Maldives: Enhancing Employability and Resilience of Youth Project

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The development objective of the Enhancing Employability and Resilience of Youth Project for Maldives is to improve the relevance of technical and vocational skills and foster entrepreneurship to promote youth employment in priority sectors.The project has four components: (1) fostering skills development and entrepreneurship in priority sectors, (2) promoting entrepreneurship and employment through skills development and eLearning strategy, (3) project coordination, monitoring and evaluation, and (4) contingent emergency response component (CERC).First component, Fostering Skills Development and Entrepreneurship in Priority Sectors is to pilot interventions to improve the labor market outcomes of Maldivian youth with a focus on improving female labor force participation; This component comprises four subcomponents: (a) labor-market assessment and analysis for demand-driven skills identification, (b) revision of skills (TVET and entrepreneurship) among others, soft skills, and socio-cultural norms and awareness aspects, (c) face-to-face skills delivery of pilot skills development programs, and (d) support for entrepreneurship development; Second component, Promoting entrepreneurship and employment through skills Development and eLearning Strategy is to draw from lessons being learned through the pilot interventions in the first component and build synergies with the Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE) and the Ministry of Economic Development (MoED) skills needs assessment to identify skills gaps that employers are facing; It has four sub-components: (a) Strategy Development, Strengthening and Diversifying Skills Development Programs; (b) IT infrastructure for Skills Development and Jobs Platform; and (c) Career Hubs for Education-Industry links and Entrepreneurship Promotion; Third component, Project Coordination, Monitoring and Evaluation (M and E) will support the GoM (Government of Maldives) to coordinate the project, undertake M and E, and provide technical assistance; Fourth component, Contingent Emergency Response Component (CERC) is to permit rapid reallocation of project proceeds in the event of a natural or man-made disaster or crisis that has caused or is likely to imminently cause a major adverse economic and/or social impact.