Client: World Bank
Duration: 2020-2028
Region: Middle East and North Africa
Country: Palestine
Solutions: Economic Growth
The West Bank and Gaza face major threats to their economic growth and the resulting employment opportunities for Palestinians. Political instability and the sluggish economy in 2019 and early 2020 were already hurting job growth and will be hurt even more by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. While more than 3,000 Palestinian university students graduate each year with an IT background, relatively few of them get employed in the IT sector because they do not have the requisite skills that respond to the demand of the IT firms and those firms’ end-market clients. IT remains a promising and growing sector though, accounting for 15 percent of service exports in 2017.
The TechStart program is designed to assist the Palestinian IT ecosystem in upgrading firm capabilities and spur employment growth. TechStart builds the capacity of Palestinian firms, strengthens demand from international buyers and investors, and stimulates the absorption of high-tech knowledge in the ecosystem.
The project also includes special activities to address COVID-19 by ensuring that the IT services sector is positioned to contribute to Palestine’s economic recovery. For example, it assists sound firms in weathering the liquidity shock through wage support for companies undertaking virtual training and process or systems upgrades; helps firms facing demand shocks to reposition themselves through advisory and market linkage services; and provides grants or early-stage business advisory services to existing or newly launched firms with the potential to reconstitute the industry.
Visit the TechStart website here.
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