Annual YEN Meeting

Annual YEN Meeting

Manila, Philippines

June 26, 2017 to June 30, 2017

Workshop Report

Day 1 - State of the Region & YE3 Global Strategy

Youth unemployment is one of the world’s most pressing challenges today. In 2016, 32.9 million youth were unemployed in Asia and the Pacific. Sri Lanka (22.2%), Indonesia (19.5%), and the Philippines (14.4%) currently have the highest unemployment rates in Asia.

Our main goal is to enable 1 million vulnerable and excluded youth, especially young women, to engage in decent work, either waged or self-employment, of their own choosing - specifically those not in training, education, or employment (NEET).

To accomplish this goal, we have to realize that our focus is not about the number of young people in Asia and the number of jobs available. We need to first understand the number of young that are entering the labor market on a daily basis and how markets are dealing with the significant number of people entering the labor force. This places our focus on the quality, rather than the quantity of available jobs.

In addition to this, we also have to consider the role that migration plays in our work. Migration rates are increasing by year. When planning our programs, are we looking at the impact that migration has in the area?

-When young people acquire skills, they want to exercise their agency. We have to understand that training people in rural areas doesn't always mean new rural jobs or workers; with their new skills and motivation, youth may want to migrate.

-Therefore, we need to make sure that our programs have mechanisms in place to ensure that those who will migrate have the necessary skills when they arrive.

The YE3 Global Strategy contributes to the fulfilment of the following SDGs:

SDG 1: NO POVERTY

SDG 4: QUALITY EDUCATION FOR ALL

SDG 5: GENDER EQUALITY - Achieve Gender Equality and empower all women and girls

-This includes asking questions such as: What is it that keeps women out of the workplace? (policies on breastfeeding, early marriage, social norms, etc)

SDG 8: DECENT WORK - Promote sustained, inclusive economic growth and full and productive employment and decent work for all

- How can we better incorporate youth into value chains?

*We also draw on SDG 17 (Partnerships) although it is not listed. We know that we cannot accomplish our goal alone.

For the upcoming year, we will focus on three strategic objectives. By accomplishing all three, people will then understand what sets Plan International apart from other organizations working on youth employment.

Increasing the quality and reach of YE3 programs
Focusing on our area of global distinctiveness (skills and opportunities for global entrepreneurship)
Capacity building - increasing the number of youth who are completing our programs

Capitalize on a multi-functional learning management system
Increasing our level of research and evidence-based programming by using YES!ME for M&E

We lack enough credible information that gives evidence to how impactful our youth employment programs are. We need to change this!
Grant Action Learning (GAL) - Identify the lessons learned from programs midway and towards the end AND use these lessons to inform our future programming
§ Cross-cultural learning: How are we coordinating with other offices to learn about their lessons or success?

Enhance the enabling environment for youth employment across Asia
Incorporate youth more into our design

Youth should have the opportunity to make decisions; their voice shouldn't be limited to passive participation
Consider programs that include climate change adaptation and mitigation (green skills)
Establish accountability - would you be comfortable with your program spending if your beneficiaries put you on trial?
Strengthen existing partnerships (ADB, AIESEC, Youth Career Initiative - YCI)

Questions (from the Audience)

-As we collect more data through YES!ME, have we talked about this data to governments? Who are we generating our evidence for and how do we know they will use it?

How do we engage these audiences?

-How do we keep in contact with the youth that complete our programs?

-How do we deal with partnerships now that we are partnering with 3 regional banks?

Comments

-The role of governments in developing countries is too important. With our partnerships with the three development banks, we need influence skill development programs and policies.

-Also, the World Bank has a great influencing role with local governments. We need to think critically about better involving the World Bank locally.

-In addition to placing youth in jobs, we need to think of how we can influence governments to integrate entrepreneurial competencies into schools to improve future job creation.

-Countries should really allocate funding for communication/outreach in their proposals. Influencing can only truly be done by advocacy. It is our important for us internally to learn about projects, but people will want to work with us more (externally) if they are aware of our work.

Ideas: have a young person talk about their personal story through video or text

Areas of Global Distinctiveness

YES is focused specifically on the AoGD of skills and opportunities for employment and entrepreneurship. AoGD (or areas of global distinctiveness) is a global network that shares knowledge across the regions effectively specifically in 6 areas. As of July 2017, the Area of Global Distinctiveness scaffolding and narrative has been finalized.

This process (which took a year of hard work) first identified Plan's strengths then gaps and then offered a solid framework for us to build on what we do best and improve on our identified gaps. We are no longer service providers; we need to lead advocacy and influence the areas we work in. We need to be bridging the gap between governments and local businesses, not just placing youth into jobs.This also includes bringing young people into our discussions at the policy level.

