Local partnerships forged to create employment opportunities for the youth

Public and private sector partners have pledged their support to young people in Masbate, Antique, Maguindanao and Agusan del Sur. These young people were among those trained by the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) and Technical Skills and Development Authority (TESDA) on labour market-responsive entrepreneurship and technical vocational skills in coordination with the provincial local government.

News | 13 April 2012
Contact(s): Roche M Angon, National Project Coordinator for ILO, MDG F Joint Programme on Alternatives to Migration: Decent Jobs for Filipino Youth

By Roche M Angon, National Project Coordinator for ILO
MDG Fund Joint Programme on Alternatives to Migration: Decent Work for Filipino Youth

Public and private sector partners have pledged their support to young people in Masbate, Antique, Maguindanao and Agusan del Sur. These young people were among those trained by the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) and Technical Skills and Development Authority (TESDA) on labour market-responsive entrepreneurship and technical vocational skills in coordination with the provincial local government.

Public and private sector partners expressed their support through signed pledge forms. A total of 115 commitments were generated, mainly covering provision of on-the-job training slots; employment of training graduates; employment facilitation services; post training services such as product development and packaging and micro credit for graduates of entrepreneurship training; and livelihood support for community-based microenterprises of the youth.

Provincial local governments further committed to providing employment opportunities for young training graduates. Governor Adolph Edward Plaza of Agusan del Sur has committed funds amounting to 2 million pesos for the community-based enterprises and enterprise development training of a hundred youth entrepreneurs with feasible business plans.

These commitments were among the results of the Public-Private Partnership Forum for Youth Employment in Masbate, Antique, Maguindanao and Agusan del Sur held in February and March 2012. The International Labour Organization organized the forum under the Millennium Development Goal Fund (MDG F) Joint Programme on Alternatives to Migration: Decent Work for Filipino Youth with the support of the Government of Spain.

As part of preparatory work for the Public-Private Partnership Forum, the provincial offices of TESDA entered into 49 partnerships with private sector partners to host the on-the-job training of the youth. The forum, the first of its kind in the pilot provinces, served as a venue to raise awareness of available programmes and projects relating to youth employment and to forge partnerships towards promoting youth employment.

TESDA and DOLE together with provincial local governments will work on the translation of pledges of commitment into partnership statements and memoranda with specific terms on providing post training services to the youth. They have also committed to monitor the realization of the commitments.

To date, a total of 288 out of 400 target youth were trained on entrepreneurship using the Start and Improve Your Business (SIYB), the entrepreneurship training programme of ILO. There were 1,823 out of the target of 2,000 youth who have completed and currently trained on technical vocational skills. About 530 youth are also undergoing on-the-job training.