The Secretary of State of Vocational Training and Employment (SEFOPE – acronym in Portuguese), Rogério Araújo Mendonça, and the resident representative of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Timor-Leste, Katyna Argueta, signed a Memorandum of Understanding on February 6th, 2024, in the building of this Secretariat of State, with the primary objective of providing access to the labour market, entrepreneurship training and sustainable livelihood solutions in Timor-Leste. 
With this memorandum of understanding and through the Youth Employment and Entrepreneurship Skills (YEES) and Community Infrastructure for Resilience (CIReP – acronym in Portuguese) projects, SEFOPE and UNDP will collaborate on programs to promote access to the labour market, personal skills training, career guidance, job fairs, entrepreneurship training, vocational training, paid work programs and on-the-job training for SEFOPE employees.
Speaking at the ceremony, the Secretary of State expressed great enthusiasm for the future prospects of this collaboration, expressing the hope that “under this memorandum of understanding, SEFOPE and UNDP can provide support in identifying development models and frameworks that work and achieve results, and sharing experiences as widely as possible, for the benefit of all our people”. 
The UNDP Resident Representative expressed her gratitude to the SEFOPE’s Director General and technical team, as well as the UNDP team, for their diligent and committed efforts to strengthen cooperation between the two institutions. She added that signing this agreement is only the beginning of an ongoing endeavour, and she looks forward to witnessing the positive impacts of this partnership in the future.
In addition to SEFOPE’s Secretary of State and the UNDP Resident Representative, directors-general and national directors of SEFOPE and UNDP staff attended the ceremony.