Engaging the private sector in VSD: an experience from Nepal
Market stall owner: Usha Bhandari (SDC)
Usha’s market stall draws on the experience of two projects in Nepal: The Employment Fund project (that will end in summer 2015), aiming at skills for disadvantaged youth and women, as well as the Safer Migration project. Aspects highlighted are the following:
- The Employment Fund project applied a real bottom-up approach, starting with training institutes, then including banks and cooperatives. After some experiences it expanded its collaboration to include SMEs and finally also to large companies.
- The private sector played the role of critical enabler for equipping workers with the skills required in the local, national or international labor markets (experiences from Employment Fund project as well as some from Safer Migration project). It brought a spirit of innovation to the collaboration, developed new products and supported youth’s access to jobs, finance and business networks.
- This was further stimulated through outcome-based financing. Training providers were only paid, if the beneficiaries had a job and earned a decent salary six month after completion of the training.
The subsequent SDC projects will therefore strengthen their collaboration with the private sector, invest in capacity building and they will put an even stronger focus on skills development for migrants.
Usha Bhandari summarises her market stall discussion:
