Economic Acceleration and Resilience for NEET (EARN)

active

The proposed project will contribute to reducing the share of NEET youth population in selected rural areas and help Bangladesh to establish a women-centric holistic system for addressing NEET youth challenges in accessing skills development, education and labor market opportunities for wage and self-employment. First, the project will create and facilitate access to relevant skills development as well as continuing or second-chance education for the eligible rural NEET youth, especially women, through establishing village- and union-based mobile and need-based training centers and facilitating access to alternative education services. The skills development facilities will be women-centric in terms of their convenient locations, safe and inclusive infrastructure and learning environment, flexible course timings, free choice of trades, and gender of instructors. Second, the beneficiaries will receive trainings in enterprise development and SEB skill development, as well as support in access to seed financing, linkages with employers and the labor market, and employment. Third, the project will promote an enabling environment for economic engagement of NEET youth, especially female, by helping to (i) ease the social barriers through engagement of the communities in identifying and selecting beneficiaries, facilities, relevant trades and management of the training centers, awareness-raising campaigns and providing psychosocial supports; and (ii) enhance institutional capacity of state and non-state actors by enhancing outreach capacity, digitalization of management, strengthening seed financing mechanism and facilitating research and study capacity of the sector. The latter will result in informed planning, design, management and delivery of youth development programs. Both easing social norms and enhanced institutional capacity will contribute to sustainability of the interventions beyond the project life.