Education and Youth Employment Ideas Competition was Launched

The World Bank in partnership with Ministry of Education and Science and private sector launch an ideas competition, called Development Marketplace aiming at promoting youth employment and improving the relevance of skills of labor market entrants.

The competition is open to academic institutions, school boards, teachers/student associations, civil society, including NGOs, foundations, private entities, community based organizations. Preference will be given to those proposals which were formulated in partnership between different types of stakeholders (e.g. jointly between student associations and private business).

The projects must present non-conventional and innovative approaches to address youth employment and education challenges. The ideas should be implementable within a timeframe of 12 months; they should be sustainable, results oriented and replicable. Proposed project activities must fall within a budget of not more than US$20,000

All candidates must submit an application form not later than 15 of April, 2007. The application form, eligibility and evaluation criteria could be found in the World Bank Bulgaria web page.

A qualified Advisory Panel of World Bank representatives, experts from Ministry of Education and science, private sector and media representatives will assess the projects and will short list the finalists of Development Marketplace. The final event will take place in the week of 21 of May, 2007.  The event will be opened for public and the finalists are supposed to display their ideas in an attractive way as well as to present their proposal to the final jury.