Promoting Employment and Employability among Refugees, Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and Host Communities focusing on Women, PWDs, and Youths in Northern Iraq

Summary

Ninawa continues to experience significant labour market pressures driven by prolonged displacement, economic instability, and limited access to inclusive employment pathways. Refugees, internally displaced persons (IDPs), young women, persons with disabilities (PWDs), and host community youth face structural challenges that hinder their transition into decent and sustainable work. These barriers include gaps in technical skills, unequal access to work-based learning and apprenticeship opportunities, weak employment services, and limited engagement of stakeholders in coordinated social dialogue on youth employment. In response to these challenges, the International Labour Organization (ILO) is implementing an integrated skills and employability programme designed to enhance youth transition to work in Ninawa. The initiative focuses on strengthening the ecosystem of vocational training, apprenticeships, public employment services, and youth-focused career guidance in Ninawa. Through close collaboration with TVET centres, private sector partners, chambers of commerce, and local authorities, the project aims to ensure that young people gain access to market-relevant skills aligned with emerging green and growth-oriented sectors. Work-based learning is positioned as a key bridge between training and employment. By building the capacities of local employers and expanding structured apprenticeship pathways, the project seeks to provide young people with practical, hands-on experience in real work environments. In parallel, strengthening public employment services enhances the support available to jobseekers by improving job-matching functions, counselling services, and career guidance tools tailored to local labour market needs. To reinforce institutional coordination and inclusiveness, the project will also promote social dialogue mechanisms that bring together government stakeholders, employers, workers’ representatives, youth groups, and civil society actors. These platforms will foster collaborative problem-solving, advance policy discussions on youth employment, and support more responsive and equitable labour market interventions in the region. Overall, the assignment contributes to building a more coherent, demand-driven, and inclusive employment ecosystem in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, enabling marginalized youth to access productive opportunities, strengthen their resilience, and participate more fully in the region’s economic recovery and green transition.