Fifth Annual Work Plan: Youth Employment and Business Start-up Program (YouLead)

AID-383-LA-17-00001. The program aims to improve access to job opportunities for young women and men in Sri Lanka, with a focus on vocational education and training, entrepreneurial development, and business growth. The program's vision is to empower young people to access suitable jobs and promote sustainable self-employment. YouLead's approach is based on a three-pronged strategy: driving impacts from work completed to date, laying a strong foundation for new project activities, and strengthening systems, policies, and counterparts to ensure sustainability. The program's priorities include the resumption of activities requiring physical interaction, integration of new cost-shared activities, acceleration of online content development, and influencing youth and community perceptions about career guidance and entrepreneurship. The program has identified four priority sectors for job creation: construction, tourism, information and communications technology (ICT), and caregiving. While the analysis still supports the focus on these industries, tourism and ICT continue to demonstrate the most buy-in and leadership from the private sector. YouLead will continue to adhere to its demand-driven approach for work with the private sector and envisions accelerated work in tourism and ICT. In year five, YouLead will focus on building on the success of the BRIDGE program pilot in ICT and expanding it to train 40,000 youth. The program will also expand its training to help rebuild the tourism workforce and provide a more holistic set of activities, including small and medium enterprise (SME) training and the creation of an authentic, more sustainable tourism product around long-distance walking trails. YouLead has completed robust market analyses in the first three years of the project to identify priority sectors for job creation and determine how best to support emerging young entrepreneurs. The program has developed more than 65 curricula and trained hundreds of teachers, laying a foundation for substantial employment impacts in the coming years. IESC feels strongly that YouLead will hit or exceed all targets if physical interactions can resume within the next fiscal year. The program's implementation plan includes the integration of two new cost-shared activities: the Skilled and Resilient Migrant Workers (SRMW) project and the Tourism Resilience Project (TRP). YouLead will also focus on influencing youth, parent, and community perceptions about career guidance, work in a skilled trade, and entrepreneurship, and expanding and deepening activities that help encourage more women to (re)enter the workforce. YouLead's approach to sustainability includes ensuring the sustainability of the most impactful project activities, strengthening systems, policies, and counterparts, and promoting a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship. The program will continue to work with the Government of Sri Lanka, private sector partners, and other stakeholders to achieve its goals and promote sustainable economic growth and development in Sri Lanka.