Efforts are underway in Serbia to improve access to decent work for young people through better policies and programmes addressing youth employment and migration.

With USD 6.1 million from the Spanish government's Millennium Development Goals Achievement Fund and USD1.9 million from the Serbian government, IOM is leading a programme over a two-and-a-half-year period targeting disadvantaged young men and women, especially Roma, and those most at risk of social exclusion and prime candidates for emigration.

About 500,000 young people left Serbia between 1991 and 2001 in search of better livelihoods. In the Serbian districts of Pcinjski, South Backa and Belgrade where the programme will be carried out, it is estimated that in the last five years, 96,500 young people, or more than 35 per cent of the current youth population, have left their communities and migrated abroad.

In close partnership with the UN's Development Programme, the International Labour Organization, the UN Children's Fund, the Serbian Ministry of Economy and Regional Development, the Ministry of Youth and Sports, the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy, the National Employment Services and partner NGOs, IOM will focus on developing evidence-based policies on youth employment, on strengthening the capacity of national institutions to design integrated labour market and social services aligned with policy objectives and on supporting local institutions in piloting innovative employment programmes and social services.

For further information, please contact:

Gregoire Goodstein
IOM Serbia
Tel: +381 11 382 1703
E-mail: ggoodstein@iom.int