International Workforce Development Based on experience from the USAID Global Workforce in Transitio

1
International Workforce Development (Based on
experience from the USAID Global Workforce in
Transition Project)

• Ron IsraelVice President, Director Global
  Learning GroupEducation Development Center, Inc.
  (EDC)May 3, 2007

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What is Workforce Development (Wfd)?

• Workforce development refers to policies and
  programs that promote the mastery of new
  job-related knowledge and skills, access to
  employment opportunities, and real jobs.

3
What is the Global Workforce in Transition (GWIT)
Project?

• A five year effort to assist USAID and host
  countries in designing, implementing, and
  evaluating workforce development policies and
  programs
• Key outputs provided assistance to eighteen
  countries designed new approaches, models, and
  tools responded to the needs of USAID Missions
  and Bureaus
• Key outcomes advanced the state of the art
  strengthened the quality of workforce development
  planning and programming in many countries kept
  workforce development alive on the USAID radar
  screen
• The GWIT experience generated a series of
  insights into the state of international
  workforce development that we would like to share
  with you at this conference

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Elements in a Systemic Approach to WFD

• An empirical database that reflects real-time
  labor market needs
• An agreed-upon set of skill standards based on
  real-time needs as well as global benchmarks
• The linking of demand for labor with the supply
  of education and training
• Effective workforce education and training
  pedagogy

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Elements in a Systemic Approach to WFD (cont.)

• Effective labor market mechanisms that link
  employers and job-seekers
• A supportive policy framework
• Ongoing wfd monitoring and evaluation

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INSIGHT 1 The Field of International Workforce
Development is in its infancy

• Few take it seriously (it has no bona fide
  constituency no professional association)
• Few know how to do it (Everyone says its
  important)
• Few places that demonstrate a functioning,
  effective systemic approach to workforce
  development

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INSIGHT 2 There are Lots of Examples of What
Works on A Small-Scale or in Isolation

• India CAP Program
• Philippines Alternative Learning System
• South Africa Skills Standards
• Bulgaria Entrepreneurship Training
• Haiti Idejen Project
• Educatodos
• Making Cents

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INSIGHT 3 The Field of Workforce Development
Lacks a True Home

• A true home means technical expertise, advocacy,
  program responsibility and funding
• The cross-sectoral trap whose sector is it
  anyway
• A funding orphan

INSIGHT 4 Workforce Development Thrives on
Public-Private Sector Partnership

• Help establish occupational targets, skills
  needs, and skill standards
• Make labor market mechanisms tick
• Ensure relevant curriculum and training

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INSIGHT 5 Critical Economic Policy Issues
Need to be Addressed in Tandem with WFD Programs

• Jobless economic growth
• Job creation policies

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INSIGHT 6 The Investment Needed in the
Education and Training Aspects of WFD Nearly
Always is Underestimated

• Off the shelf programs
• Traditional pedagogical methods
• Disconnect between classroom activities and real
  life experiences
• Skills mismatch (BA Pass programs in India)
• Lack of clear-cut learner objectives
• Access versus qualitythe basic education parallel

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Recommendations for Future USAID WFD Programs

• Establish productive workforce as a major
  development indicator, and identify effective
  ways of measuring this indicator
• Make workforce development more of an integral
  part of the education sector agenda, at both the
  basic education and higher education levels
• Make youth unemployment part of the agenda for
  the economic growth sector
• Develop more effective cross-sector WFD
  programming

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Recommendations for Future USAID WFD Programs
(cont.)

• Increase funding for WFD programs
• Train more staff in WFD program design,
  management, monitoring and evaluation
• Continue to promote the formation of
  public/private partnerships for workforce
  development

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Jobs for the 21st Century/ANE A Toolkit for
Assessment
Caroline Fawcett, EDC
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Overview of Jobs for the 21st Century (JF21C)
Initiative

• A new initiative examines jobs creation and
  workforce development in ANE region
• Five country assessments with targeted analysis
  of specific regions
• Philippines (Mindanao)
• India (National Capital Region, Maharashtra, and
  Jharkhand)
• Sri Lanka (South and Eastern regions)
• Cambodia (Kampong Cham, Kracheh, Prey Veng, and
  Svay Rieng)
• Indonesia (Aceh Region and surrounding provinces)

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The starting point The USAID local mission
context

• Targeting to specific geographical provinces and
  target populations
• Building synergies with current USAID partners
  and programs
• Customizing to reflect local USAID mission
  priorities
• Providing technical analysis and support to local
  USAID missions and to ANE Bureau.

