- Funding Programme
- Year
- 2022
Supporting Design and Implementation of the Universal Civil Service RRP Project, to unlock Youth Employment Opportunities
The European Commission support Italy in their efforts to implement institutional, administrative and growth-sustaining structural reforms, which can have a positive impact on economic and social outcomes and contribute to resilience and recovery. The Project aimed to reinforce the Italian Universal Civil Service (UCS) and improve the effectiveness of the related Resilience and Recovery Plan (RRP) intervention, designed to increase the number of youth participants in UCS significantly.
Context
Italy’s Universal Civil Service (UCS) aims to involve young people in voluntary social and civic activities, while learning useful competencies for employment purposes. For this reason, the UCS has also become an important tool to address youth unemployment and skills gaps.
The Italian government included a specific measure on the UCS in the Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP), receiving EUR 650 million to increase the number of young people involved in 2021-23 and promote the acquisition of skills. The TSI project aims to support the RRP intervention and the effort to implement reforms to strengthen the effectiveness and efficiency of the UCS, as well as the institutional and administrative capacity to facilitate socially inclusive, green and digital transitions.
Support delivered
The project has provided technical support to the Department for Youth Policies and Universal Civil Service (DGSCU) through:
- A benchmark analysis of international best practices focusing on the Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) framework, as well as recommendations on the development of a M&E framework and on controls and compliance.
- A review of the current regulatory framework as well as existing procedures, processes, and administrative barriers for entities and individuals.
- The development of recommendations to strengthen the UCS and an action plan to implement the most relevant recommendations with specific steps and indicative timeline.
- The elaboration of recommendations for a communication strategy to improve outreach of the UCS.
- The implementation of pilot projects to provide further evidence-based recommendations.
Results achieved
The technical support resulted in the following outputs:
Output 1 provided as a single document composed of three deliverables:
- Report on the design of indicators and the development of a Monitoring and Evaluation framework
- Technical note in international best practices
- Recommendations on compliance and controls.
Output 2: Report on existing procedures, processes, and administrative barriers for individuals and entities.
Output 3: Recommendation Report, including action plan, on reforms to strengthen the quality and effectiveness of the UCS (also translated into Italian as required by the DPDs).
Output 4: Recommendations on the development of a communication strategy to improve outreach to intended UCS beneficiaries.
Output 5: Summary report on findings from 3 to 5 pilot UCS projects
The expected long-term effect of the outputs of the Project is to improve outcomes for young people in terms of employment, skills development, and civic participation, with a focus on priority regions and vulnerable groups. The outcomes in the short-medium term are:
- Reduction of procedural, regulatory, institutional and governance barriers for UCS effectiveness and its impact for youth outcomes;
- improved implementation of UCS-supported initiatives, and improved conditions for current and future UCS participants;
- improved monitoring and evaluation framework for the UCS.
More about the project
You can read the documents related to the project here: