During January 2010, ACE was also able to reach its target of 1400 individuals able to access professional development services. The objective of the capacity building program is to increase skills and access of program beneficiaries to the labor market. In accordance with its donor, the United States Department of State, ACE was to provide capacity building to 1400 individuals in a variety of soft-skills. In order to increase the attractiveness of job seekers to businesses seeking qualified individuals, ACE also built the capacity of potential employees and employers. This was accomplished through several means including conducting workshops and training sessions in areas such as:
• CV development;
• Interview techniques;
• Leadership enhancement and time management;
• Financial management and budgeting; and
• Interpersonal and cross-cultural communication.

Trainings aimed to enhance participant confidence and improve their chances of securing work in the future. Additionally, ACE’s teams built the capacity of businesses and organizations in Erbil, in order to help them improve their organizational efficiency and in doing so, strengthened the public and private sector.

ACE has also begun to generate new business inside of Erbil, primarily through the training services that it offers. As NGOs and a growing private sector ramp up their operations, there is an increased need to develop the professional skills of relevant staff. As such ACE has recently begun to diversify its training curriculum to include courses on Professional English, Sales, Marketing, Customer Service and Project Management.

ISG and ACE have also begun to identify and develop partnerships with donors with the aim of offering continued services to people in need. An agreement was signed on January 13th 2010 with the Business Innovations Program (BIP. ACE has designed a program which meets some of the current needs of BIP to be implemented in January 2010.

In November 2009, ACE was registered as a Non Governmental Organization (NGO). ISG will maintain intimate connections and close working relations with ACE. ISG will aim to provide support via sub-grants for operational costs and will offer technical assistance; a process that will help promote the long-term sustainability of ACE. Over the past months, ISG has gradually trained ACE’s staff to manage the centre with increasing independence, thus creating the beginnings of a true community resource. Over the coming months, ISG plans to offer continued capacity building and support to ACE so that its staff is able to oversee all programmatic and management functions.