Multilateral Cooperation: Youth Employment

Requesting countryProviding country
Saint LuciaJamaica
Topics: 
EMPLOYMENT
Youth employment
Activity: 
On-site
Date: 
09/10/2018 to 09/14/2018
Description: 

RIAL Cooperation on Youth Employment among Ministries of Labor of the Caribbean
 
PARTICIPANTS: 

  • Providing Country: Jamaica 
  • Requesting Country: Barbados 
  • Participant countries: St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, Grenada. 

 
 From September 10 to 14, an officer from St. Lucia visited the Ministry of Labor and Social Security (MLSS) of Jamaica to learn about their practices in the area of Youth Employment. This visit took place within the Cooperation between Barbados and Jamaica, which, being a follow-up activity from the 2016 "Inter-sectoral Workshop on Youth Employment: Articulation between Education and Work", was also attended by delegates from St. Lucia, St. Kitts & Nevis and Grenada.
 
The general objective of the study tour was to promote the enhancement of Caribbean youth employment policies and programs, including training and school-to-work transition initiatives, in order to reduce the high levels of youth unemployment and high numbers of young people neither in education nor employment.
 
For five days, delegates from these Caribbean countries analyzed the experiences of Jamaica's main youth employment programs. Among them was the HEART Trust, the National Training Agency (NTA), the National Youth Service (NYS) and the On the Job Training Program (OJT).
 
Also, through presentations by Jamaican officials, the representatives of the visiting countries learned about the operation of areas such as the Labor Market Information System (LMIS) and the Electronic Work Exchange (ELE) of the Ministry of Jamaica.
 
The Cooperation Activity ended with field visits so that the delegates could analyze the implementation of these programs in practice. The first one took place in the Jamaican Producers Factory, and the second in the ​​Montego Bay area, where they had the opportunity to interact with the interns of the Hilton Rose Hall.
 
Among the next steps listed by the delegation of St. Lucia, it is worth highlighting the intention to reactivate St. Lucia’s Labour Market Information System (LMIS) with the inputs from the MLSS visit; to develop synergy among institutions of education and labor, as well as key stakeholders on youth employment; and to implement a program similar to Jamaica’s “On-The-Job-Training Programme."

Relevant documents: 
Status: 
Realized
Announcement number: 
11