According to the Buenos Aires City Government’s General Directorate of Statistics and Census (DGEyC), in 2017, only 57% of young people between 15 and 29 years old attended educational institutions and 23% of young people were unemployed. This worsens when taking into account the existing high levels of informal labour market and macroeconomic indicators such as a high level of devaluation and precarious working conditions.
“Proyectá tu futuro” is a Social Impact Bond (SIB) in Argentina that sought to reduce youth unemployment in the city of Buenos Aires by improving their employability conditions and increasing their chances of job placement. It started in January 2017, it focused on a more efficient and safe way (payment on outcomes) for the government to invest in social issues, for organizations that have experience in the subject related to the social bond can grow, and the “risk” to be absorbed by investors, leaving the traditional donation model, so they can receive a return and eventually invest again in other projects.
As a result of this social impact bond, mentoring, training and job placement opportunities were provided to young people between 17 and 24 who live in five communes in the south of the city. In order to carry out these activities, a social impact bond model was prototyped and developed for the first time, in which Alimentaris collaborated with the project’s design and feasibility assessment, and then assisted in monitoring its implementation.
This impact investment model was implemented for the first time in our country and it worked with 1,000 young people, 89% completed their employability training, 36% entered the labour market, 76% maintained their jobs for 4 months and 59% maintained their jobs for 12 months. Also, all the involved organizations have taken part in the conceptualization of the most important learning for this kind of impact investments that will allow similar models to be developed in the future, achieving its main goal. The project has been recognized and awarded by the Environmental Finance Awards Impact Awards 2020 in the category “Investment of the year – Education”.
This SIB had 16 partners, including the Buenos Aires City Government, ACRUX, Beccar Varela, Banco Ciudad, Banco Galicia, FOMIN/BID IRSA, Puerto Asís Investments, SMS, AMIA- Servicios de Empleo, Fundación Forge, Fundación Pescar, Fundación Reciduca, among others.
