After several years of experience in the area of Entrepreneurship education and KAB, stakeholders from China, Laos, Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia (more specifically from Banda Aceh, Papua, West Papua, South Sulawesi, Maluku, East Nusa Tenggara and Jakarta) were invited to meet for three days in September 2010 in Jakarta to discuss entrepreneurship education and quality assurance. Under the title “Entrepreneurship Education: seeking to improve quality and impact for the benefit of youth entrepreneurship” this Asia-Pacific regional workshop was organized by the International Labour Organization in collaboration with the Indonesia Youth Employment Network (JEJAKMU) and coincided with the International Year of Youth. It gathered a diverse group of over 90 participants working directly or indirectly on entrepreneurship education and the ILO’s Know About Business programme.

On 9-10 December 2010, the Youth Employment Network (YEN) will host its third annual Evaluation Clinic in Beirut, Lebanon. The Clinic will be organized as a side event immediately following the Arab Urban Development Institute Child Protection Initiative (AUDI CPI) conference “Children &Youth in the MENA Region: Towards Unleashing their Potentials” from 6-8 December. The Clinic will provide a venue for evaluation specialists to collaborate with youth employment project teams for the development of impact evaluation plans. The 2-day event will include a series of interactive consultation sessions, lectures from renowned evaluation experts and the launch of a series of cutting edge impact evaluations with large potential to build the evidence base for effective youth employment project design and delivery.

Learning will be facilitated through the application of evaluation principles to youth entrepreneurship projects in the process of designing impact evaluations: so called “live case studies”. The live case studies that have been selected include:

1. Silatech and Al Amal’s Microfinance Bank – Yemen
2. International Youth Foundation’s YOUTH:WORK project - Jordan
3. Education for Employment Foundation’s SME project – Egypt
4. INJAZ project - Lebanon
   
   

The theme for this year’s Clinic is “Youth Entrepreneurship”. Recently, entrepreneurship programmes have been receiving increasing attention from governments, donors and multilateral agencies as an alternative job creation strategy. Given the limited absorptive capacities of existing formal labour markets in the developing world, promotion of youth entrepreneurship and self-employment is one of the few feasible options to create employment opportunities both in the informal and formal economy. Nevertheless, the evidence to support positive impact of entrepreneurship schemes is extremely weak. The Clinic seeks to assist youth entrepreneurship projects implement successful impact evaluations and disseminate the findings that come out.

From 22-24 November 2010, the Youth Employment Network (YEN) will host its second annual Evaluation Clinic in Nairobi, Kenya. The Clinic will provide a venue for evaluation specialists to collaborate with youth entrepreneurship project teams for the development of impact evaluations plans. The 3-day event will include a series of interactive “consultation” sessions, lectures from renowned evaluation experts and the launch of a series of cutting edge impact evaluations. Collaborating with YEN on the delivery of the Clinic include International Initiative for Impact Evaluations (3ie), Innovation for Poverty Action (IPA), International Centre for Research on Woman (ICRW),Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA), Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (JPAL) and the World Bank.

The Clinic is delivered as part of the Fund for Evaluation in Youth Employment. The Fund provides technical and financial support to youth entrepreneurship projects based on a competitive selection of proposals (more information on the Fund is available here). In the first selection stage, qualified proposals that are selected for the shortlist will been invited to act as “live case studies” for the Clinic. In the second selection stage, shortlisted proposals will be asked to submit full evaluation plans from which the best ones will receive grants for conducting their impact evaluation. The shortlisted projects that will act as “live case studies” during the Clinic will be announced on late September 2010.

The theme for this year’s Clinic is “Youth Entrepreneurship”. The geographic area for targeting is Sub-Saharan Africa. Recently, entrepreneurship programmes have been receiving increasing attention from governments, donors and multilateral agencies as an alternative job creation strategy. Given the limited absorptive capacities of existing formal labour markets in the developing world, promotion of youth entrepreneurship and self-employment is one of the few feasible options to create employment opportunities both in the informal and formal economy. Nevertheless, the evidence to support positive impact of entrepreneurship schemes is extremely weak. The Clinic seeks to assist youth entrepreneurship projects implement successful impact evaluations and disseminate the findings that come out.

