Equipping youth who are harder to hire for the labor market
Entra 21 is an initiative of Multilateral Investment Fund of the Inter-American Development Bank, the International Youth Foundation (IYF) and USAID that was created in 2001 to improve the employability of disadvantaged youth in Latin America and the Caribbean and place them in decent jobs. IYF commissioned a study of five new groups projects funded under Phase II of entra21 to gain greater knowledge on how successful the projects were in recruiting more vulnerable youth, whether they became more employable, and which practices seem to have contributed to these youths’ ability to acquire new skills and secure employment or create their own micro-businesses. The study focused on projects in Ecuador, Nicaragua, Paraguay and Peru where the targeted youth face obstacles – having less education, living in rural areas, or having other personal or social characteristics – that make it harder to find decent work.