The Lithuanian Central Project Management Agency (CPMA) has signed an agreement with the European Commission (EC) on the implementation of the third phase of the EU4Youth program to combat youth unemployment in the Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries. The total budget of the program is 15.12 million: EC provided € 14.4 million EUR, Lithuania – 720 thousand EUR.
Focused on the most vulnerable group
The program will be implemented in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. In these EaP countries, youth unemployment is up to 32.6%. overall unemployment rate. The focus will be on the most vulnerable, young people who are not studying or working.
“The four-year program will cover a wide range of activities: from comprehensive assistance to youth unemployment services, non-governmental organizations, promoting their cooperation, improving mentoring and counseling skills, to scholarships for young people to study at the College of Europe in Natolin, Poland. In three years the amount of 2.2 million EUR will be allocated to 75 students’ scholarships from various Eastern Partnership countries,” says Erikas Jankauskas, Project Manager of the International Development Cooperation Projects Division of the CPMA, who is entrusted with the coordination of this project.
EU4Youth is a follow-up project, launched in 2017 when the Eastern Partnership 2017-2020 y. Youth and education package, worth 340 million euros, was announced at the Eastern Partnership Summit. The main part of this package is targeted at more than 18,000 young people in the Eastern Partnership countries to develop their skills and employment in the labor market. It also directly and indirectly supports around 125 youth organizations.
The Eastern Partnership is one of the priority areas of Lithuania’s foreign policy
In cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Lithuania, the CPMA has been actively participating in the Eastern Partnership since 2007.
This is the fourth EaP project entrusted directly to the Agency on the basis of accreditation (PILLAR ASSESMENT) granted by the European Commission. It is implemented in cooperation with the Ministry of Social Security and Labor of the Republic of Lithuania.
Currently, 50.5 million euros worth program “Public Finance Management Support Programme for Ukraine (EU4PFM)” is being implemented in Ukraine. The CPMA implements two out of four components of the program, worth 29.5 million euros. At the end of last year, the implementation of the e-Justice component (worth 1.5 million euros) of the program “Support to Justice-related Reforms in Ukraine (PRAVO-JUSTICE)” was completed.
