People's demands for employment to be considered a right were actively raised during the Tunisian revolution. Novel approaches, a defined road map and pooled resources all form part of the impetus towards gearing the new economy, curbing unemployment and boosting new jobs. Yet, none of these farsighted changes can materialize without addressing the real, underlying problems the region faces in setting up new youth employment strategies.

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Ms. Madlen Serban is the Director of the European Training Foundation (ETF)

UfM: How does ETF help the transition countries to harness the potential of their human capital, and what are the services provided by ETF to SMEs and Entrepreneurs in Tunisia to develop innovative ideas and grow their businesses?

Ms. Madlen Serban (MS): ETF action focuses, on one side, on the overarching system level through:

•  Vocational Education and Training (VET) policy analysis. Through the Torino Process, the ETF engages broad stakeholder groups in joint analyses of current VET policies. The analyses emphasize the gathering of evidence on how they contribute to goals set in each country and whether they are ready to meet the changing needs for skills and qualifications. Policy analysis findings inform the policy making agenda, assisted in some cases by the ETF directly, or with proposals for EU programming.
• Designing large scale EU interventions. With a firm basis in these policy analyses, a key aspect of the ETF’s work in the region is to identify and formulate large scale EU interventions which support the development of VET systems. 

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