With the new EEA and Norway Grants Fund for Youth Employment, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway aim to support measures that promote youth employment across Europe.
The Fund’s focus on transnational cooperation reflects the view that unemployment among youth is a common European challenge and common European solutions should therefore be explored. By creating decent jobs and preparing young people for the labour market, as well as empowering them to influence their own future, Europe can combat unemployment.
The EEA and Norway Grants Fund for Youth Employment aims to be a part of that solution. The organisations and bodies involved into the management of the Grants are several, and in particular the Financial Mechanism Office (FMO) is representing the Brussels-based secretariat for the Grants Fund, being a fundamental contact point for the beneficiary countries.
For particular Programmes and Funds, as is the case of our Fund for Youth Employment and Regional Cooperation, the FMO is entrusted with the role of Programme Operator; this is why the implementation of the Funds is performed by a Fund Operator (FO).
On behalf of the FO leader: Ecorys Polska and the associate JCP Italy, I’m representing today the FO TEAM, composed of several experienced figures which made possible the realisation of The Youth Employment Online Magazine.
It is with pleasure, indeed, that I’m announcing the first launch of our new tool: The Youth Employment Online Magazine, which will accompany our “Family” of Projects throughout the whole implementation period.
The Magazine wants to act as the main collector of the projects’ best practices, interesting facts and figures, success stories. Here collected, as the principal, online contact point, people will have the opportunity to see and touch with their hands the concretisation of the measures promoted by the EEA and Norway Grants.
The content of this first issue is reflecting the initial steps related to the start-up of Projects’ achievements, which certainly will increase afterwards and as a consequence of this initial implementation period. The challenges and issues covered by the Fund are several and, especially, faced by every country concerned. Everybody, nowadays, is engaged, everybody is trying to find solutions: that is why we welcome your contributions.
Considering the level of importance of some of the challenges encountered and of the topics covered, I’m happy to welcome the first “external friend” of our Mag: the Journalist Thomas Mc Grath which, thanks to his experiences and professionalism, will share with all of us his thoughts.
With the hope that this can be a reason for you to know us better and to learn from others’ experiences, I wish you a good “e-reading”.
Gian Luca Bombarda
The Director
