Working Paper No. 29 - Implications of globalization and economic restructuring for skills development in Sub-Sahara Africa

This paper discusses how skills development can help countries better capture the employment and wage benefits of globalization. It argues for the necessity in higher and more evenly spread education, training for the current workforce, and sustained training for new entrants in the labour force that focuses on updating worker skills to the level of new technologies, but still remains broad enough so workers can adapt to most work situations. Reform dialogue should include non-governmental training institutions and enterprises and multinational enterprises, to better integrate a network of local suppliers and education and training establishments in host countries. These suggestions contribute to giving workers lifelong skills and aiding in restructuring the economy so more people can benefit from globalisation in the long-run.