1.7 Funding youth policy
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How Youth policy is funded
With the reorganization, the newly established Ministry for Social Policy Demography, Youth, and Sport has taken over the responsibilities of the former Agency for Youth and Sport in relation to youth matters, including the authority for preparing and developing youth policy. However, there is no publicly available information on the allocation of funds or the methods for supporting this purpose, as this reorganization was carried out recently (November 2024).
According to the National Youth Strategy 2023-2027, 8 priorities are defined and each includes a set of measures. For these measures, a specific ministry or institution is responsible to implement those measures under each priority. Thus, the budget for the measures falls under the budget for those specific institutions/ministries.
No disaggregated data on the budget for youth measures exists for the other institutions except the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy, responsible for youth employment.
The Action Plan for Youth Employment 2016–2020 had a budget of 30.95 million EUR. However, since it expired, no new Action Plan for Youth Employment has been adopted.
In the beginning of 2018, the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy together with the Employment Service Agency and the National Youth Council of Macedonia started the realization of the pilot project Youth Guarantee which measures are funded through the Operational plan for active programs and measures for employment and services on the labor market. The total cost of implementing the Plan for the implementation of the Youth Guarantee 2023-2026 is estimated to be 3,807,449,000 MKD (app 55,710,570 EUR), with approximately 89% being financed from the national budget. New Operational Plan for 2024 is published, which also covers the Youth Guarantee. In 2024, the implementation of the Youth Guarantee will continue to be implemented throughout the territory of the Republic of North Macedonia, with a special emphasis on NEET-young people (people who are unemployed, not involved in education or training). The planned coverage of participants in the Youth Guarantee in the entire territory of the Republic of North Macedonia is about 10,000 young people. The program will be considered successful if at least 30% of the people involved in GM successfully exit it within a period of 4 months, that is, they will be employed, re-involved in the educational process or will be included in active employment programs and measures. The budget for implementation of the Youth Guarantees, which covers 2000 young people is 3,127,245 MKD.
What is funded?
Employment measures for young people were funded in the Action Plan for Youth Employment 2016 – 2020. Since the Action Plan’s expiration, a new Action Plan for Youth Employment has not been adopted (November 2025).
In the Operational Plan for Active Labor Market Programs and Measures 2024 several employment measures are outlined. The measures foreseen, are not exclusively provided for young people, but young people up to 34.
Additionally, the Law on Youth Participation and Youth Policies, as mentioned in the previous section, allocates national and municipal budgetary funds for the implementation of the Law. Based on the Law itself, those funds will go towards creation of mechanisms for youth participation (Local Youth Councils), youth policies (National Youth Strategy and Local Youth Strategies) and youth services (Youth Centers, Youth Officers, Youth Offices).
The local strategy for youth is implemented with budget funds from the municipalities, the municipalities in the city of Skopje and the city of Skopje. From the budgets of the municipalities, the municipalities in the city of Skopje and the city of Skopje for youth set aside funds in the amount of at least 0.1% annually.
However, it's noted that there have been challenges in ensuring these funds are consistently allocated and utilized effectively, making it difficult to track the flow of funds and their impact.
Financial accountability
In the Law on Associations and Foundations, Article 51 states that organizations are liable for their obligations with all their property and assets. In addition, the members of the bodies of the organizations are personally and unlimitedly liable for their obligations towards the organization, for misusing the organization's assets, for achieving goals that for them as individuals are prohibited or for the abuse of the organization as a legal entity to harm their creditors.
Use of EU Funds
By priority, IPA funds are used for the implementation of the Youth Employment measures, administered by the responsible institutions. No other data on usage of EU funds are available.
Another funds, that are worth mentioning is the Western Balkans Youth Lab Project, is EU funded and RCC implemented which strives to create a longer-term structured regional dialogue between youth organisations and national administrations focused on jointly developing policies which will increase youth participation in decision-making, to improve the overall socio-economic environment for and mobility of youth in the Western Balkans economies through different types of activities. This project covers the Western Balkans six economies (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia and North Macedonia).
To date, two Western Balkans Youth Labs (WBYL) have been successfully implemented. The first, focused on Youth Unemployment, ran from 2020 to 2022, while the second, dedicated to Mental Health, took place from 2021 to 2023. Currently, the third WBYL, centered on the Green Agenda, is underway.