COOPERATION AND SUSTAINABILITY OF PLEDGE PRACTICES
Since the beginning of its implementation, PLEDGE has worked
to involve the Ministry of Labor, Solidarity Center, Regional Municipal
Association, private business representatives, municipalities and
Local Government Initiative (LGI) in its activities where possible.
The cross-fertilization in skills and practices created through
these cooperative partnerships and the building of a strong local
community volunteer base has become the seedbed for institutionalization
and sustainability of the type of assistance implemented by PLEDGE
in communities.
An example of cooperation, through assistance
and funding provided by PLEDGE, is the National Employment
Service’s,
implementation of the Quick Start (QS) worker-training program.
An institutionalization
result, 16 national specialists are trained in the Quick Start
methodology and experienced implementers. These experts have
transferred their
knowledge to representatives of the 122 local offices creating
a pool of local office staffs knowledgeable in job analysis,
and private
business recruitment work training sites. The Bulgarian Quick
Start program has targeted marginalized populations using unique
QS applications,
such as herb gathering and marketing to wholesales for Roma,
which further customizing to the needs of the National Employment
Agency
mandated to serve long term and ethnic unemployed.
In the past three years the institutional strengthening and replication
of Quick Start has generated 1196 jobs for the unemployed and expanded
the production base in over 163 private, small businesses.
The WSI PLEDGE Program jointly with the Ministry
of Labor and Social Policy (MLSP), The World Bank, the United
States Agency for International
Development (USAID) has initiated the project “Building Social
Capital in Small Disadvantaged Communities”. This new initiative
was launched in 2002 in 10 municipalities. The project will pilot
for two years in a total of 20 small, rural municipalities and then “roll” into
the MLSP Social Investment Fund unit to become fully sustained.
The pilot project assists 20 communities with high rated of unemployment
build their social and economic capacities through use of a systematic
growth and job creation strategy that begins to expand their
development efforts.
The primary goal of the program is improving the economic welfare,
building mutual trust among the most needy municipalities and providing
local economic development incentives. Essential elements in the
program are: the process of working in cross-sector teams, building
local partnerships, and training community citizens to solve their
economic problems. This unique partnership combined the resources
of the SIF community grants with the PLEDGE community capacity building
process. The selected municipalities will undergo a 12-month cycle
of training in community economic development that includes generation
of project ideas, selection and development of a proposal, then
successful implementation and sustainability.
