In a joint response to the stagnant integration of Roma, persons with disabilities and youth, as population segments exposed to multiple barriers in accessing the labour market, UNDP in partnership with the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy and the Employment Service Agency has launched at the beginning of 2019 the implementation of a new four-year project that will strongly focus on enhancing the employability and facilitating employment of the most vulnerable individuals. This project is financed by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.

Our goal is to help offer innovative policy and programming solutions to activate Roma and other hard-to-employ persons in the open labour market while promoting services for broader social inclusion. By doing this, we will help tackle the economic reintegration of long-term unemployed, but also institutional and non-formal barriers and drivers of exclusion.

The core employment support activities addressing Roma and other persons at risk of social exclusion will be channelled through a network of CSOs/NGOs active in providing labour market activities and/or services leading to activation of hard-to-employ persons which are currently or have been operating in the past 5 years in selected municipalities with significant presence of the Roma population.

OBJECTIVE

This is a Call for Expression of Interest (CEI) from national CSOs/NGOs, including consortia, for potential partnership with UNDP in delivering outputs for development projects requiring expertise and experience in the following areas:

(1) Implementation of employment support activities and/or services leading to employability enhancement, labour market activation and labour market integration of unemployed persons. Priority will be given to CSOs/NGOs with experience in tackling employment of hard-to-employ persons;

(2) Experience in providing the above-mentioned employment support activities and/or services to beneficiaries in any of the following cities and their surroundings: Skopje, Kumanovo, Prilep, Bitola, Tetovo, Gostivar, Shtip and Kochani; and

(3) Experience in establishing effective partnerships with the private sector in enhancing the employability and/or facilitating employment of hard-to-employ individuals is not mandatory but it is considered as a strong asset.

The selected CSOs/NGO will be engaged to pilot employment services for hard-to-employ persons based on the Spanish Acceder methodology for a period of up to one year with a possibility for extension. During this period, they will receive technical assistance in transferring and implementation of the Acceder approach.

Interested to apply? Download the form: here