Welfare Association commissions Palestinian consulting firms for youth project

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Following a year of research, internal discussions, and several ongoing pilot projects financed and implemented in partnership with the Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC), the Welfare Association, represented by Mr. Mazen Hashweh, Director of Resource Development, Communications, and Media, has commissioned a joint consulting team comprised of Solutions For Development Consulting Co. and Applied Information Management to pull together all the insights gained over the past period and design a three-year project that will aim to facilitate, directly and indirectly, youth employment opportunities in Palestine and regionally.

Samar Husary, Welfare's Project Manager for the Youth Employability Project, noted that, 'The mode of operation of the Welfare Association is to support the community through partnerships and this project is no different. As a matter of fact, we are looking forward to providing donor partners with a concrete vehicle to support the private sector, which is the only concrete platform that can create a viable Palestinian economy.'

In a recently published joint article the consultants, Iyad Joudeh and Sam Bahour, wrote, 'On average, donors annually injected $350-450m into the Palestinian Authority from 1994-2000. From 2001-2007, the amount averaged about $650m annually. This amounts to over $7bn, more per capita than anyplace in the world except for Israel, which is heavily subsidized by the U.S. Of those funds, less than 5% were invested in private sector development. Even with this meager donor support, the private sector has proved its stamina and resilience in the face of crisis. Palestinian private sector achievements may be found in every sector and many seeds of a stable economy have been planted, but now need nurtured.' The Welfare Youth Employability Project promises to help nurture those seeds into a critical mass of real jobs.

A major thrust of the project under consideration is to build upon an already successful outsourcing pilot project that the Welfare Association launched last year to mobilize Palestinian human resources and professionally train them with practical hands-on skills to serve clients across Palestine, regionally and internationally. Feedback to date has shown that regional outsourcing clients, especially in the Gulf region, are extremely satisfied with the quality and dedication that the Palestinian workforce exhibits. Several firms are already in contact with Welfare Association with the desire to specially train a critical mass of Palestinians to serve their business needs.

The occupied Palestinian territory, which regionally has an above average education level amongst its youthful population, is facing the most severe political and economic crisis in its history, with over 40% of unemployment. The Welfare Association's intervention is aimed at creating sustainable employment opportunities, upgrading skills and assisting in placing youth in productive jobs.

The consulting firm's team leader for the project's design effort, Sam Bahour, noted, 'The exciting dynamic in this project is that the Welfare Association's governance structure comprises the who's who from the Palestinian business community across the globe and, as such, the project is uniquely positioned to move from the conceptual phase to on-the-ground implementation, unlike many other similar projects that focused on training without securing employment opportunities. This project's ultimate performance indicator will be the number of sustainable jobs created and number of persons whose skills were upgraded to allow them to be placed in productive jobs.'

The design of the project will be completed during February and announcement of the next steps are set to be announced to the public shortly thereafter.