Côte d’Ivoire - Youth Employability and Insertion Support Programme

The youth employability and insertion support programme (PAAEIJ) aims to address certain conjunctural and structural challenges facing the country. On the one hand, the recent crises experienced by Côte d’Ivoire have led to the accumulation of a significant number of unemployed, especially among young people. In 2012, the country had 986,000 unemployed, i.e. 9.4% of the workforce. The country must also take up the challenge of changing its labour force profile, particularly since the education system is expanding rapidly while major structural challenges remain in terms of training quality and relevance. The PAAEIJ supports reforms aimed at improving the employability of vocational training and higher education graduates as well as the professional insertion of young people. It focuses, in particular, on the opening up of the education system to partnerships with the private sector, and the promotion of a culture of evaluation of the external efficiency of training as well as on improving sector effectiveness and governance. It also supports the operationalization of the National Employment Policy (NEP). The PAAEIJ comprises three components, namely: (i) support to vocational training and employment reforms; (ii) improvement of the relevance and governance of higher education and scientific research; and (iii) improved sector coordination.