Mediterranean Initiative for Jobs (Med4Jobs)

The Mediterranean Initiative for Jobs (Med4Jobs) works by promoting and replicating a number of private-sector job creation projects in the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean region. Med4Jobs is bringing job creation to the centre of the socio-economic development debate, notably by shedding light on employment at local and national levels.

Med4Jobs was conceived as a cross-sectorial, project-based initiative. It will cover both the supply and demand side of the labour market, by targeting three core areas:

• Employability: it will identify and scale up successful training programmes across the region that address the mismatch between skills and labour-market needs.
• Job intermediation: it will replicate successful job facilitation and intermediation programmes.
• Business enabling infrastructure: it will develop business enabling infrastructure for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), such as incubators and coaching programmes.

The programme’s three approaches:

• The vertical approach, which will seek to ensure consistency and alignment with national employment frameworks defined by Ministries of Employment.
• The horizontal approach, through the participation of a wide range of stakeholders such as international institutions, universities, and private sector companies, as well as the exchange of best practices between countries.
• The bottom-up approach, which will aim, through projects, to raise awareness on ways to address the region’s employment challenges. Lessons learnt through Med4Jobs projects will also help policymakers to better fine-tune their employment policies in the region.

Med4Jobs will seek to identify best practices in terms of job-creating projects and to replicate them across the region. It can therefore be defined as a programme of projects.