Young Palestinian men and women are faced by a range of social and economic challenges, including joblessness and underemployment, as well as the lack of social justice, dignity and freedom. Against this backdrop, there is a clear and urgent need to tackle the multi-faceted dimensions of Palestinian youth employment challenges in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), through a comprehensive approach that promotes decent work and integrates young women and men in the labour market. One of the means used to do so is equipping them with the entrepreneurial education and skills required to choose self-employment as a potential career option and venture into business start-up.

In light of the above, both projects with PsDF and ILO/RBSA funding use a two-pronged intervention, namely working on fostering entrepreneurship awareness among youth enrolled in technical colleges and facilitating business start-up for young graduates.

Objectives

• Entrepreneurial skills and basic business management knowledge acquired by young Palestinian women and men enrolled in selected technical colleges in the West Bank and Gaza.
• Enhanced capacity of PsDF to efficiently and independently provide the ILO “Start Your Business” (SYB) programme through local MFIs and BDS partners (Training Service Providers) to potential young Palestinian entrepreneurs in order to start viable small businesses.

Main Activities

• Conduct “Know About Business” (KAB) Training of Facilitators’ workshops and follow-up workshops for professors/instructors of selected technical colleges in the West Bank and Gaza. Monitor the delivery of the facilitators for their certification as KAB National Facilitators if they successfully complete the requirements.
• Review the latest version of ILO SYB materials and Programme Management Guide to tailor them to the Palestinian needs.
• Conduct GYBI and SYB Training of Trainers’ workshops followed by refresher workshops. Monitor the delivery of the trainers and certify them if they successfully complete the certification requirements.
• Introduce the Gateway, which is a web-based tool to enable SYB users to access/enter training data and generate reports on various training related activities.

Outcomes

• KAB implemented in selected governmental technical colleges in the West Bank and Gaza.
• Palestinian trainers trained on the adapted ILO SYB, and individual/group-based follow-up provided to potential start-up entrepreneurs.
• Institutionalization of the SYB programme at PsDF is completed and operational in close cooperation with selected TSPs and dissemination in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.