A $35 million pa’anga Youth Employment Project financed by the World Bank to be handled by the Government of Tonga starting in July 2017, will see funds disbursed over four-years to address youth unemployment in Tonga.

The Tongan Government decided to launch this program called 'Pathway for Tongan Youth Employment or Hala Fononga ma’ae To’utupu ‘a Tonga ke Ma’u Ngaue' to provide young people, with necessary skills to live a meaningful life.

World Bank will provide financial resources and technical assistance to implement this project. The funding is US$15 million or about TOP$35 million will be disbursed over four-years to address youth unemployment. Additional funding is expected to be sought to add to this initiative, stated the Ministry of Finance and National Planning on 16 November.

"The problems of youth in education; employment or training are enormous and are starting to have negative ramifications -from measures of individual and household welfare, to self-esteem and confidence issues in young people and to an emerging issue of youth related anti-social behaviour and criminal activity."

This project will aim to maximize employment opportunities and income impacts for Tonga youth.

In addition, the project is expected to work with a range of stakeholders in the public, private and non-government organisations and will to the extent harmonize with other efforts currently being carried out in Tonga like DFAT funded Tonga Skills Project.

“The project will provide funding to government, non-government technical schools which will carry out the trainings of technical skills such as carpentry, seafaring, tourism, nursing and day care to upgrading their facilities to a standard that local and overseas accreditation authorities would require."

The project also aims to enhance the employability of Tongan youth for both the domestic and external labour markets.

The Government and the World Bank have agreed on a broad set of guiding principles to help in the design of the project including leveraging existing initiatives to support a harmonized approach; aligning incentives for training providers, employers and job seekers. While maximizing employment and income impacts, focus on disadvantaged groups and ensure the program's sustainability.

“Government intervention recognises the huge potentials in our youths that we can develop for the betterment of the country. The project will develop pathways to help our youths find the jobs they want and meet their career aspirations and growing our economy.”

After Government's announcement during the 2016/17 budget’s deliberation in Parliament, the World Bank in responding to the financial and technical request sent a team to Tonga in the last two-weeks on a fact finding mission, starting the process.

The assistance from the World Bank is on a 50/50 basis, its 50% grant and 50% concessional loan.

The Ministry of Finance and National Planning and Ministry of Internal Affairs are partnering with the World Bank on this project.