Project summary

        The Self-employment Programme is an essential part of the country’s employment strategy and the national active labor market measures which have been designed to promote smart, sustainable and socially inclusive growth.

The main objective of this project is to reduce unemployment by encouraging the creation of small businesses that will provide a living for successful entrepreneurs. Furthermore, the Programme has a community works component that tackles social exclusion on two fronts at once, offering unemployed people chance to gain valuable working experience and improve their professional skills while providing services for those who are most at risk of social exclusion.  The specific activities primary targets several groups of beneficiaries: pre-school children, elderly people, adults and children with disabilities as well as citizens of rural areas who are entitled to receive health and/or educational services.

Activities

The project focuses on a series of measures and activities such as:

• Entrepreneurship training for developing of business skills,
• Support in the development of a business plan,
• Company registration,
• Provision of start-up grants in the form of equipment and/or mate­rials,
• Coaching and mentorship support. 

Results:

The Self-employment Programme has the highest success rate, triggering great interest among beneficiaries.

• Over the past 12 years, more than 33,000 unemployed people have applied for the programme
• over 14,000 candidates have attended trainings in entrepreneurship and business plan development
• Since its start in 2007, this project has enabled over 11,000 people to open their own businesses.
• 35% of these businesses are run by women entrepreneurs and 30% by young people.
• A remarkable 70% of the companies created through the project are still active today.
• More than 13,000 persons have been employed on full-time basis throughout Self-employment and job creation programme for support to existing SMEs, civil organizations and social enterprises
• To date, 198 persons with disabilities have completed the entrepreneurship training while 146 businesses have been registered. 32,19% are women with disabilities entrepreneurs who opened their own business.
• This project has helped reduce the national unemployment rate by 3%.

• Since 2012, the Community Works Program engaged 1,914 long-term unemployed in providing care services to 44,727 vulnerable end-beneficiaries, typically the elderly, preschool children and PwDs in 63 municipalities.
• Out of people who were engaged on a part-time basis, 87% are women.
• Over 482 personal and educational assistants trained and employed, to ensure that adults with disabilities are better able to participate in their communities and to enable the children with disabilities to have the support they need to attend mainstream school.