The Youth Entrepreneurship Facility (YEF) is looking for 50 enthusiastic, results-oriented, committed, and motivated young professionals who have graduated from colleges or higher learning institutions in the fields of economics, social science, management, business administration, community development, and ICT to join the Kazi Nje Nje!

“Kazi Nje Nje!” is a one year apprenticeship program implemented by YEF for the purpose of providing practical exposure, capacity building, and professional development opportunity for aspiring young professional BDS providers freshly graduating from colleges. The “Kazi Nje Nje!” builds your capacity to support entrepreneurship and private sector development in Tanzania. It will give you a good basis to work as a professional business management consultant or even start your own consulting business in the future.

Application deadline: November 1, 2010

For more information visit:http://www.ilo.org/public/english/region/afpro/daressalaam/

For the month of October 2010 the Magazine "Entrepreneur" issued in Saudia Arabia featured two articles related to KAB:

1. An interview with Ms. Rania Bikhazi, Enterprise Development specialist at the International Labour Organization Regional Office for Arab States, on self-employment, entrepreneurship and the implementation of KAB in the Arab Region.

2. The implementation of KAB in Palestine

Kindly find attached both articles, in Arabic, in addition to the cover page of the magazine on which Ms. Rania Bikhazi is featured.

The ILO has supported a number of countries in the Asia Pacific region in their endeavours to prepare young people for entrepreneurship by introducing the Know about Business (KAB) curriculum in the education system and by building the capacity of teachers and educational institutions. Countries such as China, Sri Lanka, Lao PDR, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, and PNG have introduced, or are in the process of introducing, entrepreneurship education at various educational levels such as secondary, post-secondary, vocational and technical schools and higher education. Entrepreneurship or moreover entrepreneurship education within all education institutions is a high level priority in the new Cabinet of Republic of Indonesia as reflected in the Medium Term Development Plan, in a Presidential programme, and an inter-ministerial MoU.

The ILO is organising a regional workshop on Entrepreneurship Education and the Know About Business programme (KAB) to take place in Jakarta, Indonesia, from September 21st to the 23rd, 2010. The meeting is sponsored by two technical cooperation projects – the Swiss funded “Creating Youth Employment Through Improved Youth Entrepreneurship” and the Dutch funded “Education and Skills Training or EAST”.

The meeting intends to gather around 65 key stakeholders working around or directly with entrepreneurship education in mostly Indonesia but also Lao PDR, China, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Vietnam, and PNG. The KAB is an entrepreneurship education programme developed by ILO whose specific objectives are to (i) develop positive attitudes towards sustainable enterprises and self‐employment among the population, by targeting youth and stakeholders for enterprise development, (ii) Create awareness about entrepreneurship as a career option for young people, (iii) provide knowledge and practice of the desirable attributes of, and specific challenges in starting and operating a sustainable enterprise, and (iv) facilitate the school to work transition, resulting in a better understanding of the functions and operations of sustainable enterprises.

More information:  http://social.un.org/absolutewc/default.aspx?calendarid=0&eventid=280&date=21092010

THE AGENDA FOR THE CONFERENCE IS NOW AVAILABLE. Please see attached documents.

Hundreds of thousands of school leavers, university graduates and graduates of vocational education and training institutes enter the labour market each year and many of them cannot find a job. Preparing youth for self-employment and enterprise development is therefore considered an important strategy in national education efforts and countries are increasingly introducing entrepreneurship education at different levels in the educational system to orient youth to other career options than wage employment.

