Plenary 3A: Charting the landscape: systemic approaches to employment

Employment interventions emcompass more than just job creation; they also include access to work through job matching, skills development, and improvements to job quality. Donors need to make important decisions about which employment objectives they are prioritising, and implementers need to be clear about what they can realistically deliver. This panel discussion presents findings of the global landscape study of MSD for Employment and its implications for donors and implementers in terms of project design, results & evidence, and staffing/capacity building.

• Mike Klassen will facilitate this conversation between key leaders in the ‘market systems development for employment’ (MSD4E) community
• Merten Sievers will put the MSD4E work in a wider context - why it matters, how it differs from traditional employment programming, and what is different about job creation (compared to income increases in agriculture).
• Justin van Rhyn will explain some of the important framing drawn from the Rough Guide to MSD for youth employment and how these have shaped a recent ‘landscape study’ of MSD4E interventions
• Gun Eriksson Skoog will explore the implications of focusing on the labour market as a ‘central’ system and what this means for designing programmes as a donor agency.