Who we are?
The objective of the RisiAlbania project is to promote the employment of young people aged 15-29 in an inclusive and sustainable manner. The project is supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), in partnership with the Ministry of Economy, Culture, and Innovation, and is implemented by Helvetas and Partners Albania. This project has been implemented since 2013.
The project aims to achieve this objective through strategic support in three main components:
- Creating quality job opportunities in the Agribusiness, ICT, and Tourism sectors.
- Developing job Intermediation and Career Guidance services to increase the efficiency of job placement for young people.
- Enhancing the provision of non-formal training in Tourism and ICT for higher and more sustainable youth employability.
Job Creation
Young people in Albania face difficulties in finding and maintaining a job. According to the Institute of Statistics (INSTAT), the youth unemployment rate in Albania for 2023 was 22.0% for individuals aged 15-29. Additionally, young people are not satisfied with their job positions and working conditions. As a result, youth emigration has significantly increased in recent years. On the other hand, businesses struggle to find labor in general and qualified labor in particular. The tourism, agribusiness, and ICT sectors have development potential and inclusiveness, offering employment opportunities in both rural and urban areas and for young people with different levels of education. Aiming to bring sustainable changes to the market, the project collaborates with businesses in the sectors where the project is active, service providers, universities, and public partners at local and central levels to address their challenges and bring them together in effective initiatives and interactions for sustainable business development and the creation of sustainable jobs. The project, in collaboration with the aforementioned actors, introduces innovative and sustainable models of business growth and youth employment with a special focus on rural areas and vulnerable groups such as girls from rural areas.
Career Guidance and Interintermediation
Young people in Albania face difficulties in orienting and integrating into the labor market. According to the Institute of Statistics (INSTAT), the percentage of young people aged 15-24 who are not in employment, education, or training (NEET) in Albania for 2023 is 24.0%. Young people lack information and face difficulties in making the right and well-informed career choices. To meet these needs, RisiAlbania works to establish a sustainable career guidance system, where the necessary service functions exist and are active: support and capacity development of service-providing institutions, development of career guidance content, qualified service providers, and increased awareness among young people and their parents about the importance of this service. Regarding job intermediation, the project contributes to innovative and sustainable employment services through AKPA as the institution that provides job intermediation services to the largest number of unemployed job seekers with low and medium skills, but also through private employment mediators by improving their offer for a category of young people with medium and more developed skills.
Skills Development
The non-formal training market in Albania is an important market that offers quick employment opportunities after short-term training. However, this market also suffers from insufficient cooperation with businesses to respond to their growing needs. Additionally, this market faces continuous and innovative changes in skills in the world of work, such as digitalization or green skills, which pose a challenge in making them part of their training programs. In the areas where the project operates in this component, tourism and ICT, there are a total of 9 active non-formal training providers (Skills Case Study, 2022). Based on the above, RisiAlbania contributes to improving the training offer of these providers, through improving their business models regarding cooperation with the private sector, designing innovative and attractive courses for young people, and the possibility of taking these courses by young people living in less developed areas. To complement this contribution at the system level, the project supports the establishment and functioning of Skills Sectoral Committees, which are institutionalized platforms that bring together businesses, educational and training institutions, policymakers, and decision-makers as well as social partners, to reflect new developments in the world of professions. Finally, to ensure quality in training and youth mobility, the project supports AKAFPQ in the process of referencing non-formal providers with the National Qualifications Framework, which is aligned with the European Qualifications Framework.
For more on the work in each component, click on the 'Areas' menu.
Methodology
The project's methodology follows the principles of bringing systemic changes. This means that the project aims and works with a wide range of partners who have interests and obligations related to the target group (youth) and the services that this target group receives from them. Here, a special role is given to the continuous understanding of the challenges and opportunities for each partner, the interaction between them, the increase of institutional and human capacities, to maximize joint efforts in function of the final objective, which is youth employment.
