1. Youth Employment Initiative implementation: state of play
Amsterdam, 15 June 2016

2. Implementation is advancing
Until now, over 1.3 million young people have been covered by YEI-supported actions.
Results of YEI actions are positive and the 2015 additional YEI pre-financing has helped speed up delivery of YEI actions in at least half of the MS
Thanks to the pre-financing, MS were able to commit more funds to existing projects and/or launch more projects.
Financial implementation has started to catch up with physical progress
Many MS have committed almost all YEI funding to projects.

3. Key characteristics of YEI actions
Mostly support to highly educated NEET (over 70% of participants by end-2015)
Men and women more or less equally represented
PES typically is the main beneficiary (though in some MS PES capacity issues may limit actions' effectiveness)
Significant number of partnerships
Definitions of "good quality" offer vary across MS (evidence from national evaluations) – but quality is seen as a key factor

4. Financial implementation
EUR 560 million claimed to the COM to date
YEI additional pre-financing May 2016 deadline: COM has received a number of claims and is assessing the situation
Issues hampering some MS:
designation process still ongoing,
certification takes time,
set-up of monitoring system
public procurement delays

5. Designation and launch of actions
Notification of designation for 19 out of 34 YEI-supported OP– slowly advancing
Only few MS have not yet really launched actions on the ground
Obstacles include admin. capacity, public procurement issues, outreach to marginalised NEETs

6. Conclusions Despite delays, YEI has started to soar
Implementation must be stepped up with in order to catch up with initial delays and/or returned pre-financing in later years
Extension of YEI budget?

7. Update: YEI evaluations
YEI Evaluations submitted via SFC2014 by 17 out of 20 Member States
Analysis of evaluations completed; COM will report on key findings later in 2016
October 2016 – COM to report on YG/YEI progress

8. THANK YOU!