| Overview : UNDP is supporting Ministry of Youth Affairs (MOYA) and National Youth Commission (NAYCOM) to empower the youth to develop their potential, creativity and skills for national development through the Youth Employment and Empowerment Programme (YEEP). The Youth Employment and Empowerment Programme (YEEP) is designed to strengthen national policy, strategy and coordination frameworks for youth employment; Establish, on a national basis, basic support services for youth including business development support and youth career advice and graduate internships all geared towards increasing their employability; is part of UNDP’s package designed to assist the Government of Sierra Leone to target development investments to the youth sector as a strategy to achieve the MDGs. This support is done through; provision of rapid employment opportunities and income generating activities for young people; strengthening the capacity of the Ministry of Youth Affairs and National Youth Commission; promotion and of the participation of young people in decision making processes and the development of youth interest initiatives. Strengthening the youth development initiatives coordination system of MOYA and NAYCOM is one of the activities aimed at bringing better coordination, oversight and strategic leadership role of the national institutions. The Youth Employment and Empowerment Programme is part of the UNDP ‘Inclusive Growth and Sustainable Development’ Cluster and the Country Programme Document (CPD 2015-2018). UNDP has been engaged in employment generation and private sector development in Sierra Leone in the post-conflict period, supporting the creation of income-generating opportunities for young people. Across a broad range of activities ranging from micro-enterprise and business development schemes to support to the development of cooperatives and promoting access to finance, UNDP has produced concrete results, particularly in terms of increasing the income generation abilities of youth participants. In 2012, building on successful experience and lessons learned, UNDP has moved towards a market-based approach that assists youth businesses in a systemic manner. With the establishment of NAYCOM, UNDP designed an innovative scheme to provide young entrepreneurs with a broad range of business development support services. Five Business Support Centres (BSCs) were opened in main urban centres including Freetown, Newton, Bo, Makeni and Kenema, which each provide direct assistance to over 200 entrepreneurs per year. UNDP is also supporting the Graduate Internship Programme (GIP), Career Advisory and Placement Services - CAPS (in tertiary institutions) and small agribusiness projects. UNDP is planning to develop a new strategy for YEEP for the next three to five years. To successfully implement the new initiatives, the evaluation of past projects and identification of best practices and lessons learned are crucial. In spite of many youth employment and empowerment projects using a variety of approaches, the youth employment and empowerment sector is almost devoid of accurate and reliable data or analysis on the impact on employment and empowerment of these projects. As a result, many of the interventions within the youth sector are based on estimates and anecdotal information. Uninformed and nonstrategic interventions impact negatively on the development of the sector. UNDP and NAYCOM, therefore, will conduct a review of the employment-impact of youth employment approaches used in projects in the last four years. This will provide valuable information as part of UNDP’s support to the identification of best practices. UNDP and NAYCOM are therefore seeking the services of a National consultant to undertake a “Review and Lessons Learned” Consultancy on the Youth Employment and Empowerment Programme for the period 2012-2016. Objectives of the Consultancy: - Assess the impact of completed projects as to employment created and livelihoods improved;
- Assess the impact of completed projects in individual life of youth beneficiaries, communities and local business market;
- Identify best practices on project designs as well as intervention approaches;
- Analyze the factors of success and challenges on project outcomes;
- Assess the linkage between labour supply and market demand on each project;
- Conduct gap analysis on institutional arrangement and intervention strategies.
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