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Main Development Challenge

• Unemployment/underemployment in ANE region is
  large and increasing. It reflects the youth
  bulge (increasing populations of youth in the
  labor supply) and limited jobs growth in economy
  (labor demand) and few formal sector jobs.

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Conceptual Framework and New Tools of Assessment

• Three main issues of framework
• Real jobs which relate to growth in jobs and
  incomes (Labor demand)
• Ready and adaptive workforce of youth and new
  entrants to the labor market (Labor supply)
• Responsive workforce institutions (Supply side
  institutions)
• New analytical tools and data to examine these
  issues

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Real Jobs/Labor Demand Analysis

• Key tools with new protocols and data

Determining firm, industry and sector trends in
economic growth, employ- ment, general/ specific
skills, recruitment and technological
innovation.
HRD enterprise assessment
Skills gap analysis
National/regional/local jobs analysis
National investment climate
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Workforce/Labor Supply Analysis

• Key tools

Determining main factors shaping expecta- tions
and behaviors of workforce (youth and new
entrants) that influence decisions in labor
market and workforce development
Targeting analysis
Youth/workforce focus groups
Youth mapping and surveys
20
Education Workforce Institution Analysis

• Key tools

Analysis of public and private providers of
workforce education, training, job counseling
and labor market services
Individual institutional surveys
Review of formal education institutions
Analysis private sector training providers
ID of best and promising practices
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Linkages of Workforce Development

• Key Issues of Analysis

Real Jobs Labor Demand
Responsive Workforce Labor Supply
Education Workforce Institutions
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Workforce Development Economic Competitiveness

• Lynn Salinger, AIRD

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WFD as Key Link in Private Sector Capacity
Building

• Competitiveness preoccupation drives strategic
  thinking at level of countries, sectors, or
  enterprises
• Economic development is a collaborative process
  involving government at multiple levels,
  companies, teaching and research institutions,
  and institutions for collaboration.
• Michael Porter, Microeconomics of
  Competitiveness, Presentation to IDB, November
  2002

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Porters Competitiveness Diamond
Context for Firm Strategy and Rivalry
Factor (Input) Conditions
Demand Conditions
Related and Supporting Industries institutions
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Rethinking Heckscher-Ohlin

• Does comparative advantage in developing
  countries rely solely on low-skill labor?
• With increasing globalization, demand increases
  much more sharply for workers in higher skill,
  higher wage occupations
• Penetrating global markets even in sectors that
  traditionally use unskilled labor requires more
  skills than the poor in developing countries
  typically possess.
• Ann Harrison, Globalization and Poverty, 2007
• Conclusion Education and training systems must
  be able to supply increasingly skilled managers,
  technicians, and workers for agribusiness,
  industry, and increasingly sophisticated service
  sector activities.

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Workforce Development Economic Competitiveness

• Starting premise Pressures of globalization
  drive shifts in local labor market
• Multi-stakeholder approach
• Companies need to understand competitiveness
  pressures and increased need to invest in
  training or hire more educated workforce
• Schools training institutes need to understand
  how their curricula and course materials must
  change in response to changing economic
  environment
• Youth workers will not be motivated to invest
  in education training unless they see evidence
  of new employment opportunities or that wages
  will be differentiated by skills

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Workforce Development Economic
Competitiveness Examples

• Workforce assessment for USAID/Morocco in the
  context of the U.S.-Morocco Free Trade Agreement
• Which industries will grow, which will fade?
• What impacts on labor market demand supply
  (skills, wages, incentives to invest in education
  training, intersectoral impacts)?
• Rapid appraisal for USAID/Cambodia of garment
  industry needs in context of then-imminent
  phase-out of multilateral textile quotas
• What effect on Cambodias garment industry?
• What effect on 300,000 employment and (rural
  household livelihoods that depend on
  remittances)?
• How can USAID/Cambodia contribute to improved
  competitiveness of the industry in face of
  shifting global markets in order to preserve
  employment?

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Approaches to WFD/Competitiveness

• Morocco Education Training for Employment
  Project (ALEF)
• Increased ET opportunities for women girls
• Youth entrepreneurship training
• Professional training (ICT, agriculture, tourism
  gastronomy)
• Cambodia Garment Industry Productivity Center
  (GIPC)
• Technical training
• Industrial engineering techniques of time work
  study
• Production techniques, line balancing, workflow
  planning
• Supervision skills, factory management principles
• Workforce development economic governance
• Skills gap assessment development of competency
  frameworks
• Preparation of course curricula case study
  materials
• Publicity to postsecondary students regarding
  opportunities for skilled employment within the
  garment industry

