WHAT IS C-JET
The Competitiveness for Jobs & Economic Transformation (C-JET) Umbrella Trust Fund is a global partnership facility that helps foster the economic transformation needed to enable better jobs for more women and men, sustainably and at scale. It will focus on the enabling conditions and programs that promote the entry and growth of competitive firms and sectors as drivers of better jobs.
As a global program with significant regional concentration, wherever possible, C-JET will prioritize low-income and fragile countries, particularly within development partners’ priority regions. This focus is aligned with C-JET’s objective of supporting sustainable economic development and job creation as the primary pathway out of poverty.
C-JET'S GLOBAL REACH
WHY IS C-JET NEEDED
COVID-19 rapid response – With the unfolding of the COVID-19 global pandemic crisis, there is an urgent need to counter economic destruction in the face of an unprecedented decline in economic activity and jobs in the immediate run, and to help firms restructure in the face of the new normal while positioning them for a resilient recovery. The latest ILO data on the labor market impacts of COVID-19 suggests that nearly half of the global workforce is at risk of losing livelihoods. A 10.7 percent drop in working hours is expected for the second quarter of 2020, compared to the last quarter of 2019, equivalent to 305 million full-time equivalent jobs.
By providing support to firms and addressing new constraints to productivity growth and job creation, C-JET can help countries adjust and achieve a faster and more sustainable recovery. C-JET can support deeper structural change to spur the recovery by promoting innovation and digital solutions to expand jobs and business opportunities. It can also contribute towards building a more resilient and equitable future by boosting the green competitiveness agenda and promoting greater gender equality in economic opportunities.
Many sectors that drive competitiveness, industrialization, economic transformation and job creation have been especially hard-hit by the pandemic, from tourism to supply chains in manufacturing and agribusiness. Helping key sectors restructure and recover will be a focus – particularly on sectors with large GDP and jobs multipliers given their upstream and downstream linkages. C-JET will specifically focus its support on the establishment of large-scale multi-sectoral World Bank lending operations that aim to ‘build a better future’ to meet the IDA19 JET objective of creating better jobs for more people in client countries.
IMPLEMENTATION
Most trust-funded activities will be Bank-executed. At the country level, this includes financing World Bank advisory services and analytics including technical assistance and capacity building to promote competitiveness policy reforms at the center of country-level JET and private sector diagnostic strategies. At the global level, knowledge and research activities will be funded to support the strengthening of operational interventions on private sector competitiveness including through analytical studies, diagnostics and toolkits, impact evaluations, and global partnerships. A limited set of recipient-executed activities will also be supported at the country level, offering complementary co-financing of JET-aligned operational activities implemented by countries with Bank supervision.
With the evolving landscape affecting the global private sector development agenda, it is envisioned for the C-JET Umbrella Program to take into account the experiences across all current and former standalone private sector development trust funds, while adapting to the changing context and nature of global development challenges affecting the private sector.
