Foreword
The OECD is proud to contribute to Peru’s endeavour to design and execute a comprehensive approach for improving the employment and employability of younger generations. The report Investing in Youth: Peru has been prepared by the OECD Secretariat in response to a request from the Government of Peru as part of the OECD-Peru Country Programme.
The report puts forward specific policy options, based on the practices and reforms that have worked well in other countries. It provides an in-depth analysis of the obstacles to improve labour market outcomes for Peruvian youth and discusses the most promising labour market and social policies to remove them. The report also proposes viable policy strategies for promoting employment and employability among those young people under-represented in the labour market, notably school drop outs, women and indigenous and Afro-Peruvian youth.
In 2013, the OECD launched the OECD Action Plan for Youth, which provides a new framework for consolidating its experience on youth issues by assessing youth challenges from a concerted strategic perspective to develop education systems and labour market arrangements that work together well. The OECD is working closely with countries to implement the comprehensive measures of this Action Plan in their national and local contexts and to provide peer-learning opportunities for countries to share their experience of policy measures to improve youth employment outcomes. Investing in Youth: Peru is the fourth report to extend the Action Plan to emerging economies, following Brazil, Tunisia and Kazakhstan.
The report has been prepared with financial support from the Government of Peru, which the OECD gratefully acknowledges. Several projects and policy reviews are being undertaken by the OECD to underpin the main objective of the Country Programme, which is to support Peru’s reform agenda in five key areas: removing barriers to growth, improving public governance, fighting corruption, developing human capital and protecting the environment. We look forward to continuing a fruitful collaboration with the Government of Peru.
The OECD is ready to continue supporting the reform agenda of Peru, as well as that of the other Latin Amercian and Caribbean countries, by helping design, develop and deliver “Better Policies for Better Lives”.
The report was prepared by Alessandro Goglio (project leader), Karolina Kozlowska, and Marie-Anne Valfort with contributions from Virginia Robano. Editorial assistance was provided by Liv Gudmundson and Lucy Hulett. Valuable comments were provided by Andrew Bell, Paula Cerutti, Ricardo Espinoza, Elizabeth Fordham, Alexandre Kolev, Angel Melguizo, Veerle Miranda, Mark Pearson, Stefano Scarpetta, Sebastian Königs, Daniel Trujillo and several other colleagues at the OECD. The authors would also like to give a special thanks to Lorena Alcázar Valdivia (Grupo de Análisis para el Desarrollo, GRADE), Maria Balarin Bonazzi (GRADE), Norma Belén Correa Aste (Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú), Julio Gamero (International labour Organisation, ILO), Miguel Jaramillo Baanante (GRADE), Liz Ivett Meléndez López (Flora Tristan), Hugo Ñopo Aguilar (formerly GRADE, presently ILO), Gustavo Yamada (Universidad del Pacifico), Philippe Vanhuynegem (ILO), Carlos Tovar (Inter-American Development Bank) and Victoria Villanueva Chávez (Manuela Ramos). The report also accounts for comments received from the Ministry of Labour and Employment Promotion of Peru.