Summary

Recognizing the need to ‘build back differently’ in the post-pandemic reality, UNDP supports the country in equipping young people with twenty-first-century skills, competencies, networks, and digital capacities to improve their employability while protecting small and micro-enterprises from the worst effects of the economic recession. Through the Accelerator Lab, developed with successful outcomes of previous initiatives such as the Youth Innovation Hub, UNDP strongly encourages young men and women to establish innovative, scalable, and digitized businesses. We believe that entrepreneurship and employment services for young men and women can be strengthened through the improving capacity of government and service providers, establishing an inclusive business platform, and promoting sustainable economic transformation. 

There are key points of de-risking/loan guarantee scheme to promote: 

• Ensuring access to finance enterprises

• Facilitating high-level policy dialogues on sustainable financing

• Supporting public-private partnerships for SDGs to move away from the Petroleum Fund dependency.

In Depth  

The assumption underpinning this solution is that young men and women are hindered from becoming entrepreneurs and creating sustainable businesses, due to a lack of platforms in which they can equip themselves with twenty-first-century workplace experiences and knowledge, such as digital, negotiation, and communication, vocational and technical skills. UNDP is working with the private sector, development partners, and young innovators to provide integrated business services and promote youth entrepreneurship, while the Integrated National Financing Framework will engage government and partners in policy dialogues to increase Sustainable Development Goals financing and investments in human capital to address supply-side constraints. 

UNDP Timor-Leste currently hosts several youth forums with the Ministry of Tourism, Trade, and Industry to support Timorese youth to be agents of job creators promoting micro/ small/ medium enterprises. The initiatives accelerate recovery from the impact of covid-19, strengthening the capacities of women, people with disability, and poor and unemployed youth to become entrepreneurs, and increasing their employment opportunities. Through the activities, we follow up on the Covid-19 Socio-Economic Impact Assessment, conducted nationwide in 2021, to understand the socio-economic impact of COVID-19 on them.

The UN joint SDG Fund and UNDP have extended technical and financial support to Timor-Leste to develop its first “Blue Economy Financing Roadmap”. The Roadmap is a strategic document that explores opportunities to leverage finance at scale for sustainable “blue growth” in Timor-Leste. Blue growth is about the sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth and improved livelihoods while preserving the health of ocean ecosystems.