Governance

The consortium’s strength rests upon a multilevel governance and a strengthened collaboration between national government institutions, local authorities and stakeholders operating in the local labour markets.

The FORWORK consortium has 8 partner institutions and 4 associate organizations. The lead applicant ANPAL (the National Agency for Active Labour Market Policies) coordinates and monitors the project. It also has a key role in building the network of institutional actors dealing with immigration and asylum policy.

The 4 Italian partners of the consortium are involved in the implementation of the Italian pilot program in Piedmont. APL (Agenzia Piemonte Lavoro) ensures the effective coordination of activities at the regional level, by managing and monitoring two non-profit organizations – also in the consortium – specialized in job-coaching and placement (both EXAR and Inforcoop), and cross-cultural mediation (EXAR). APL is also in charge of managing and monitoring the services from sub-contractors. Their activities related to job mentoring and language and vocational training are identified by means of public procurement procedures in the early stage of the project.

EXAR assists the beneficiaries of the project (i) during meetings with their dedicated job mentors and PES officers, and (ii) during language and civic workshops and vocational training, by supplying cultural-linguistic mediators. Both Inforcoop and EXAR perform the essential role of providing placement services to beneficiaries in the last part of their individual program. Inforcoop also provides training to job mentors at the beginning of activities, and holds focus groups on recognition of formal and informal skills with the selected asylum seekers and refugees.

The fRDB (Fondazione Rodolfo Debenedetti) performs the essential role of evaluating the impact of the Italian pilot project on the labour market outcomes of beneficiaries, using counterfactual evaluation methods. It also collaborates with the Albanian partners in order to carry out a qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the small-scale pilot in the country.

ITCILO is mainly involved in dissemination activities, taking advantage of its network of international contacts. The participation of an international organization such us ITCILO ensures a more comprehensive and international perspective on examples of best practices, as well as the effective dissemination of our findings.

Finally, the 4 associate organizations (two Italian Ministries and two regional public bodies) have the key role of building a strong partnership among all stakeholders and key actors in the field of asylum, reception policy, and labour market integration of asylum seekers and refugees in Italy and Piedmont. They also play a key role in disseminating findings from the evaluation at the regional, national, and international level, as well as to mainstream the project in the context of regional active labor market policies and governance model of Piedmont.

Overall, the FORWORK consortium combines a comprehensive institutional multi-level partnership, knowledge of the local context of the two pilot programs (both in Italy and in Albania) and sound technical skills in the domain of counterfactual impact evaluation. Besides, the choice of a mixed partnership (public, private, and third sector) allow us to test innovative approaches and services that require the involvement of external providers operating in collaboration with public employment services.