Against this backcloth, the ILO under the patronage of H. E., Mrs. Suzanne Mubarak, first Lady of Egypt, and with financial support of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) is organising an international conference on entrepreneurship education in Sharm El Sheikh, with a special focus on the Know About Business (KAB) programme, to discuss and share the experiences of these and other efforts with a view to develop better policies and guidelines for the promotion of self-employment and youth entrepreneurship.

The conference is aimed at all policy makers and practitioners involved in the promotion, design and teaching of entrepreneurship education courses in schools, vocational education and training institutions, and higher education from contries of the Middle East and North Africa region and abroad. Governement officials, educators, students and trainees, representatives from students organisations, International Organisations, donors, national and international NGOs, young entrepreneurs association are also invited to participate.

You may find more information on the Conference Flyer by going to "read more" at the bottom of this page.

Registrations have now been closed. We thank you for your interest and come back at a later date for more information on the conference outcomes.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION ON CONFERENCE PACKAGE:
Please note that the conference package includes the following:

All arrivals on the 4th of May pick up service is included.

All departures on the 7th of May transportation service to the airport is included.

Meet, Assist and transportation from and to the airport is included only on the 4th and on the 7th of May.

Arrival 4th in the evening, dinner at the hotel restaurant (DOES NOT include drinks).

5th of May , breakfast and dinner in the hotel restaurant (DOES NOT include drinks)

6th of May, breakfast  in the hotel restaurant and dinner in the pool area Gala Dinner. (DOES NOT include drinks)

Departure 7th of May, breakfast only at the hotel restaurant (DOES NOT include drinks)

Coffee breaks and lunch are offered at the convention centre on the 5th, 6th and 7th of May 2010.

Any extra order will be paid by the participant on the spot. $105 per night on breakfast and dinner basis in single room and $136 in double room per night. Payment in cash will be required for these rates.

يدخل إلى سوق العمل في الشرق الأوسط وشمال أفريقيا كل عام مئات الألوف سواء من خريجي الجامعات والمعاهد العليا، أو خريجي التعليم الفني والتدريب المهني، إضافة إلى عدد كبير من المتسربين من التعليم. وكثيراً منهم لا يستطيعون إيجاد وظيفة أو فرصة عمل. ومن ثم فإن تأهيل الشباب للتأهيل الذاتي وتنمية المؤسسات، تعتبر من الاستراتيجيات الهامة التي تأتى على رأس الجهود التي تبذل لتطوير التعليم الوطني وعليه أخذت الدول تتجه إلى إدخال تعليم ريادة الأعمال بشكل متزايد في مستويات مختلفة من النظام التعليمي لتوجيه الشباب إلى خيارات أخرى غير العمل بأجر .

ولمواجهة هذه التحديات، فقد سعت منظمة العمل الدولية إلى تنظيم مؤتمر دولي حول تعليم ريادة الأعمال في مدينة شرم الشيخ بجمهورية مصر العربية. وسوف يتيح المؤتمر مناقشة وتبادل الخبرات ومراجعة الجهود التي بذلت، وذلك بهدف تطوير سياسات أفضل وإرساء مبادئ توجيهية لتعزيز التشغيل الذاتي وريادة الأعمال لدى الشباب.

هذا المؤتمر موجه إلى جميع واضعي السياسات والمتخصصين المشتركين في تعزيز وتصميم وتعليم ريادة الأعمال في المدارس ومؤسسات التعليم الفني والتدريب المهني، والتعليم العالي ببلدان منطقة الشرق الأوسط وشمال أفريقيا وخارجها. وعلى وجه الخصوص المسئولين الحكوميين والمعلمين والطلبة والمتدربين، وممثلين منظمات الطلاب، والمنظمات الدولية، والهيئات المانحة، والمنظمات غير الحكومية الوطنية والدولية، وجمعيات رواد الأعمال، كل هؤلاء مدعوون لتبادل المعارف والخبرات.

للتسجيل، يرجى النقر على المكان المخصص لملئ الاستمارة وشكراً.