Support for entrepreneurship can help young people from under-represented and disadvantaged communities to access economic opportunities. Launched in 2018, the Young Entrepreneurs Succeed! (YES!) project aims to facilitate youth entrepreneurship in Greece, Italy, Poland, and Spain. YES! is funded by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA and Norway Grants Fund for Youth Employment.
Young Entrepreneurs Succeed! – Greece, Italy, Poland, and Spain
Abstract
YES! supports young people who are not in employment, education or training (NEET) with various services to start and grow a business or to find a job. The programme is implemented by eight partner organisations, including Autoocupació (Spain), the Development Agency of Karditsa (ANKA, Greece), Youth Business Poland (Poland), and Microfinanza (Italy). By January 2021, these partner organisations had delivered 49 entrepreneurship training courses, totalling to more than 2000 hours of entrepreneurship support. YES! supported about 1 100 young people between 2018 and 2021, with young women over-represented among beneficiaries in 3 of the 4 countries: 62% in Italy, 58% in Poland, and 70% in Spain.
The project is centred on training courses but also includes coaching and mentoring opportunities offered by partner organisations, which often support the identification of start-up finance. Implementation varies across countries to reflect diverse local contexts and needs. For example, in Greece, ANKA focusses on developing capacity and empowering disadvantaged groups, such as NEETs in Roma communities, while Microfinanza in Italy delivers supports to young people from groups that are under-represented in entrepreneurship, notably (young) women, migrants and refugees. All partner organisations offer a range of training courses to support potential entrepreneurs, including courses on digital marketing, business management and business planning. Some of these courses are tailored for specific groups such as training for the professional make‑up sector for young Roma women in Greece. Several implementing organisations, such as Microfinanza in Italy, offer free coaching and mentoring to participants and help them identify sources of start-up finance. A unique aspect of the YES! project is that it includes an online peer-learning platform (“Thinking Space”) that offers resources for young entrepreneurs on a range of themes such as NEETs and the future of work.
Project evaluations were conducted in each of the four countries to assess the short-term impacts of the training courses, covering the period September 2019 and January 2021. Participants completed a questionnaire on the first and last day of training courses – about 38% of overall participants completed both. The country-specific evaluations considered soft (i.e. emotional capabilities and social benefits) and hard outcomes (i.e. economic benefits: disposable income and unemployment benefits). Key evaluation findings include improved entrepreneurial confidence (i.e. “I can do it”) among older young people in Italy (25‑29 years old) and young women (20‑29 years old) in Greece and Poland. In addition, improved employment outcomes (i.e. NEET participants moved into self-employment, employment or education) for many participants were statistically significant. In Greece, nearly 15% of NEETs (25‑29 year‑olds) taking training moved into self-employment, employment or education by the end of the project. Similarly, 34% of NEET participants with university degrees in Spain and 44% in Poland were no longer NEETs at the end of the project.
This practice also supports the implementation of provisions II.4, III.3, and IV.3 of the OECD Recommendation on Creating Better Opportunities for Young People (OECD, 2022[1]).
Further reading
[1] OECD (2022), Recommendation of the Council on Creating Better Opportunities for Young People, https://legalinstruments.oecd.org/en/instruments/OECD-LEGAL-0474.
[5] Parola, G. et al. (2021), Impact Assessment Report 2021 (1): Spain, Young Entrepeneurs Succeed!, https://youngentrepreneurssucceed.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/SP_IA_Report_20211_final_formatted_compressed-1.pdf (accessed on 8 August 2023).
[2] Parola, G. et al. (2021), Impact Assessment Report 2021 (1): Greece, Young Entrepeneurs Succeed!, https://youngentrepreneurssucceed.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/GR_IA_Report_20211_final_formatted_compressed.pdf (accessed on 8 August 2023).
[4] Parola, G. et al. (2021), Impact Assessment Report 2021 (1): Poland, Young Entrepeneurs Succeed!, https://youngentrepreneurssucceed.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/PL_IA_Report_20211_final_formatted_compressed.pdf (accessed on 8 August 2023).
[3] Parola, G. et al. (2021), Impact Assessment Report 2021 (1): Italy, Young Entrepeneurs Succeed!, https://youngentrepreneurssucceed.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/IT_IA_Report_20211_final_formatted_compressed.pdf (accessed on 8 August 2023).
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