Guinea is experiencing strong population growth which poses a challenge for the socioeconomic integration of young people. In recent years, the World Bank has estimated that over 70% of young Guineans were unemployed in Guinea. This high unemployment rate is due to several difficulties experienced by the country. In terms of education and vocational training, Guinea experiences two main difficulties:
• A great disparity in access to education for the Guinean population
• An insufficient and inappropriate vocational training provision.
In this context, the Civic Service Agency for Development Action (ASCAD) offers a unique and innovative model for vocational integration.
ASCAD is a Guinean public vocational integration agency set up in 2011. Guinean civic service, which was originally based on the French adapted military service, has now reached maturity through a unique organisation and functioning tailored to Guinea’s specific development issues.
ASCAD is a civil-military public administrative institution under presidential supervision which offers young people the opportunity of carrying out civic service. These young people are received in the SCAD centres and given support on various aspects: accommodation, civic education, vocational training, integration, assistance for entrepreneurship.
The agency’s objectives are to promote civic education for young people, offer them a professional qualification and facilitate their socioeconomic integration.
Through its model, ASCAD manages to:
• Give a meaning to and appetite for work
• Address the lack of education among a large proportion of young people through the acquisition of basic skills and soft skills
• Promote professionalisation for local employability, in particular by seizing the opportunities of employment areas
• Develop entrepreneurial capacities to promote the creation of new employment areas.
SCAD is an effective system:
ASCAD currently has three SCAD centres in Conakry, Kindia and recently in Kankan. Over 2,000 young people (39% women) have been trained since the system was set up and the centres have a youth employment rate of 77%.
The technical assistance project aims to support ASCAD’s development based on three areas:
• Deployment of two new civic service centres for development action (SCAD) in Mamou and Kankan with an infrastructure component
• Consolidation of the recruitment, training and integration division with an engineering component for training, pathways and certification for a target public in vulnerable situations
• Consolidation of governance and its development strategy with a component to support the scaling-up and capacity building.
To this end, Expertise France is providing ASCAD with four international experts on ad hoc missions, combined with complementary local expertise.
Expertise France is providing ASCAD with several experts with specific expertise in order to support its regionalisation strategy (deployment of two new centres in Mamou and Kankan) and develop more effective training engineering and teaching. The assistance takes into account issues such as vulnerability and its Guinean criteria, the environment and gender to effectively integrate them into ASCAD’s development strategy.
The experts are assisting ASCAD with three of the project components:
• The implementation of the deployment programme
• The supervision of the works and contracts
• Training engineering and teaching.
The first additional SCAD centre was inaugurated in April 2022 in Kankan and receives 150 trainee volunteers. 50 of them are in training on superweight trucks (SWT) in partnership with a company which undertakes to hire the young people at the end of the course.
The experts are continuing the technical assistance to ASCAD for the implementation of their development plan. They are helping to structure an engineering department and a department covering digital technology and communication. They are also contributing to consolidating and capitalising on the procurement and managerial governance practices.
For the development of the SCAD educational model, Expertise France has a mission to develop the capacities of the actors, the scaling-up and the learning resources of ASCAD. It is assisting the training of employees, trainers and facilitators. It is also improving the educational model in order to effectively integrate the vulnerable public (through a clear identification based on seven criteria adapted to the country and relevant networking) and facilitate their post-training vocational integration.
