Project description / objective
Young women and men, equipped with well-informed career advice and market-relevant skills, have access to better and inclusive jobs which are provided by competitive and resilient businesses.
This Phase III (2021 - 2025) is the final phase of the programme.
Previous Phases: Phase I (2013 - 2017); Phase II (2017 - 2021)
Market systems focus
Fostering private sector growth in the agro-processing, tourism and ICT sectors. Selection criteria were growth potential, relevance for youth, and intervention potential (feasibility of stimulating systemic change).
Agribusiness
Chosen for its young workforce, growth potential (as consumer demand more processed food), the importance and feasibility of an intervention, and the perspectives it offers in terms of gender, rural outreach and government alignment.
Tourism
Chosen for its relevance (32,000 young employees) and growth potential (slightly lower than agro-processing due to current overcapacity of hotels) and a compelling set of intervention.
ICT
Chosen because 80 per cent of its workforce is under 30, Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is booming but could only sustain similar growth rates in the future if it succeeds in new markets (business process, English-speaking services) – a high-risk, high-reward undertaking for RisiAlbania.
Career guidance & intermediation services
In Phase II's career guidance work RisiAlbania supported the establishment, operationalisation and consolidation of single actors in their own scopes and shares of markets.
In this exit Phase III, RisiAlbania will support further development of a functional system of career guidance, involving the growth and consolidation of actors that develop content, career guidance professionals and promote demand for this service.
Training and skills development
In Phase II, RisiAlbania has made significant progress in improving the non-formal training provision in Albania, contributing to improvements in the quality and relevance of training, and ultimately employment for young people.
Considering the novelty of these developments, the involved actors need support in Phase III to complete the design and/or the following operationalisation of models of support functions.
Programme interventions
RisiAlbania will continue to build the capabilities of local actors, both public and private, to more effectively collaborate, coordinate and ultimately drive reform and improvements in the business enabling environment. This will be reached through evidence-based public-private dialogue. Moreover, RisiAlbania will provide support to boost availability of productivity, enhance services such as standards, finance, technology and market linkages (access to higher value markets).
Agribusiness
Quality standards for fruits and vegetables:
Ensure sustainability and scalability of this intervention by supporting embedded service providers to deliver services to exporters. This includes packaging, exporting, promoting products and finding buyers in higher value markets.
Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (MAPs):
Support exporters to add value to MAPs by improving the quality management and stimulation of their cultivation of.
Olive oil promotion:
Support the improvement of olive oil quality, its export, and promoting the “made in Albania” label.
Tourism
Consolidating Destination Management Organisations (DMOs):
Increase the capacities of local actors to promote regions as tourist destinations by supporting marketing and promotion; supporting project planning with expertise, funding and implementation; and supporting with know-how, models and tools to ensure sustainability of the organisation.
Sustainable tourism standards:
Support tour operators to extend seasonality for inland tourism through implementation of sustainable tourism standards.
Alberghi Diffusi:
Enable businesses to access high-end markets, through the Alberghi Diffusi business model, thus revitalising abandoned villages and turning them into touristic villages.
ICT
E-commerce:
Support the growth of E-commerce in the Albanian private sector by helping to develop tracking systems to improve customer services, promotion of digital payments, the internal capacity of the Albanian E-Commerce Association (AECA), and creating demand for E-commerce through an awareness campaign.
Standards and certifications:
Support private sector companies increase competitiveness and access higher value markets through the certification of international standards in data privacy and cybersecurity.
Cross-cutting
Supporting digital solutions across the private sectors, including: a CRM system for ICT; traceability system for Agribusiness; and an online platform for tour operators in tourism.
Job intermediation services
RisiAlbania’s approach in the exit phase is to further strengthen the job intermediation system. The interventions will focus on building the institutional capacities of intermediation service providers - both public and private - as well as building relationships and partnership between them to increase the clients and their satisfaction with the service, and suppliers, of intermediation.
- Supporting a wide range of partners based on their specific needs, including universities, private providers, and municipalities, to develop a high-quality and innovative career guidance system serving both young people and companies.
- The support has been in the form of:
(a) institutional and organisational capacities of service providers
(b) development of content
(c) development of career counsellors
(d) awareness raising and large-scale outreach.
Training and skills development
RisiAlbania will promote innovation in the design and delivery of non-formal training, leading to further improvements in the range, quality, and relevance of non-formal training opportunities available to young people.
- Support training providers improve overall training courses, develop new courses, increase capacities of their internal staff, and offer improved training curricula through:
(a) developing innovative ways of learning job-related hard skills for ICT, tourism, and craftsmanship
(b) capacity-building of staff
(c) developing a match-making platform for talent acquisition where young people can receive training in job-related soft skills for ICT
Cross-cutting
Skills development for the private sector: Boosting private sector capacities by enhancing hard skills in ICT and tourism, and soft skills in ICT.
Notable results (systemic change, poverty impact)
Private sector development: Agribusiness, tourism, ICT
Cumulative results since November 2021:
- 608 full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs created (held by more than 766 young people, 56 per cent women, and 48 per cent disadvantaged)
- USD $3.4 million in private sector investment generated
- USD $827,604 in net additional income for partner businesses and a nine per cent turnover year on year
- 10 partnerships with various actors (private and public)
- 645 legally registered entities have access to, and make use of better products and services (23 per cent of them were owned by women)
- 80 businesses follow or obtain new standards and certifications
Job intermediation services
Cumulative results since November 2021:
- 811 young people (51 per cent women, 11 per cent disadvantaged) have found a job through new and improved intermediation and career guidance services
- 10,333 young people (52 per cent women), 351 marginalised, use new and improved career guidance services
- 645 businesses use improved public and private job matching service
- 70 per cent of young women and men use, and are satisfied with, improved service in ICT
- Eight existing career service providers continue to improve their services
- Three active public-private partnerships established
- 2.8 per cent increase in job vacancies year on year, directly as a result of the programme
Training and skills development
Cumulative results since November 2021:
- 187 young people (63 per cent women, 48 per cent disadvantaged) found a job within six months of finishing training
- 932 young people (54 per cent women, 39 per cent disadvantaged) enrolled in new or better vocational skills development
- 45 new job-related training courses offered by non-formal training providers
- Seven training providers offer job related, innovative courses and methodologies
- Two improved/ new qualifications in ICT educational and training market (output of the Sector Skills Committee in ICT)
Impact on poverty
1,764 young people have new or better employment. Out of which:
- 691 come from rural areas and are employed as a result of interventions in agribusiness and tourism
- 607 come from disadvantaged groups
[Updated January 2024]