2020
UNESCO

Through this guide, UNESCO provides practical guidance to policymakers as they fight for the inclusion of the cultural and creative industries in social and economic recovery plans. In order to comply with health and safety measures, and to adapt to new business models, both financial and technical support has been and will continue to be necessary. However, it is important to recognize the support mobilized thus far has been multifaceted. This guide is an attempt to provide a comprehensive overview of the range of emergency measures adopted by States in support of cultural workers, institutions and industries and a tool for strengthening the resilience of the sector. 

Global
Report
2020
OECD

Cultural and creative sectors are important in their own right in terms of their economic footprint and employment. They also spur innovation across the economy, as well as contribute to numerous other channels for positive social impact (well-being and health, education, inclusion, urban regeneration, etc.). They are among the hardest hit by the pandemic, with large cities often containing the greatest share of jobs at risk. The dynamics vary across sub-sectors, with venue-based activities and the related supply chains most affected. Policies to support firms and workers during the pandemic can be ill-adapted to the non-traditional business models and forms of employment in the sector. In addition to short-term support for artists and firms, which comes from both the public and private sector, policies can also leverage the economic and social impacts of culture in their broader recovery packages and efforts to transform local economies. Culture shock: COVID-19 and the cultural and creative sectors

 
Global
Report
2020
World Bank

This report reviews the literature, identifies project examples, and derives lessons for the design and implementation of demand-driven training (DDT) and results-based financing (RBF). A summary of the existing literature on international experiences with DDT and RBF, including good practices, is presented here. This review aims to identify the most effective ways to deliver these programs and provide general lessons on their design and implementation.

Global
Report
2020
Alibaba Group

This manual has been created as a reference for digital entrepreneurs to demonstrate the impact of digital platforms and tools in alleviating the societal challenges resulting from COVID. 

Global
Toolkit
2020
Solutions for Youth Employment (S4YE)

This brief examines strategies the World Bank’s ‘Digital Jobs in Nigeria’ pilot project team adopted to help vulnerable youth in conflict-affected areas to leverage employment opportunities in the digital economy. The pilot provides training for unemployed and under-employed youth in Kaduna State to pursue digital jobs, including online freelancing and digital entrepreneurship. The brief specifically highlights the team’s responses to several challenges, including: managing security threats; navigating limited ICT infrastructure; building a local tech ecosystem; adapting to restrictive socio-cultural norms, and integrating local knowledge.

Africa
Knowledge Brief
2020
ITU

This tool is designed as a practical step-by-step tool for national digital skills assessments. It can be used to determine the existing supply of a digitally skilled cohort at a national level, to assess skills demand from industry and other sectors, to identify skills gaps, and to develop policies to address future digital skills requirements. 

Global
Toolkit
2020
Aspen Institute

With the COVID-19 crisis canceling many events, many summer youth employment programs/internships have also been scrapped. This toolkit is orientated toward addressing common challenges imposed by social distancing and the need to pivot to virtual experiences. 
 

Global
Toolkit
2020
Network of European Museum Organisations

Digitisation is a must rather than an option and lately digitalised collections have proved themselves to be valuable resources in a crisis. However, the digitisation process often comes with persistent financial difficulties, several legal uncertainties and a clear need of adequate skill development. Based on its survey findings, NEMO and its Working Group Digitalisation and IPR offer recommendations to EU policy makers on the one hand, and to national museum organisations and museums on the other hand, to help museums on their way to digitalised collections. In order to gain an overview from different institutional perspectives in Europe, the study surveyed three different target groups; national museum organisations, national ministries in charge of museums and individual museums.

Europe and Central Asia
Knowledge Brief
2020
Journal of Economic and Human Geography

This article draws on data from the Online Labour Index and interviews with freelancers in the United States securing work on online platforms, to illuminate effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

North America
Knowledge Brief
2020
Google & IFC

Collaboration between IFC and Google, this report talks about the potential of Africa’s Internet economy, promising tech entrepreneurs driving innovation, and the growing tech talent across the continent. Analysis in the report finds that Africa’s Internet economy can reach $180 billion by 2025, accounting for 5.2% of the continent’s gross domestic product (GDP). By 2050, the projected potential contribution could reach $712 billion, 8.5% of the continent’s GDP.

Africa
Report
2020
IISD

This literature review seeks to enunciate the different understandings of the term “circular economy” and the baselines that have been used for projections on job impacts and growth. It introduces some of the targets for European countries that are championing the transformation from a linear to a circular economy. The report also outlines the current literature’s understanding of job sectors that might change in the future.

Global
Report
2020
European Commission

The European classification of Skills, Competences, Qualifications and Occupations (ESCO) is one concrete implementation of the digital labour market policies put in place by the Commission at European level. ESCO is facilitating an interconnected, digital European labour market by supporting 3 main use cases: job-matching and job searching; career guidance and learning management; research and big data analysis of the labour market. This resource details the use cases.

