Jobs through Trade and Investment in the Southern Neighbourhood

Territorial coverage: Southern Neighbourhood region

Transformational Potential:

• Fostering decent job creation in the Southern partner countries;
• Fostering an inclusive economic recovery in the region.

The Team Europe Proposal:

The core of the TEI is to support Job creation through Trade and Investment in the Southern Neighbourhood.

The TEI is composed of three thematic pillars:

1. Sustainable trade and investment:

The guiding principle for trade and investment promotion needs to be its sustainable economic, societal and environmental impact, particularly in terms of quality employment. This includes facilitating trade in labour-intensive sectors, such as creative industries, agriculture and logistics, as well as the facilitation of investments into higher value-added, green, skill- and technology-intensive sectors and value chains, such as IT, electronics, clean energy and transport infrastructure, and high-value services. It also entails a reform of the investment climate and the business environment with more attention to the development impact of investment, including by fostering backward linkages with the local economy, and ensuring a more balanced regional and national distribution of FDI.

2. Vocational training/technical skills: 

The twin transitions (green and digital) under way in the EU offer new opportunities for increased economic integration and sustainable job creation on the two shores of the Mediterranean, while preserving “Mediterranean common goods” but will require new skills in these areas. In order to meet demand for jobs in those sectors, regional policy exchanges and the creation of “skills networks” could allow to target job seekers who would be interested in entering these new and promising sectors.

3. Inclusive entrepreneurship:

Supporting entrepreneurship for young and women entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs and start-ups, particularly in future-oriented areas i.e. related to digital and green transitions and linked to the development of a social economy. Focusing on improved financial inclusion through innovative financial products, channelled via local institutions, and improved channels of migrants’ remittances.