UNDP has been long supporting the Government of Timor-Leste in fostering youth-led MSMEs. The initiative was sharpened in 2021 under the Supporting Employment and Entrepreneurship for Women and Youth (SEEWAY) Project and later was scaled up and sustained under the Youth Employment and Entrepreneurship Skills (YEES) Project from 2022-2027. To this date, UNDP has been supporting over 300 youth-led enterprises across the country in different sectors and value chains aligning with the government’s priority, such as in agriculture, tourism, and small industry. The youth entrepreneurs were supported through a series of business training and financial access, such as soft loans and grants through the Business Innovation Challenge.

The YEES project is focusing on producing two medium-term sub-outcomes: 1) youth become employed and 2) youth become entrepreneurs, which will contribute to UNSDCF/CPD outcome 2: By 2025, institutions and people throughout Timor-Leste in all their diversity, especially women and youth, benefit from sustainable economic opportunities and decent work to reduce poverty, with three interrelated outputs:

Output 1: Youth obtain skills, competencies, and knowledge to be employed.

Output 2: Service providers are available to deliver holistic support to enhance employability.

Output 3: Youth, including migrants/returnees, obtain skills, knowledge, and services to start or expand their business.

In order to achieve outputs 1 & 2, the YEES Project will deliver numerous activities to enhance the employability of youth and to foster an enabling environment to facilitate the match-making between job seekers and job providers. Against this backdrop, the YEES Project will hire a Youth Employment Associate to oversee and facilitate project activities related to increasing the capacity of Timorese youth to be employed and encouraging service providers to deliver holistic support to raise employability.

1. Provide support to coordinate the development of training modules including soft job skill training module and career counseling module, facilitating relevant training on trainers (ToT), and training for youth;
2. Assist project to develop the work plan and operate routinely project activities including the Youth Internship Programme and facilitating necessary training on soft job skills, career counseling training, etc;
3. Facilitate the communication between project stakeholders to deal with project activities on the employment components such as developing the SIMU-web, holding a career fair, operating an internship program, providing training on soft job skills and career counseling, etc;
4. Provide support on management, collection, and making the database of beneficiaries of youth who participated in the project activities under employment components or relevant activities under the UNDP;
5. Assist the project team in facilitating workshops on various topics of enhancing employability such as career fairs, education fairs, learning sessions, business networking events, etc;
6. Assist project effective coordination between project stakeholders and relevant institutions on related issues on employability skills development and effective service to the youth;
7. Provide support in monitoring of the track progress and timely delivery of project activities regarding all project activities related to youth employment.

The incumbent performs other duties within their functional profile as deemed necessary for the efficient functioning of the Office and the Organization.

The Youth Employment Associate will work under the supervision of the Project Manager of the YEES project. On a day-to-day basis, the Youth Employment Associate will work closely with the YEES Project team, especially with the Youth Employment Assistant and field coordinators in four municipalities (Dili, Liquica, Ermera, and Baucau) to provide necessary services to the youth. The Youth Employment Associate will work at the project office in Dili to conduct the work described in ‘3. Scope of Work’  within the duration of the contract.