The Netherlands and Germany have launched a new joint project initiative to support skills development of youth in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector in Jordan, titled "Skilling for the Increased Economic Participation of Youth”. 

This initiative comes as an additional project component to the project "Labour Market Oriented Vocational Education, Higher Education and Training – MOVE-HET”, implemented by the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) on behalf of the German government, according to a GIZ statement. 

The MOVE-HET project commenced in 2017 and aims to bridge the gap between labour demand and supply in the Jordanian labour market, by improving the outputs of the technical and vocational education and higher education systems. 

The project has a commission value of approximately 20 million euros from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the statement said.

The new project comes with an additional contribution of 5 million euros from the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, as part of the embassy’s Skills-Jobs priority. 

The programme aims to empower Jordanian youths by increasing their skills and opportunities for economic participation. The new programme is implemented by GIZ and various cooperation partners on the ground.

The "Skilling for the Increased Economic Participation of Youth” project aims to provide Jordanian youth with technical and soft skills that enable them to meet employer demands in the field of ICT. The project will achieve this through providing trainings tailored to the needs of different industrial and business sectors in order to bolster trainee employability.

The project was launched during the virtual visit to Jordan of Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation of the Netherlands Sigrid Kaag.

Speaking at the launch, Kaag said: "This project provides a great example of the importance of supporting youth through providing them with the necessary skills to increase their economic prospects. We are happy to cooperate with Jordan’s ICT sector which is critical to Jordan’s economy and also increasingly relevant for the future of work, both globally as well as locally — as has been further highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Not only was the ICT sector selected as it is a priority for the Jordanian government to transit to a digital economy, but in recent years Jordan has emerged as a technology hub in the region that attracts investment from leading multinational ICT companies, the statement said.

Jordan’s fast-growing ICT sector provides an excellent environment for youth participation through employment and self-employment, read the statement.

German Ambassador to Jordan Bernhard Kampmann said: "Empowering Jordanian youths in the ICT sector is more critical than ever considering the COVID-19 pandemic, which has caused a global exponential shift to digitisation. Upskilling Jordanian youths in ICT in current times will provide beneficiaries with the means to earn livelihoods, while providing Jordan with a valuable human resource to support the Jordanian economy in coping with the pandemic.”

The project launch, held at the Dutch embassy, was attended by Labour Minister Maen Qatamin, Minister of Digital Economy and Entrepreneurship Ahmad Hanandeh, Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation in the Netherlands Sigrid Kaag, Dutch Ambassador to Jordan Barbara Joziasse, German Ambassador to Jordan Bernhard Kampmann and Country Director of GIZ Jordan and Lebanon Elisabeth Girrbach.