Future Proof Employment The GreenWorks Program, implemented by an alliance led by Hivos, contributes to climate change mitigation by creating sustainable business and job opportunities for more than 9000 young women and men in the green economy in North Africa.High unemployment and lack of financing opportunities in North Africa for small and medium enterprises prevent young people – particularly women and marginalized groups – from developing their full potential. At the same time, rising temperatures and sea levels associated with climate change are expected to set economic development in the region back many years. So we want to align local approaches to climate change with development efforts that address poverty, unemployment, sustainability and climate justice issues.To this end, the program focuses on:supporting the creation of “innovation clusters” that enable businesses in the green and digital economies to scaleenhancing the capacities of Business Development Support Organizations and Employability Hubs to create jobs and develop private sector activities beyond program supporttraining youth in 21st-century skills to afford them economic opportunities in future-oriented green sectorsenabling social enterprises operating in the green economies to scale their businesses and create new jobsThe GreenWorks Alliance is led by Hivos and consists of more than 15 members, amongst which incubators, accelerators, think tanks, vocational training institutes, and angel investment networks in Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia and the Netherlands. (1) The Alliance successfully reached over 85% of the Job Target out of the total target of 9000 jobs. (2) The Social Enterprises support component is well on track with over 370 Social Enterprises being supported by the Alliance so far between Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia. Several other KPI targets have already been achieved within three years of implementation. For example, The Alliance successfully supported its Social Enterprises beneficiaries to leverage more than EUR 6 Million opposed to the 4-year target of EUR900,000. (3) Key Assumptions made by the Alliance are proving to be highly accurate up to this stage. The Major assumption related to the potential of job creation in the Green Economy in the region has proven to be integral in the potential growth of the program with the majority of current funds being directed towards green Job creation, positioning the GreenWorks Alliance members as major players in this growing theme. This was further solidified by the ability of Hivos and some of the GreenWorks partners to secure Euros 5 million form Palladium’s Challenge Fund for Youth Employment (CYFE) to develop a new programme titled “The Challenge Fund for a Just Transition” (CFJT). The primary goal of this program is to create and enhance 10,000 jobs in Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco, serving as a direct extension of the initiatives established by GreenWorks. The economic situation: The economic situation and the staggering inflation rates in the programme’s three countries Algeria, Egypt, and Tunisia had a negative impact on green businesses. This included the availability of the equipment and raw material, especially imported ones which are either sold at inflated prices or are only available in black markets (according to our partner NM in Egypt) with very limited quantities. Such insufficiency in equipment and raw material have been hindering startups from moving forward with their operations and have distorted their pricing model and cash inflows. To overcome these challenges, NM decided to focus on its support services and capacity building programs with a focus on areas that would support startups to survive in the current economic situation. This mainly included t 1) cost optimization, 2) diversification of income generating activities and services, 3) development of marketing and CRM activities, 4) revisiting pricing models, and 5) looking into exporting opportunities. Investment for startups: The VC and financing environment in Egypt, the Middle East, and Africa is evolving fast. On the one hand, new companies continue to emerge across a number of industry sectors that show promise and achieve outsized returns improving industry prospects.  On the other, global market conditions continue to deteriorate, making it harder to raise money for earlier stage and higher risk companies (i.e. SVB financial challenges and currency deterioration in Egypt making it difficult to provide USD returns to foreign capital). In order to overcome this challenge, our partner from ChangeLabsMe, for example, is working with a variety of funding mechanisms and organizations to ensure the companies that join our program will have access to funding. They are working with local corporations who stand to benefit from the products/ services launched by the SMEs, local banks who want to increase their loan portfolios with SMEs, and regional charitable organizations who want to engage in venture philanthropy who may have lower return hurdles.Matching funds: During the implementation of the Greenworks project, we provided support to social entrepreneurs through grants that did not require them to invest any money in return. However, we realized that this approach was not the most efficient way to support social enterprises. Our initial assumption was that cash injections would be enough incentive for social enterprises to perform better and create more jobs. While the results of this initiative were not bad, they were not as impressive as we had hoped.To address this, we initiated a new program called the “GreenWorks Fund for Just Transition” which supports startups and social enterprises directly and requires them to match the grant investment to be eligible for the program. We believe that this new approach will be much more efficient and engaging for social enterprises.