GPPi launches new project reviewing country-level partnerships for improving labour market integration of disadvantaged groups

Today the world faces the largest and best educated generation of young people in history, more than one billion between the ages of 15 and 24. The overwhelming majority – near 84 percent – are living in developing countries. On the one hand, this rising population of youth presents a major opportunity as they bring relevant and new skills, new ideas, motivation and flexibility to the workplace. On the other hand, today’s youth also represent a group with serious risks of not starting out right in the labour market for a number of reasons. 

Partnerships between the public and private sectors have been launched both at the global as well as local level as a means to find more effective and durable solutions to the employment problems of disadvantaged groups (e.g. disadvantaged on the basis of age, gender, mental or physical ability, nationality, ethnicity, race, and religion). By pooling the resources and expertise of government and businesses, public-private partnerships (PPP) have the potential to harness their respective strengths to benefit groups facing the toughest barriers to effective labour market integration.

In order to better understand the breadth and role of PPPs in promoting labour market integration of youth and other disadvantaged groups at the country level, GPPi will assist the Youth Employment Programme of the International Labour Organization in conducting research on the role of PPPs in promoting decent employment for young people and other disadvantaged groups.

GPPi will conduct a review of country-level experiences of PPPs directed at improving the labour market integration of disadvantaged groups, especially young people. As a part of this review, GPPi will construct a typology of interventions, distinguishing by groups targeted.