World Bank’s board of directors has approved a €50 million International Bank for Reconstruction Development loan for the Employment Support Project in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with the goal to increase formal private sector employment among targeted groups, starting with young, first-time job seekers. 

“The project will directly contribute to job creation by providing financial incentives to formal private sector employment, starting with first-time job seekers. Equally important, the project will improve employability, in other words, people’s ability to find and retain a good job”, said Tatiana Proskuryakova, World Bank country manager for Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Bosnia has the world’s highest youth unemployment rate with 67% of young people out of a job, according to data from the World Bank.

The project has two components. The first, employment promotion, will help the governments in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and in the Republika Srpska scale up and improve the effectiveness of their active labour market programs and public employment services intermediation to increase formal job placements in the formal private sector for selected target groups of job seekers.

The second component, management systems, monitoring, and communications, will provide financing for strengthening management systems to monitor active labour market programs and job intermediation and developing and implementing an effective communications strategy targeting job seekers, employers, and policy makers.