[{"bbox": [96, 153, 1134, 233], "category": "Text", "text": "The Action is aligned to the Government of Liberia's priorities, as stated in the \"Pro-Poor Agenda for Prosperity and Development (PAPD 2018-2024). 'Power to the people', the first pillar of the four-pronged PAPD strategy, focuses on the importance of developing a skilled workforce, with specific emphasis on the role of TVET."}, {"bbox": [96, 233, 1134, 312], "category": "Text", "text": "In general, EU financed TVET support takes into account EU priorities in cooperation, for example forestry, digital, agriculture or education itself, including a focus on green and circular economy transition and creation of green jobs. Agriculture is one of the selected skills areas in all of our TVET intervention."}, {"bbox": [96, 312, 1134, 365], "category": "Text", "text": "Also, the Action for \"From productivity to product, linking peers to peers (P2P)\" (current annual action plan (AAP)) makes reference to our holistic approach."}, {"bbox": [96, 365, 1134, 471], "category": "Text", "text": "'Youth Rising 2' will contribute to an improved match between education offered and (private sector) job market demand in food value chains. In a similar vein, the Agence Française de Développement (AFD) financed Strengthening Integration through Vocational Education (STRIVE) project (EUR 10 800 000) will complement this Action through TVET in the market gardening and fish farming sub-sectors."}, {"bbox": [96, 483, 1134, 563], "category": "Text", "text": "Finally, the Action is relevant to meeting specific targets of Sustainable Development Goals SDG #4 on quality education SDG #8 on productive employment and decent work⁴ and SDG #12 on responsible consumption and production."}, {"bbox": [85, 604, 323, 636], "category": "Section-header", "text": "## 2 RATIONALE"}, {"bbox": [85, 667, 234, 694], "category": "Section-header", "text": "### 2.1 Context"}, {"bbox": [96, 709, 1134, 817], "category": "Text", "text": "**Liberia is in the low human development category**, positioning 175 out of 189 countries and territories (United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), 2020). According to the World Bank's latest value (2016), 50.9% of the population lives below the poverty line. Poverty rates are expected to increase in the coming years, as the world economy shrinks, per capita income contracts and food prices rise."}, {"bbox": [96, 828, 1134, 936], "category": "Text", "text": "**Liberia's economy suffers from demand and supply-side constraints.** On the demand side, constraints include economic underdevelopment, job-poor growth, a non-conducive business environment, weak competitiveness, low labour productivity, pervasive informal economy and lack of wage employment and decent work opportunities. On the supply side, the problem is primarily one of poor human capital development."}, {"bbox": [96, 948, 1134, 1187], "category": "Text", "text": "**Youth's limited access to quality jobs remains a strong hindrance to the country's productive transformation.** Young Liberians generally lack employable skills and are ill-equipped to access labour opportunities in productive sectors; youth's limited access to quality and relevant TVET is creating a bottleneck in the supply of skilled labour. According to the International Labour Organisation statistics (ILOSTAT) (2022), youth unemployment⁵ stands at 17.2%, with 16.8% for male youth and 18.7% for female youth⁶. The share of youth not in employment, education or training was estimated at 36.3% in 2017. Dropout rates are high. 2015 data indicates that 9.5% of young men completed TVET studies, while only 6.4% of female did. Research conducted within the EU Youth Rising project indicates that TVET pays off in terms of access to wage employment and a path out of subsistence farming."}, {"bbox": [96, 1198, 1134, 1385], "category": "Text", "text": "Despite some advancements made by the Government of Liberia to support change in the TVET sector, notably with EU's support through the Youth Rising project, **the Liberian TVET sector continues to suffer from a myriad of systemic and structural deficiencies**, including: insufficient funding, obsolete curriculum, no equipment and dilapidated infrastructure, understaffing and inadequately trained TVET instructors and Vocational and Training Centres (VTC) managers; fragmentation in TVET delivery and governance; incipient coordination mechanisms; lack of a national assessment system and regulatory body that ensures quality and streamline TVET governance."}, {"bbox": [96, 1397, 1120, 1483], "category": "Text", "text": "\"In this context, the actions of the Erasmus+ programme for Capacity Building in the fields of Higher Education and of Vocational Education and Training will be promoted to strengthen the capacities of the relevant education and training institutions and administrations through international cooperation.\""}, {"bbox": [85, 1577, 529, 1603], "category": "Footnote", "text": "⁴ https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/?menu=1300"}, {"bbox": [85, 1602, 1089, 1626], "category": "Footnote", "text": "⁵ Referring to the share of the labour force ages 15-24 without work but available for and seeking employment, modeled ILO estimate."}, {"bbox": [85, 1624, 539, 1646], "category": "Footnote", "text": "⁶ https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.UEM.1524.FE.ZS."}, {"bbox": [1038, 1681, 1143, 1705], "category": "Page-footer", "text": "Page 4 of 24"}]