III • Following ... cont’d: • At country level, integration into existing institutional set-up: ”National Steering Committee” • Management of activities: • Funding by one of the 4 partners: Management by the funding institution according to own rules • Funding by external sources: Management by Management Unit according to rules of host

15. Funding • Resources from the 4 partners as well as external sources • Flexibility regarding the modalities of external funding • But preference for basket/trust fund in Management Unit’s host institution • Desirable to fund operational/recurrent costs internally