The target district Swat is the most populated district, with the highest population growth above the national average by 0.85 %. Unemployment is particularly affecting the Youth. Enrolment in secondary and high schools is also at a low level. District Swat has higher   unemployment rate (30%) than KPK average (26%).

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, socio-cultural norms restrict women from going to the market place. Though they work to contribute to family well-being at their farms or by doing embroidery on shawls, they rely on men to conduct most market transactions. Thus income generation is normally attributed to men, regardless of the labor contribution of women. Limited mobility of women results in increased inability of women home based workers to interact with the markets, thus these women, despite their intensive labor earn less as the quality of their products generally may not meet changing market requirements in terms of design, particularly that of middle to high-end markets.

According to NAVTTC, approximately 6% of the youth in Pakistan acquire skills (Technical Vocational Education & Training). In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, to cater the technical and vocational education and training needs of youth, there are approximately 176 institutes, in which 47 are public and 129 privately owned. TVET sector is highly fragmented and unstructured in Pakistan and requires reforms at all levels from policy formulation to delivery. The reforms based on the principles of quality, access and relevancy have been identified under National Skill Strategy (NSS) through consultation with all the stakeholders. However, the implementation of NSS is crucial due to lack of relevant expertise and capacity at institutional level. The National Skills Strategy (NSS) aims to a paradigm from time-bound and supply led to competency-based and demand driven training in Pakistan. However little has been done so far to focus on quality of TVET institutions, revising curricula, developing competency standards and other instructional materials for quality, demand driven and competency based training in Pakistan.

The project  provided vocational skills and entrepreneurship development to 300 young men and women through training and facilitate 100 women home based workers in the project communities; resulting in a greater impact. This provide employment and self-employment opportunity to the poor communities and also sustain education efforts carried out by the project.

Outcome: Improved income generation in target communities through skills development of young men and women

Output 3:  Model tested for institutionalizing workforce development system at district level