One hundred Palestinian youngsters to benefit from digital and business training.
The International Trade Centre (ITC) and the Business and Technology Incubator (BTI) have announced a new project to connect young people in the Gaza Strip to market opportunities.
Funded by the Government of Japan, the ‘Enhance Employment of Refugees and Young Population in Gaza in IT & ITES sector’ project will provide training for 100 youngsters in the use of digital tools and channels to grow their businesses, and connect them with new clients and reach new markets.
As part of the project, the selected youth participants will join a four-month vocational training course on digital marketing, front-end and web development, and on how to manage their personal online presence. The participants will be guided on how to register for digital platforms, boost their activities on online marketplaces, and manage online transactions and sales. In addition to building skills, the project will seek to generate sustainable sources of income for participants by providing online coaching and one-on-one mentoring.
Focusing on e-commerce and digital training, the project will help create employment opportunities that do not rely on moving goods across borders, a major issue faced by most Palestinian producers of physical items. Therefore, bridging the gap between humanitarian and development assistance which will lead to a more inclusive growth helps foster peace and stability. ‘This new approach will support youth in Gaza to become more economically independent by equipping them with the technical and soft skills needed to take up jobs in the digital marketplace,’ said ITC project manager Eman Beseiso. ‘This approach can be replicated and expanded to cover more areas including accounting, human resources, and translation services, to help more graduates find online jobs.’
The project will strengthen the capacity of BTI in providing high quality, relevant and sustainable digital skills which go back to the youths targeted in training and advisory services in a way that facilitates their link to new clients and markets. ‘The initial phase will train 100 graduates. The success of this phase will prompt a second phase that will target a larger number of graduates and wider fields’, said the Director of BTI Mr. Basel Qandeel.
By providing online training for young people, the project will contribute to the creation of a more vibrant Palestinian economy, ensuring more inclusive and sustainable social and economic development, and creating new jobs. Currently, unemployment in the Gaza Strip stands at 40%, whereas among young people this is estimated to be around 60%.