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GIPC Performance Indicators

• Process Indicators
• factories engaging in services
• training courses offered
• Khmer participants in training
• union representatives who participate
• occupation competency frameworks agreed to
• Impact Indicators
• Introduction of factory efficiency scorecards
• Increase in efficiency by at least 5-10 for 8
  factories

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Workforce Development Economic Competitiveness

• Demand-driven approach to WFD
• Skills-based approach to competitiveness
• Grounded in Porters Competitiveness Diamond,
  starting with needs of private sector, then
  building linkages to education training
  institutions, youth/students, workers/unions,
  government policy makers
• Crucial to build for sustainability of education
  training institutions

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WFD Typologies

• Country typologies, depending on level of
  sociopolitical stability and degree of external
  orientation were originally envisioned by GWIT
  designers

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Workforce and Youth Development (Same-same, but
different)

• Erik Payne Butler, EDC

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The power of context

• Crucial influence of economic context
• Political context vital as backdrop past as
  prologue

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Baseline for assessment queries

• Literacy Can you read?
• Educational attainment Did you graduate?
• Work experience Have you worked?
• Differential applicability

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Policy overlay drives possibilities

• Cambodia concentration on basic, general
  education hard to find skills frameworks
• South Africa has ASGISA, JIPSA better policy
  frameworks than US
• Posture of USAID needs to vary NGOs vs.
  governments driving policy frameworks, programs
• Other countries probably in between

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Circumstances drive recommendations

• Cambodia labor exchange/adjustment mechanism in
  policy absence
• South Africa niche innovation in policy-rich,
  implementation-thin environment
• Same-same, but different OR same label on the
  bottle, totally different wine
• YOUTH OPPORTUNITY CENTERS

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CAMBODIA

• Needs large scale modernization effort, starting
  with irrigation and agriculture
• Jobless growth compounded by official corruption
• Investment in SMMEs appropriate as job creation
• Need for rural-urban adjustment mechanism for
  migrating youth

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SOUTH AFRICA

• Excellent policy frameworks create opportunity
• Expanding skills gap between basic ed and
  industry demand
• National initiative to fill niche with Further
  Education and Training colleges
• FET strategy lacks employer connection, career
  counseling
• Youth Opportunity Centers demo employer-facing
  and learner-facing brokering capacity

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Employer Facing Strategy
FET College
YOUTH OPPORTUNITY CENTER
Staff Development
Curriculum Interpretation
Career Counseling
Industry in Classroom
Work Exposure
New Business Start Up
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Learner Facing Strategy
FET College
Career Planning
Career Planning
YOUTH OPPORTUNITY CENTER
Learner exit
Learner entry
Social Support
Bursary Support
Foundation Skills Life Skills
Career Counseling
Health HIV AIDS
Work Exposure
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GWIT Implementation ApproachesCyprus Bahrain

• Elizabeth Markovic, EDC

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Cyprus Workforce Initiative for Skills and
Education (WISE) Project

• Purpose
• Economic growth to facilitate reunification of
  Cyprus
• Improving workforce systems ? bridge between
  education and the economy

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• WISE Implementation Approach

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Strengthening the pedagogical skills of
vocational/technical education teachers

• Using Teaching Skills Inventory (TSI) developed
  by EDC to assess teacher skills
• In-service Active Learning training modules
• Assess change in knowledge and skills

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Building Linkages Private Sector ??
Education

• Industry based Workforce Skills Framework
• Align supply and demand

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Employability Skills and Career Awareness

• Employability Skills Curricula Supplements
• Work-related basic skills
• Personal qualities
• Higher order thinking skills
• Career Awareness - Project based approach
• modules and learning projects for six industries
  
• Career awareness extend to middle schools

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Community awareness

• Stimulate interest for careers in technical
  fields among youth and families
• Address the image of vocational education jobs as
  dead-end occupations
• Industry members participate in social marketing

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• Bahrain
• Labor Market Reform

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Phase I

• Labor Market Assessment
• Recommendations to the Government of Bahrain
  (GOB) in reforming labor legislation

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Phase II

• Labor reforms anti trafficking
• Compliance with Minimum Standards for the
  Elimination of Trafficking
• Compliment and support the GOB anti-trafficking
  initiatives

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Implementation Activities

• GOB Inter-Ministerial Task Force for
  Anti-Trafficking
• Draft legislation on anti-trafficking
• Operating guidelines for shelters of labor
  trafficking victims
• (cont.)

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Implementation Activities (cont.)

• Capacity building and public awareness training
  targeting
• Judges and law enforcement officials
• Non-governmental organizations
• Business community
• Code of Conduct for business community against
  exploitation of labor
• Using ICT to raise public awareness and build
  capacity