Luanda – The Angolan government is committed to the issue of employability and is therefore focusing on different policies and initiatives to drop the unemployment rate, the Minister of Public Administration, Labour and Social Security (MAPTSS), Teresa Dias, said on Tuesday in Luanda.
She was speaking at the official ceremony of the launch of Angola's National Employment Fund (FUNEA), headed by the Minister of State for Economic Coordination, José de Lima Massano.
The programme which was approved by the Economic Commission of the Cabinet Council in April 2023, the FUNEA, is an instrument that aims to make available financial resources needed to promote public and private initiatives to allow recent graduates and the unemployed to enter the labour market.
According to the minister, the institutionalisation of the National Employment Fund, created by Presidential Decree 133/23 of 1 June, has at its disposal a set of financial assets, essentially term and demand deposits, intended for the creation of public and private projects and initiatives that generate employability and employment.
In order to implement this legal and financial instrument, Joint Executive Decrees 5/24 and 6/24, both of 10 June, were approved, relating to FUNEA's Management Terms and the Allocation and Grant Policy Regulations, and finally FUNEA's Management and Initial Capitalisation Contract was signed.
"Once all the procedures have been completed, we shall enter in the cycle in which FUNEA will be taking its first steps in the field of employability, vocational training, namely, for the first time, subsidising vocational training in the priority areas set out in the National Employment Agenda, training human capital, encouraging entrepreneurship with microcredit for individuals, as well as formalising economic activity and economic agents", the official said.
She said that with the conditions in place, the National Institute for Employment and Vocational Training has designed a set of initiatives linked to Active Labour Market Policies, which will be submitted to FUNEA for immediate approval.
The official emphasised the hiring and inclusion of local residents in the workplace, an initiative in partnership with the Ministry of Territorial Administration that aims to promote employability through social and community works that are economically useful to society.
She clarified that a group of five or more young people aged between 18 and 40, gathered in cooperatives, will sign contracts of 180 to 360 days of duration with the municipal and communal administrations to provide local development services, whose activity is economically and socially viable.
In this first phase, five types of cooperatives were identified, namely solid waste collectors, land rights licence holders, road maintenance, gutter cleaning, kerb painting, tree pruning and treatment, collection and treatment of stray animals, management of solid waste transfer points and gardening and recreational parks.
In the medium and long term, the FUNEA will also serve vocational training actions in connection with the activities developed by the National Qualifications Institute being one of the most important instruments of the Qualifications Catalogue, as a tool for better international recognition of the professional families of the country.
She congratulated the technical teams from the National Institute for Employment and Vocational Training and the Municipal Administrations for their rapid commitment to the preparatory work for the signed agreements and encouraged them to maintain this spirit of teamwork in their daily activities.
The signing act of the agreement between the National Institute for Employment and Vocational Training and the Ministry of Territorial Administration, which marked the conclusion of the first package of initiatives to be submitted to the Strategic Committee of the Fund so that it can be approved.
FUNEA aims to contribute to the promotion of employment by reducing distortions in the labour market, granting non-refundable incentives to young people attending vocational training courses or actions, financing projects by entities in the National Vocational Training and Technical-Vocational Education System and promoting refundable financing for micro and small companies. LIN/PA/MRA/DOJ