What's new with AoGD?

- DRRM, gender transformative approach, and green jobs are more clearly included in strategies and influencing parties

- Key connections with other AoGDs identified per outcome

- Different barriers for youth (general) and girls and young women are acknowledged, specified and delineated.

- Results are measured by additional indicators besides enrolment, completion, transition, and engagement to build on the ambition of Plan to evolve from only service delivery to an influencing and advocacy role.

Gender Transformative Programming

As we tackle the goal of contributing to SDG 5 (gender equality), Plan is highly focused on making each program gender transformative. Both boys and girls have different experiences trying to enter the world of work, so this workshop begins with a scenario about a poor, young girl, Sara and a handicapped, young boy, Leo.

Leo got into an accident at the age of 17 where he gravely injured his leg which now impacts his ability to walk. He dropped out of school shortly after, but still had to provide for his family.

For the first portion of the activity, the group answered two main questions:

1. What do we need to see in YEE Program to make it inclusive and gender transformative?

2. What do we need to observe as a measure of success for inclusive and gender transformative YEE Program?

Participant Reponses

NEED TO SEE

- Teaching learning materials - have materials that are inclusive for beneficiaries and even trainers so that they know how to cater to beneficiaries of all backgrounds

- Evaluate/identify prevailing norms, perceptions and offer realistic solutions

- Include parents/community members at the household level/training sessions

- Allocate resources and time to support inclusion within programs (translators,volunteers)

- Establish partnerships with orgs/experts specialized in inclusion

- Find a comprehensive group of trainers (men, women, and those with disabilities)

- Leverage current digital assets to cater to various groups and in different languages

- Create awareness of gender and inclusion (involve parents in trainings/connect parents and private sector partners)

- Mobilization for equal opportunities (analyze safety situation/make sure people are not harmed if they want to challenge norms by employment - on the way to work)

HOW TO MEASURE

- Baseline/market scan

- Assess feedback from employers, beneficiaries, communities

- Assess company policies on inclusiveness and gender (HR policies, support facilities, no policies on job promotion by sex/race/etc)

POTENTIAL INDICATORS

- Women labor participation rate before and after

- Beneficiaries trained vs. employed

- Track income by gender & track the control over resources (earned but handed over?)

- Sustainability (self-reliance level)

- Increased participation of women in project design (over time)

- Measures of success (identify choice whether women want to work and how many want to be helped,etc)

The next activity focused on creating an empathy map in small groups based on Leo or Sara. After reading a program case study, teams thought about how Leo or Sara would feel and think, say or do, or hear and see if they were in the given program. Teams shared their thoughts and were able to identify the gender transformative gaps each program may have had.

Through this activity, participants emphasized on the fact that the situation of those with disabilities has not really changed over the years. Based on this, we as practitioners need to make sure our programming incorporates this.

We also must look at religion and social norms. Sara wants to work, but because she is a girl, she is not expected to. Leo is disabled and sometimes unable to work, but is expected to contribute financially.

We have to be aware of these existing attitudes so that we may work to influence them. Gender transformative programs focus on inclusion as well (not only gender). Making our programs gender transformative is not only about empowering women to work with other women; it is also about teaching them how to collaborate with boys in the world of work.

Day 2

During the morning session, the YES team presented information on their five-month data analysis project for sponsored children in the Philippines. The report contained both qualitative (written narratives) and quantitative data. The 636 children (2016) were separated into two groups (E2 and D2).

D2 - Youth relocated due to youth relocating themselves

E2 - Youth relocated due to families seeking employment

The team also highlighted the fact that the significantly higher reported number of E2 youth in 2014 was likely due to the idea that many left their provinces after their areas were affected by Typhoon Haiyan.

The main takeaways for the session was that team did not have information on the whereabouts of almost 50% of the sponsored children that moved on their own. This was particularly alarming because those that did have employment in this group were housekeepers. As housekeepers in private homes, we do not know how they are specifically treated. Do all of these youth know their rights?

Most of the SC moved to Manila (the main city) based on the perception that city has the most jobs. SC children also moved to San Jose and Tacloban due to the fact that these areas are being more industrialized and therefore have more job opportunities.

For those that move on their own, we find that youth will mostly move to other areas if they have relatives in the new area. Most youth who migrate end up in school, but others also work.

Based on the project, the YES! Team from the Philippines highlights the fact that we should all look to standardize our data collection. By doing this, it will be easier to analyze data and inform our programming. We should also do the following:

Incorporate more migration and work readiness modules into our YEE programs
Make sure that all SC know their rights and can move safely
Establish a strong alumni network due to the fact that we may lose contact with SC once they migrate
Consider gender dimensions more strategically

For the last portion of the session, groups were asked to share their thoughts on how we could bridge the gap between sponsorship and current programming. The following ideas were shared.

