Emergency Peace Support Project/Employment and Self Employment Services (ESES) is designed to contribute to rehabilitating conflict affected individuals by assisting them get into the labor force. They follow the immediate cash transfer component of the EPSP program by providing more long- term employment and training opportunities to victims made vulnerable by the conflict. In addition this program will contribute to increase overall productivity. There is evidence that ESES can have a significant positive impact if appropriately targeted and well run (e.g., services are demand driven and delivered by service providers which have performance based contracts). A variety of services are needed to address three conditions commonly experienced by conflict affected individuals who are trying to enter the labor market;
Frictional Unemployment: some conflict affected individuals may have marketable skills for which there is demand, but they need intensive job placement assistance. These services could have a substantial positive impact on re-employment and have a low unit cost. These services could include assistance for remote job search.
Structural Unemployment: some conflict affected individuals lack skills, or their skills are not in demand, and need some re-skilling to compete and re-enter the labor market. Different types of retraining, including on-job-training and/or institutional training was needed in these circumstances and could help redeployment at a moderate unit cost per participant.
Lack of demand for Labor: this is a particular problem in areas of high unemployment. Programs include small business consulting assistance, incubators, and micro-loans.