(SLENA, 23rd September, 2021). The Ministry of Technical and Higher Education in collaboration with the World Bank has on the 17th September 2021 launched the 2nd Call for the Skills Development Fund (SDF) to support micro-enterprises, small-medium, and large businesses in the productive sector in the country. Mr Sarjoh Aziz-Kamara, Deputy Minister of MTHE officially launched the call.
The window for the call is open from 20th September 2021 to 18th October 2021.
The Assignment Manager for the Skills Development Fund , Mr Pete Kaindaneh said that the call only applies to Window 2 (Businesses operating in productive sectors).
He said that all applicants should meet the following criteria:
Established for at least 2 years
Employee/membership composition should be majority Sierra Leonean nationality
Employee/membership composition of 25% youth and/or women
Must be from the targeted sectors: agriculture/agro-processing, fisheries, mining/extractives, construction, tourism and information communication technology (ICT).
Demonstrable commercial viability
The applicant must show how the training is likely to lead to increased productivity and competitiveness
Dr. Mari Shojo, Task Team Leader and Senior Education Specialist of World Bank in Sierra Leone commended the government of Sierra Leone especially the Ministry of Technical and Higher Education and the Ministry of Finance for showing commitment to the youth development sector. She said Sierra Leone has made substantial progress in poverty reduction and human capital development, but the country is still struggling to enhance its leader skills workforce and employment opportunity.
The Ministry of Technical and Higher Education is implementing the Sierra Leone Skills Development Project (SLSDP) with a loan financing from the World Bank. The overall goal of the project is to increase access to demand-led skills training and build the foundations for a demand-led skills development system in Sierra Leone. It also aims to enhance the capacity of TVET institutions to deliver high quality, and demand-driven training programs in target sectors. The project has two components: (1) Skills Development Fund and (2) Capacity Building and System Strengthening.
Component 1: Skills Development Fund (SDF): aims to increase access to demand-led skills upgrading in Sierra `and delivery of innovative program offerings; (b) Promote collaboration between enterprises and training centers and institutions; (c) Improve the efficiency of training provision; (d) Increase the employability of out-of-school youth; and (e) Increase skills acquisition among disadvantaged groups.
The SDF supports skills demand and supply through two corresponding windows:
Window 1 targets selected training institutions that wish to improve the relevance and quality of their training programs and to introduce new short-term courses for out-of- school unemployed and underemployed youth, with a focus on girls. Window 1 is divided into two tiers (sub-windows), focusing on formal and non-formal TVET. The grants from this window can be used to finance eligible expenditures such as (i) the updating of curricula, (ii) purchasing learning resources, (iii) training of trainers/instructors, (iv) industrial attachments, (v) twinning arrangements, (vi) career counselling, (vii) internships, (viii) training needs assessments, and (ix) tracer studies.
Window 2 targets businesses in the productive sectors (agriculture/agro-processing, fisheries, mining/extractives, construction, and tourism) that need to address the skills gaps to expand their production and markets or to upgrade their production process to climb higher up the value chain.
The evaluation of the applications will be carried out in two stages. The first stage will focus on the verification of eligibility and the relevance of the concept to the SDF objectives. Applicants who pass the concept stage screening will be invited to submit a full proposal.