Europe and Central Asia
Good Practice/Case Study
2020
European Commission

Empty cultural places, drastically reduced mobility and tourism blockade as an effect of COVID-19 confinement measures not only generate an evident economic damage to cultural institutions, companies and workers but also create a strong economic and social discomfort at city level. Although many EU member states are now entering into a de-confinement phase, many cultural places remain closed or subject to stringent physical-distancing measures. In these new circumstances, one main condition for the sustainability of most cultural and creative sectors (CCS) has been almost entirely disrupted: the possibility to have a public ‘live’ as a source of revenues to meet operating costs, putting more than seven million jobs at risk in Europe. Using cultural jobs statistics from Eurostat and the JRC’s Cultural and Creative Cities Monitor, this report identifies highly vulnerable cultural jobs and creative cities. Despite the unprecedented challenges raised by the COVID-19 pandemic, some cities are already experimenting new event formats to better reach local inhabitants and nearby communities, while ensuring the financial sustainability of cultural activities. Both national and city governments have issued a wide range of policy measures (from compensatory grants to tax reliefs) to maintain alive Europe’s cultural capital, while giving cultural institutions, companies and workers the time to get prepared to post-COVID times. Proximity tourism could indeed help compensate losses from international tourism, while new cultural services that meet societal needs (educational, health, environmental...) would help restore the European social fabric and people’s well-being.

Europe and Central Asia
Report
2020
World Bank

This report refers to four fundamental tensions holding back education in the MENA region: Credentials and skills, discipline and inquiry, control and autonomy, and tradition and modernity. If not addressed, MENA will continue to operate below its potential. Addressing these tensions and unleashing the potential of education requires a new framework with a three-pronged approach: A concerted push for learning that starts early for all children regardless of background, with qualified and motivated educators that leverages technology and uses modern approaches and monitors learning. It also requires a stronger pull for skills by all stakeholders in the labor market and society and involves coordinated multi-system reforms within and outside the education system. Finally, it requires a new pact for education at a national level with a unified vision, shared responsibilities and accountabilities.

Middle East and North Africa
Report
2020
Plan International

This report brings together the voices and experiences of over 14,000 girls across many continents. It aims at uncovering and understanding their experiences being online: what platforms they use, what is their experience of harassment, who are the perpetrators and the impact of harassment on them.

Global
Report
2020
UNESCO

This report, produced with the support of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, is the result of research carried out before the current health crisis. Nevertheless, it reveals flaws in artistic freedom that this crisis will only exacerbate, and progress that may be built upon. While legislative efforts are still needed for better protection of artistic freedom, recent years have seen the emergence of a body of case law from which States can draw, as well as a diversification of mechanisms for the protection of artists at risk. Despite the increased awareness of the specificities of artistic work in terms of social protection, equitable remuneration and taxation observed throughout the world, it is clear that the calls for an integrated approach to legislation on the status of the artist have not yet been heard by a majority of States. In the governments' responses to the profound repercussions of the global pandemic on employment, the rights of artists to be seen as workers with their own specificities must not be overlooked. May this report serve to show that in the absence of appropriate legal frameworks, the culture sector will not be better equipped than it is today to respond to future crises.

Global
Report
2020
World Bank

The blog highlights the World Bank's strategy aims at creating economic opportunities for MENA’s youth by opening-up business environments for young entrepreneurs to compete in free and fair markets for the provision of goods and services.
 

Middle East and North Africa
Knowledge Brief
2020
World Bank

Young women in Africa are less likely to be employed than young men, as a result of gaps in access to resources such as skills, time, and capital, and due to underlying social norms. Adolescence is a particularly critical time to intervene, as teenage pregnancy or dropping out of school can have severe impacts on future employment and earnings with significant consequences on their lives. At the macroeconomic level, investing in adolescent girls is also crucial for Sub-Saharan Africa`s demographic dividend.

Africa
Knowledge Brief
2020
ILO

The research reviews the entrepreneurial ecosystem to assess the capacity to foster young green entrepreneurship and address social and environmental challenges. The report considers from the perspective of key stakeholders, primarily those providing business development services and experts in the field of youth and social entrepreneurship and government representatives and entrepreneurs themselves.

Global
Report
2020
Solutions for Youth Employment (S4YE)

This brief highlights different ways in which youth employment projects in S4YE’s community of practice, the Impact Portfolio, are adapting their strategies and delivery models in response to COVID‒19. Based on recent and ongoing discussions with our partners, we see six main trends that programs are using to maintain operational and programmatic continuity. These include scaling of virtual operations, crowdsourcing ideas from youth, accelerating remote learning, encouraging youth voice, increased support for micro, small and medium enterprises, and leveraging new growth opportunities. Overall, we see a deepening and widening of the ways our partners are using digital technology to be effective and to reach more youth in these challenging times.

Global
Knowledge Brief