To Bridge The Gap

Start early life skills to create resilience to shocks; introduce soft skills to sponsored children before they leave the program
Using children clubs as a platform to introduce education
Use sponsorship funds for YEE programming as well
Provide career guidance to sponsored children
Do the jobs that we have align with their career goals?
Maximize time where children come back for holidays - ask them questions, follow-up
Offer scholarships for SC graduates; engage parents to make them understand the benefit of TVET/entrepreneurship programs & to effectively track students
Offer programs in the destination communities
Find out where most migrate to, but find a balance. Being too pro-migration can affect people and leave many behind)
Leverage digital assets to make sure that we incorporate SC into YE programs

Advocacy Session

The importance of advocacy has changed over the years. A decade ago, advocacy was perceived as risky because it challenged governments and held them accountable for their policies. Now, however, advocacy has become increasingly important. Based on this, Plan's global strategy heavily focuses on using advocacy to influence.

This workshop sought to answer two questions:

How can we strategize and shape the advocacy agenda for youth employment?
How do we switch from advocacy to influencing?

To effectively influence policies and behaviors, we first look at Plan's definition of advocacy and influencing.

Advocacy is aboutacting with or on behalf of children youth and their communities to strategically use information to implement systematic sets of actions that will influence changes in policies.

Advocacy is not something we simply add to our checklist; advocacy requires a lot of strategy, effort, diplomacy, passion. It also requires dialogue. Our advocacy strategies will only be effective if we engage with others, hear their thoughts, and share our own.

The main goal for advocacy is to raise the awareness and change the behaviour of individuals to create a bigger change in society.

Influencing is the systematically planned, coordinated, and integrated range of research, policy, advocacy, strategic communication, and partnership activities that seek to change the behaviour of one or more decision-makers in order to achieve development outcomes for children

Effective influencing draws on evidence through research and accurate program results. We need to establish strong monitoring and evaluation systems in our offices for our programming so that we can use our program results to strengthen our case (in advocacy) and enhance our future programming.

Now, how can we develop an effective advocacy strategy for our work?

Have a long term vision of the change you want to see
Analyse the problem and the solutions
Analyse the external context
Who has the power to bring about the changes you seek?
Who can be your potential partners?
What policies directly affect the issue you would like to change?

Analyse the internal context within your organisation or network
Do our stakeholders support our advocacy on this issue?
Will our advocacy complement what others are doing?

Conduct research - You will have to do research to show that you are knowledgeable about the issue
Think of your overall approach (insider or outsider) and your theory of change
Insider: private dialogue and quiet persuasion with policymakers. Emphasis on policy research and analysis
Outsider: emphasis on public campaigning, social media

Think about who will undertake the advocacy and how. Advocacy is not only about working with duty bearers like governments; it is also about working with people at the grassroots level. At the grassroots level, people can begin to see why the issue is important and further promote the cause.
Will the advocacy be done by those affected? With those affected? Or on behalf of those affected?

Develop key messages (and policy recommendations) using the "Tea Test". A good start is to develop an elevator speech for your cause. In other words, you should be able to speak to a stakeholder about your cause in 2 minutes or less. If you are using the Tea Test, you will captivate your audience by catching their attention immediately with the problem. Once you have their attention, you can then propose your solution and then tell them how they can show their support.

Tea Test
Touch (problem)
Enthuse (solution)
Act (how they can get involved)

Another important part of developing key messages is ensuring that the message is easy to understand for all audiences. For example, Plan's message "1 million reasons to act" is captivating, but will everyone understand it externally? We have to make sure we give the audience context with our messages.

Draw up the core elements of your strategy.
What is your goal? Expected outcomes? (short and long term)
Planned activities? Measures of success?

Ongoing monitoring and evaluation of your strategy implementation
Policy change can take a long time to achieve. Make sure that you can track your progress.
Ways to track your progress:
Media reports
Notes from advocacy planning meetings
Project planning documents
Statements by politicians that relate to your cause

Points to remember for your elevator speech
Make sure that you give them something relevant that they care about and can connect with
They hear these speeches every day, what makes you stand out?
Remember to hand them your business card. It's important to ask about keeping in contact or it defeats the purpose of asking them to act.
Have some key facts up your sleeve; always introduce Plan just in case they don't know how what Plan is. Include the fact that you have in country context (Plan has been in the country ___ years)
Remember to have balance; if you speak too quickly, you will lose them and their attention (remember to have a problem, actionable solution, and then next steps)
Remember to be ready to adjust your 2 minute scenario to the situation (you could anticipate meeting Bill Gates but actually meet someone else)
Invite them out to the field (gives them a chance to get engaged and get out the office; the youth can speak to their own story)

Day 3