Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) Special Initiative "Training and Employment"

(SI) The SI aims to support selected African countries showing reform potential to promote sustainable employment in cooperation with the private sector.

The initiative currently supports Ethiopia, Morocco, Tunisia, Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana and Rwanda, and Egypt (so far only technical cooperation).

The SI can be seen in the context of the 'Marshall Plan with Africa' and the 'G20 Compact with Africa' initiatives.

The focus of the SI is on the removal of barriers to investment on the basis of the needs of African and European/German enterprises in job creation.

Investment facility In order to implement appropriate investment measures in a demand-oriented, efficient and flexible manner, a supraregional facility has been established.

The facility will award grants to applicants to assist them in the preparation and implementation of appropriate investment measures.

The aim of the project is to ensure that more people are formally employed and benefit from improved income and working conditions.

Resources required

The total financing requirement of the facility is estimated at 400 million EUR (stock assessment).

The SI funds will be used to provide capital for the Facility, which will be established as a limited liability company under German law. The capital will be used in the form of a trustee participation by KfW.

Operation of the facility

The facility will be implemented mainly through a demand-driven competitive approach (Challenge Fund) to promote the most promising measures to remove barriers to investment. These include, for example, the promotion of infrastructure (water, electricity, roads, etc.) or educational and training measures for the workforce. In addition, the initiative will provide structural support for selected sites and economic sectors (clusters). Applicants for funding of individual measures by the facility may be individual enterprises, groups of enterprises, economic or non-profit associations, chambers of commerce, local authorities, government agencies, non-governmental organizations, public authorities and other legal entities.

For projects to be supported, applicants must contribute approximately 10 % and 75 % of the investment sum themselves. Funding is provided to projects that have a broad impact, subsidies for the sole benefit of an individual companies are not eligible.