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Youth Socio-Economical Empowerment Project (YSEEP)

In December 2004 the Ministry of Finance and The Word Bank (IDA) has signed the Grant Agreement for the implementation of the Youth Socio-Economical; Empowerment Project.

The Project partners are Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, Local Public Authorities, Nongovernmental Organizations from selected regions, World Bank and UNICEF Moldova. The project is implemented form grant recourses offered by World Bank and UNICEF Moldova, and project activities are part of the EGPRCP and Youth Strategy.
The Monitoring and evaluation of the implementation process of the YSEEP will be done under supervision of the Grant Consultative Committee (GCC) and project Technical Board (TB).

Overall project objective. The project objective is to enable disadvantaged rural and peri-urban young women and men (ages 14-30) in selected regions to create / participate in activities leading to their increased socio-economic empowerment, through inclusive support for business creation and innovative, community-based service delivery.

Specific objectives of the YSEEP

(i) increase the number of isolated and vulnerable youth (14-30) who adopt positive social practices as a result of innovative social service delivery
(ii) strengthen the capacity of local public and private (NGOS/CBOs) youth-serving providers and decision makers to reach out to the most vulnerable young women/girls and men/boys and to address their needs and interests in a participatory and integrated manner;
(iii) increase the number of viable micro-enterprises own by youth (18-30) who initially faced both a lack of business development skills and exclusion from credit due to lack of material assets for collateral

Direct beneficiaries of the grand include: teenagers and young adults (14-30) from project selected regions, with a particular focus on the most disadvantaged: youth from rural and small towns; youth from poor and vulnerable households (including young parents); unemployed youth; youth who did not complete secondary education.

Indirect beneficiaries include:
- families of youth;
- communities (through less incentives for youth to engage in violent and risky behaviors)
- Central and local government (through potentials for economic returns - e.g. more self employment opportunities for young people; potentials for reducing expenditures - e.g. linked to juvenile delinquency, public health issues including the prevention of youth alcoholism, etc.)
- Civil society at local and community level working for and with youth (through enhanced institutional capacity at the local level through youth organization and participation).

Regional approach. The project promotes a strategy of integration and synergies of economic, social and institutional approaches to youth inclusion which is fairly new to the Moldavian context. Given that synergies are more likely to occur if there is geographical concentration, the project will pilot this approach in a limited number of regions (rayons) of Moldova, taking into account the following criteria: (a) illustrative geographic coverage (North, South and Center); and (b) synergies with UNICEF activities, particularly the establishment of regional resource youth centers which will be critical for the integration of different project activities. Agreed selected districts or rayons are the following: Drochia, Edinet , Donduseni,Falesti, Soroca , Sîngerei, Balti, Ungheni, Calarasi, Orhei, Nisporeni, Anenii Noi, Crpiueni, Cahul, Basarabeasca , Comrat, Cantemir, Causeni. However, some activities will still be implemented at the national level, such as the institutional and policy development activities.

The YSEEP has the following components:

Component A. Support to Civil Society Initiatives and Village Outreach
This component focuses on increasing the responsiveness of local government and civil society groups to youth's needs, interests and potentials in selected regions. Under component A, “Support to Civil Society Initiatives and Village Outreach”, the implemented activities are: (i) a competitive program of grants which will be launched for all local NGOs providing services to vulnerable youth; (ii) technical assistance to Youth serving NGOs, (iii) training activities, (iii) hot line services, (iv) outreach, promotion and communication.

In addition, this component, mainly through capacity-building and technical assistance, will support youth Initiative Groups and Local Public Authorities to elaborate, in selected regions, Local Youth Strategies in according to youth interests and needs.

Component B: Inclusive Business Development for Youth Economic empowerment
This Component focuses on the support to the creation and financing of self-employment opportunities for vulnerable young people in the project selected regions. It will pilot an approach that will help the target population (18-30 years old men and women) to build entrepreneurial skills, by facilitating a process of learning on how to identify business ideas, formulate and set up business in partnership with the local financial institutions.

Component C: Gender Capacity Building and Mainstreaming
This component focuses on building the capacity of service providers and other project stakeholders to address the needs, interests and constrains of young women/girls and men/boys. Training and technical assistance will be provided.

Component D: Youth Driven Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation
This Component focuses on the elaboration of a comprehensive and participatory system of monitoring and evaluation (M&E). This will be done through a continuous system of data collection based on the development of a system of local needs assessment, youth fora, interviews with key informants, feed back from youth workers, etc. This will include capacity-building at national and regional levels in participatory M&E. Young people will be involved through out the entire M&E process

Component E: Youth Regional Focus Points for Grant management and Audit
This component focuses on creating synergies between social and economic component of the grant through training, communication, outreach, youth and community mobilization. Youth focal points (consultants) will be selected on ad hoc basis to carry out activities related to Monitoring and Evaluation (data collection, training, data circulation and information sharing, etc.). Other activities will include: training, information, communication and outreach. This component will also support annual audit of the JSDF grant.

Detailed project description  --> here