The 1st Steering Committee Meeting of the "Today's Youth, Future Jobs " project, of which Union of Municipalities of Türkiye is the main beneficiary and which covers the establishment of "Digital Youth Centers" in 45 cities to provide a series of trainings that will prepare young people for important professions of the future such as informatics, robotic coding, e-transformation, digital marketing, social innovation and design, with the support of municipalities, was held on July 27th at the UMT service building.
The meeting was attended by UMT Deputy Secretaries General, UNDP Deputy Resident Representative to Türkiye, Representative of the Delegation of the European Union to Türkiye, Representatives of the Presidency of Strategy and Budget, Representative of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, UNDP Project Coordinator, UMT Project and Finance Unit Manager and a delegation consisting of UNDP and UMT experts.
Mr. Miodrag DRAGISIC, Deputy Resident Representative of UNDP Türkiye, stated that the work carried out since the inauguration of the project has progressed effectively and efficiently and that the technical field visits to the municipalities have been very meaningful and useful. He also stated that it was very meaningful that the project team comprehensively reviewed the selection criteria for the municipalities/local governments affected by the recent earthquakes in Türkiye and included the "earthquake affected" criterion in the geographical distribution category of the weighted criteria and indicators determined for province selection. Mr. DRAGISIC also emphasized the importance of field visits and stated that the project brought together their expertise and perspectives to effectively assess the potential of municipalities.
Mr. Kayhan ÖZÜM, Deputy Secretary General of UMT, stated that they are pleased to be the main beneficiary of this project, which is aimed at capacity building at the local level in general, of which UMT is the main beneficiary in cooperation with UNDP. He stated that the choice of profession will be the main guiding factor for our young people in the technology and information society of the future and thanked for the successful cooperation with the stakeholder institutions of our project.
Dr. Ramazan ÖZCAN YILDIRIM, Deputy Secretary General of UMT, stated that the very meaningful and successful cooperation between UMT and UNDP continues to develop and that the necessary support will be provided for the project activities to be planned in the near future to be more beneficial to our municipalities. He also emphasized that the "General Framework of the Situation and Needs Analysis Research", which will continue with İNGEV in the coming period, is extremely important and underlined that they closely follow the needs analysis reports to be prepared within this scope. He stated that the municipality field visits in June were very successful and thanked the expert staff of UNDP and UMT who took part in these visits.
Melahat GÜRAY, representative of the Delegation of the European Union to Türkiye, underlined that the project "Today's Youth, Future Jobs" continues its activities in cooperation with two strong institutions, UMT and UNDP, and that it will be extremely useful for young people in choosing a profession and thanked all stakeholder institutions and participants.
The 1st Steering Committee meeting ended with the presentation of the project technical progress and current situation by the project coordinator Arzu KARASLAN, followed by the discussion of opinions and suggestions on the implementation and sustainability of the project activities.