Pakistan

Foreign help: Displaced persons of North Waziristan to get job training

Major focus will be on training construction workers who would be required to take part in reconstruction efforts

News Desk October 23, 2014 1 min read

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) plan to impart employable skills training and employment facilitation to 200 women and men from North Waziristan Agency who are temporarily residing in Bannu District due to the ongoing military operation in the agency.

An agreement was signed in this regard between two UN agencies on Wednesday under UNDP’s “Community Resilience Project for NWA Displaced Families”, said a press release.

Speaking at the occasion, UNDP Country Director Marc-André Franche elaborated that UNDP and ILO have been working for early recovery frameworks in post-crises areas in Pakistan.

ILO country director, Francesco d’Ovidio, welcomed UNDP’s financial support for the project and said the current project will prove to be another milestone which will facilitate disadvantaged families from the tribal agency in finding decent employment opportunities.

The new project will engage locally available government and private training institutions as well as civil society organisations with ample experience of organising good quality vocational training and provision of post-training support in case of emergencies.

The major focus will remain on training the maximum number of construction workers who would be required to take part in reconstruction efforts in the agency which have been badly damaged in the fighting.

Moreover, separate training courses for women would be organised at the most convenient locations for them to actively participate and learn new skills for increasing the family income.

The trained women and men would be supported for employment by the ILO’s existing Emergency Employment Information Centre (EEIC) in Bannu through job-search, setting up enterprises and bridging with local employers. The EEIC has, as of today, registered more than 900 women and men who aspire to be employed and facilitated more than 500 of them in various employment opportunities.