Training for Rural Economic Empowerment (TREE)

Community-based training (CBT) now referred to by ILO as Training for Rural Economic Empowerment (TREE), a needs- based methodology for promoting income-generation through skills training and support services, has undergone long period of evolution, improvement and paradigm shifts. Years of project level implementation have produced results in each country, in their specific situations, and in particular socio-economic circumstances. These country experiences have transformed the training strategy from its conceptual and policy frameworks, to its systems and methodology, and most of all to its implementing tools and guidelines.

The methodology has been applied to national poverty reduction programmes as well as to post-conflict and post-disaster situations – all with outstanding results. Each country that implemented a TREE project has managed to prepare a country-specific manual, which has in turn been a basis for a global TREE manual produced by the ILO headquarters in Geneva. Indeed, there is now a wealth of knowledge as well as tested practical and empowering tools developed through the experiences of ILO and its global partners – tools that have evolved through problems and issues in the field related to sustainability of beneficiary projects and their social and economic mobility. TREE is no longer a small skills training project, it is now a development strategy that has come of age that can build strong rural economies through a convergent and comprehensive methodology where community development actors can work together under the global principles of decent work for all.