Partners Conclude Visit to UNDP Projects in Gaza

November 28, 2018

Women with Disabilities at the IRADA Centre in Gaza sewing clothes and making a decent living

Gaza Strip, 28 November 2018 – UNDP’s Programme of Assistance to the Palestinian People organized a one day field visit to the Gaza Strip  to explore some of the cash for work initiatives and youth employment projects UNDP is implementing in the area.

The field visit brought together representatives from several UN member states. They first met with some of the lifeguards benefiting from one of the Cash for Work projects, implemented by UNDP last summer with funds from the Islamic Development Bank. The lifeguards expressed their appreciation to the implementation of such projects and called for longer-term initiatives that support  and sustain  the lifeguard services in the Gaza Strip.

This was followed by a visit to the IRADA Centre, which has been a partner with UNDP since 2013. The delegation met with female seamstresses and young men being trained on maintaining solar panels and mobile phones. With funds from the Islamic Development Bank, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, and the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID), 375 Persons with Disabilities (including 119 women) at IRADA received technical and vocational training that supported their social integration as productive members of the community, increased their self-confidence and their employers’ trust in their abilities, henceforth, integrating them into the labour market, and enhancing their opportunities in decent work.

The delegation also met with 15 owners of different start-ups that were incubated through the Start Ups Economic Empowerment and Development project (SEED). With funds from the Islamic Development Bank, the SEED project aims at empowering and supporting entrepreneurial start-ups technically and financially to strengthen their position and expand their work domain in the market they operate in. For the long-term; the project contributes to the activation and revival of both the business and information sectors in the Gaza Strip, as a part of UNDP’s support to the Palestinian national economy through small businesses and entrepreneurships.

Delegation receiving a brief at GGateway

Finally, the delegation visited GGateway, which is one of UNDP’s partners in the implementation of E-work initiatives in the Gaza Strip. With GGateway, 170 graduates will be targeted through a  five-week training programme, during which participants will be equipped to start their work as freelancers. The training programme includes two weeks of technical training, two weeks of online freelancing training, and one week of employability skills training.

It is worth noting that as part of its commitment to support the Palestinian population, UNDP’s Programme of Assistance to the Palestinian People is implementing various employment generation interventions to mitigate the impact of the harsh socio-economic conditions in the Gaza Strip.