RFA Workforce Development Design

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RFA Workforce Development Design

• Pre Solicitation Workshop
• July 7, 2006
• Le Meridien, New Delhi

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Presentation Outline

• Objective of the RFA
• Findings of Workforce Development Assessment
• Illustrative Program Components
• Expected Results
• Award and Timelines

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Objective of the RFA

• USAID wants
• Creative ideas and combinations of partners
• For the design of a program or programs
• To prepare disadvantaged youth for new economy
  jobs

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Objective of the RFA

• The design should
• Offer viable career and employment
  opportunities
• for disadvantaged youth
• Disadvantaged youth age group 15-30 years
  twelfth pass education or less no specific
  skills or certification emphasis on girls
• Be based on public-private partnerships
• Demonstrate innovative approaches or scale up
  successful initiatives.
• Cover 4-5 years with funding of up to 5
  million
• Have a geographic focus in National
  Capital Region (NCR), Maharashtra and/or Jharkhand

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Workforce Development Assessment

• Conducted in three states - NCR, Maharashtra and
  Jharkhand to
• Identify growth sectors of economy, especially
  sectors that face shortage of labor
• understand the disadvantages and problems
  faced by the youth in finding good jobs
• Analyze strengths and weaknesses of existing
  skills training programs and
• Make programming recommendations and
  options.
• The draft report is posted in the USAID web site
  along with the RFA

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Workforce Development Assessment Key findings

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Workforce Development Assessment Key findings

• On the supply side, some facts about unemployed
  youth
• Four major sub-sets of unemployed youth
• poorly educated rural youth,
• poorly educated urban slum dwellers,
• school drop out migrants from rural to urban
  areas and
• the educated (twelfth pass) unemployed in rural
  and urban areas.
• Female labor market participation in large
  cities growing over last decade.
• Issues of discrimination against women remain
  both in terms of access to jobs as well as
  workplace environment.
• Unemployed and underemployed youth,
  particularly in rural areas, often migrate to
  urban areas.

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Workforce Development Assessment Key findings

• Supply side issues cont
• Youth not prepared for emerging jobs skills
  mismatch irrespective of educational level
• Poor quality and lack of workforce education
  and training programs
• Lack of access to part time continuing
  education and training
• Skills acquired informally through real life
  experience have no formal recognition
• Premium on government jobs among the less
  privileged an aversion to blue collar jobs and
  rural work.

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Workforce Development Assessment Key findings

• On the demand side, some opportunities
• Unorganized sector employs more than 92 of
  the workforce
• Growth in traditional sectors like
  manufacturing, mining, infrastructure and
  agriculture is due to automated systems and
  increased productivity and will not result in
  significantly more jobs.
• Industries with very high economic growth like
  IT do not necessarily contribute to the
  employment of the most vulnerable
• The industries with the greatest labor market
  demand are services construction
  agri-business and food processing medical
  (para-medics), educational (para- teachers) and
  financial (rural bankers) services.

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Workforce Development Assessment Key findings

• Demand side opportunities cont
• Even in sectors where job growth is
  considerable, there is a mismatch between
  employer needs and the skills of job seekers.
  
• Employers often hire over-qualified applicants.
  
• Additional skills demanded by
  corporate/business executives are mastery of
  basic literacy and numeric skills,
  inter-personal skills, communication skills,
  computer skills, critical thinking skills.
• While workforce development is an emerging
  need, very few donors are working in the area.

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Workforce Development Assessment Key findings

• Workforce training issues
• Government vocational training courses (ITIs)
  need reforms centrally driven not responsive
  to the market outdated curriculum, outmoded
  equipment and inadequate faculty skills.
• Need to simplify policy and regulatory barriers
  to train and certify more youth in workplace
  skills.
• Need to offer a vocational option to
  secondary school students helpful for the
  vulnerable youth who are not likely to continue.
• Recent positive initiatives
• Industry has began to work with the
  vocational education sector to design relevant
  workforce education and training programs
• Private sector training institutions,
  including NGOs and for-profit institutions,
  beginning to fill an important niche in the
  training market for technical, non-university
  training.

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Illustrative program components for new design

• Market scan to map employer and industry
  demand.
• Establishment/implementation/scaling up of
  high quality, short term training programs
  consistent with employer needs and demands.
• Developing new training materials (including
  life and workplace readiness skills) in
  different formats (including distance learning).
• Establishment/implementation/scaling up of
  programs that prepare youth for safe migration.
• Linking young job seekers more effectively
  with employers.
• Strengthening of vocational training
  institutions.
• Development of skills certification programs.

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Expected Results

• New training programs established and
  institutionalized.
• At least 85 of training program graduates
  placed in jobs or benefited through higher
  income levels.
• Implementation of policy or regulatory changes
  that increase/ improve vocational training
  opportunities for disadvantaged youth.
• Increased engagement of the private sector in
  training programs for marginalized people.
• Approaches successfully address problems of
  young women in entering employment.

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In Summary.

• We are looking for
• Innovative ideas
• Creative combinations of partners
• Co-funding
• Significant impact on employment of
  disadvantaged youth and
• Scalability.

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