Locations
Focus areas
Inclusive growth
Summary
Valuing human capital – the core of country’s sustainable growth
Moldova faces some of the most daunting development challenges across the Europe and Central Asia region, with the lowest level of fertility, an ageing population, and the highest net emigration rates, which depletes the human and social capital. Moldova has one of the lowest employment rate in Europe. Low labour productivity negatively affects the quality of employment and, along with the skills mismatches, a challenging business environment, and limited access to long-term finance reduce economic competitiveness. These factors constrain Moldova’s ability to access external markets at scale and contribute to a negative trade balance, constraining economic growth and limiting the resources available for investing in human capital. This further deepens skills shortages and mismatches, creating a cycle in which underinvestment in human capital undermines productivity, innovation, and the economy’s ability to move up the value chain.
From this perspective, advancing inclusive growth is a key priority for Moldova. Addressing demographic decline and emigration, boosting employment, and improving labour productivity require targeted measures to reduce skills mismatches, enhance the business environment, and expand access to long-term finance. Bridging regional disparities will depend on creating economic opportunities, improving access to quality education and healthcare, and delivering more efficient public services, while strengthening economic competitiveness and supporting Moldovan producers to access external markets, particularly the EU.
Public services. Economic opportunities. Improved livelihoods
Our focus is on sustainable, inclusive, and green jobs creation, integrity-based business development, private sector involvement in achieving Sustainable Development Goals. Our work promotes transparency, efficiency, and inclusiveness of public service delivery, while ensuring equitable access to economic opportunities.
At the policy level, UNDP strengthens institutional capacities to address barriers to labour market inclusion, particularly for vulnerable groups, while contributing to a more conducive business environment and improved living standards.
UNDP supports the Government’s digital transformation agenda, including the engagement with the dynamic information and communication technologies (ICT) sector to deliver innovative digital solutions and build trust in digital services. In partnership with the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection, UNDP advances a comprehensive reform to modernize and integrate digital systems, addressing fragmentation and inefficiencies that limit effective service delivery and evidence-based policymaking. By supporting the creation of an integrated digital ecosystem, UNDP contributes to a more efficient, inclusive, and resilient social protection and employment system, aligned with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
UNDP helps build deliver services closer to citizens, for both women and men equally, including migrants, vulnerable groups, such as older people and people with disabilities.
In depth
UNDP promotes an enabling environment for formal, innovative, and decent employment, mobilizing investment to support sustainable and resilient livelihoods for men and women from both banks of Nistru River. The work prioritizes groups with limited access to the labour market – such as youth, women, persons with disabilities, ethnic minorities, and refugees – by enhancing access to capacity building, finance, digital infrastructure and strengthened links between social protection, employment and public services.
UNDP aims to remove barriers to women’s labour market participation by addressing social stereotypes, expanding access to affordable services including childcare, and promoting entrepreneurship opportunities, including access to finance. By supporting human capital development, UNDP also contributes to improvements in the education system and lifelong learning opportunities, including through improving the quality of the learning process and the learning environment, to align skills with labour market needs.
To improve the accessibility and quality of local public services, particularly in rural areas, UNDP strengthens local government capacities to engage communities, the private sector, and diaspora in service planning, coordination, resource mobilization, delivery, and monitoring. Community empowerment, with a focus on women and marginalized groups, is central to these efforts.
Private sector support and engagement
UNDP supports Moldova’s sustainable economic development through strengthening the private sector by promoting an entrepreneurship culture, improving the quality of business development services, enhancing cooperation and market access. By providing young entrepreneurs, particularly women, with access to coaching, mentorship and finance, UNDP strengthens their skills and capacity to launch and grow MSMEs.
Business development service providers from both banks of the Nistru River are supported to better serve the private sector by expanding the range and quality of their services, but also through their advocacy efforts. We help improving the competitiveness and market access of businesses from both riverbanks using the opportunities provided by the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA). To ensure higher added value, we support new partnership formats, such as economic clustering based on value chains cooperation.
Fostering inclusive business development for the generation of sustainable jobs at local level and strengthening of the local public authorities’ capacities to manage autonomously such processes are high on the UNDP agenda. UNDP explores new emerging opportunities in further engaging with the private sector for new products and services, including new digital solutions and improved and more resilient business models, that incorporate elements of sustainability, digital and financial innovation, and inclusion.
Education
UNDP has been a central partner in advancing the development of the education system in Moldova, contributing to the improvement of the educational system outcomes through the physical transformation of schools and the broader educational reform agenda.
UNDP supports the implementation of the Model Schools Network, which envisages the transformation of schools from urban and rural areas into Model Schools, designed to serve as hubs of educational excellence, equipped with modern facilities, staffed by highly trained educators, and managed through inclusive, student-centered governance.
Importantly, these infrastructure improvements do not occur in isolation but are closely integrated with broader educational reforms. UNDP is involved in reforming the national education system's core components through supporting the ongoing review and modernization of national curricula. UNDP is supporting the adoption of a new generation of learning materials including textbooks, as well as the reconceptualization of teacher professional development, extensive teacher training. This holistic approach ensures that infrastructure advancements directly contribute to fostering active learning environments, enhancing student engagement, and improving overall educational outcomes.
Local governance
In close cooperation with civil society and community members, UNDP helps enhance the capacity of local public authorities to efficiently plan and implement local development priorities, improve local public services and contribute to the local socio-economic development. Advancing reform agenda towards country modernization, reengineering and digitalizing local service provision is a priority. The support is linked to the opportunities provided by the Moldova Growth Plan and includes assistance in developing investment pipelines and implementing projects.
UNDP helps design sustainable models for joint decision-making and delivering services closer to citizens, for both women and men equally, including migrants, vulnerable and marginalized groups, such as the older people, women, and people with disabilities.
UNDP shifts local governance development paradigm, capacitating them to tap into the existing opportunities for economic advancement. It sustains local governments to foster partnerships with the local private actors and diaspora, that are empowered to contribute to shaping and implementing local economic policies. UNDP supports the creation of employment opportunities through favorable conditions for attraction of investment, job creation and entrepreneurship.
Confidence-building
UNDP supports the establishment of an environment of trust and cooperation among both banks of Nistru River, generating new perspectives on a shared future, while responding to their pressing development needs. To achieve this, UNDP supports cross-river cooperation and engagement in the economic, social, healthcare, local development, environment, education, culture, sports, tourism and media sectors, aiming at reducing tensions, building confidence and ensuring better alignment and achievement of common goals.
In this regard, UNDP supports the improvement of living standards of people on the two banks of the Nistru River, by implementing comprehensive, conflict-sensitive area-based interventions, that address critical pressing needs across divides and reduce development gaps.
UNDP fosters partnerships and creates synergies among different stakeholders at local and regional levels. It sustains sectorial dialogue and civil society actors' cooperation, facilitating the exchange of knowledge and experience and generation of solutions to conflict-generated issues.
