Ramallah:

Today, PFESP and the German government, through the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), signed a memorandum of understanding within the labor market access program. The aim of this memorandum is to enhance cooperation between the two institutions. It has done to achieve common goals and objectives related to promoting sustainable development in Palestine by providing job opportunities, and strengthen services, especially operating services.

The memorandum was signed by Mr. Mahdi Hamdan, PFESP representative, and Director of Labor Market Access Program, Ms. Heikki Knopp, (GIZ) representative. It was in the presence of His Excellency the Minister of Labor, Chairman of PFESP, Dr. Nasri Abu Jaish, Mrs. Hana Ilga, Deputy Director of International Cooperation of the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation, Samer Salama, Deputy Minister of Labor, Rami Mahdawi, Assistant Undersecretary for International Cooperation, and Mrs. Fatima Asfour, (GIZ) Adviser.

In his speech. during the agreement signing, Minister Abu Jaish said that the memorandum aims to deepen and strengthen cooperation between PFESP and the Agency through the labor market access program. Also, it aims jointly to coordinate and implement number of interventions, and to adopt PFESP from strategic partners, specifically in the field of promoting self-employment.

For her part, Ms. Ilga emphasized the strategic dimension of the memo in terms of the importance of PFESP's role in creating job opportunities and providing various employment services. In addition to the strategic partnership that PFESP has with the most important national institutions concerned with labor market issues and employment. She expressed her aspiration to strengthen this partnership and the results of this cooperation.

For Mrs. Knop, she emphasized that the labor market access program is done in the main partnership with the Ministry of Labor and in cooperation with essential partners in the field of employment. She indicated that cooperation with PFESP establishes a very important partnership in the framework of promoting this program to achieve common goals.