Contacts: In Washington: Alejandro Cedeño (202) 473-3477 Acedeno@worldbank.org Patricia da Camara (202) 473-4019 Pdacamara@worldbank.org WASHINGTON, January 15, 2009― The World Bank Board of Directors today approved a US$3 million zero-interest credit to increase youth employment in Grenada by providing private sector-driven training. The OECS Skills for Inclusive Growth Project will improve the knowledge and skills of beneficiaries to help youth transition to the labor market. This is the second phase of a regional program that is open to other countries in the region. St. Lucia was the first country to join the program in April 2007. “The project will contribute to the competitiveness of the Grenadian economy by focusing on skills demanded by the private sector,” said Yvonne Tsikata, World Bank Director for the Caribbean.“By focusing on youth, the project will also address the wider challenge of youth unemployment, underemployment, and youth-related crime,” she added. According to a World Bank report entitled OECS Towards a New Agenda for Growth (2005), Grenada and other OECS countries need to create new capacity in the labor force and the private sector to take advantage of emerging opportunities in the global market place and maintain high economic growth in the medium run. In Grenada, firms cited shortage of skilled labor as the number one constraint to increasing competitiveness. Enhancing the employability of youth through skills training would help increase the competitiveness of the Grenadian economy, especially in the context of the emerging Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME). Specifically, the project will support the following activities: - Increasing the levels of training for unemployed youth through the establishment of a competitive training scheme that finances private sector-driven training. This component will subsidize training of approximately 1,200 unemployed youth ages 18-30 and their placement in traineeships with public/private firms to gain on-the-job experience.
- Developing an improved policy framework for delivering training. This component will enhance OECS collaboration for training to reap the benefits of economies of scale, introducing occupational standards to increase the quality and value of training.
- Strengthening the institutional capacity of the Grenada Council for Technical and Vocational Education and Training and the National Training Agency to better implement, monitor and plan training.
“As part of its activities, the project supports the adoption of a regionally accepted competency-based standards framework for vocational education and training known as the Caribbean Vocational Qualification (CVQ), which will facilitate the professional mobility of trained workers to neighboring countries,” said Angela Demas, World Bank task manager for the project. The US$3 million credit from the International Development Association (IDA), the institution of the World Bank that provides interest-free loans, has a 35-year maturity and a 10-year grace period.
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