The Center for Economic Analyses – CEA, together with the FFRM, are implementing the project “Creating employment pathways for rural youth” funded by the European Union through the IPA Human Resources Development Program. The project implementation started in December 2015, and is expected to continue until August 2017.

The project supports the social inclusion of young people from the rural areas, through increasing their employability skills, training and support for improved labour market inclusion through practical placement and hand-on-learning, contributing to the economic and social development of the municipalities in the Northeast planning region.

The Closing event of the action, where the findings, achievements were presented and the issue of social inclusion of the youth through the labour market in the region were discussed, took place on 8^th of August 2017 in Kumanovo.

The participants got the opportunity to familiarize with the analyses and findings as well as the achieved goals in the past period by the implementing partners CEA and FFRM. At the same time the views on the issues were presented by the municipal local economic development representatives of Kriva Palanka, Staro Nagoriane and Lipkovo, as well as the management of the Centre for development of the Northeast planning region.

The experiences of the mentorship and lessons learnt of the process of paid internship in the business sector were shared by the mentors and the interns as well.

The proposed regional strategic document for social inclusion through employment, prepared as part of the action though inclusive approach, was also presented. The document goal is to provide the stakeholders in the region a strategic guidance for improvement of the social inclusion of the youth in the region through labour market.