Learning and Training for Work in the Knowledge Society

Chapter V. International Cooperation in Human Resources Development: Current and Emerging Trends

1. International Cooperation in Education and Human Resources Development and Training: Towards an Integration
2. Integrating Education and Training with Other Economic and Social Policies and Programmes: Focus on Sectors and Groups with Special Needs
3. From Operational Programmes to Policy Development
4. The Social Partners, Private Sector Partnerships and Encouraging Private Training Provision
5. Education, Training and Communication and Information Technologies

Introduction

Rather than giving a detailed analysis, the present chapter provides some examples of current and emerging priorities and practices in international cooperation in the area of human resources development and training. These should be seen in the light of major shifts in policy thinking. They include, for example, the World Bank's policy review of the early 1990s (and the on-going review work in the Africa Region); the forthcoming new sector policy of DANIDA, due in August 2001; the strong anti-poverty and gender focus of recent international development debate; the emerging regional dimension of cooperation, for example, the European Union engaging in programmes in collaboration with entire regions in the developing world (e.g. with the group of candidate countries to the EU and the MERCOSUR group); and the ILO's present work in developing a new policy framework - a new Recommendation - for human resources development and training. Finally, new lending policies, for example those that target the development of recipient countries' information and communication technology infrastructure, also provide a new focus for technical cooperation in the area of education and training.

A. International Cooperation in Education and Human Resources Development and Training: Towards an Integration

Many agencies, and recipient countries, increasingly see education and training policy developments in an integrated manner, in an understanding that meaningful skills development and training in the developing world must be based on quality and widely accessible, basic education. Since many skills development programmes are budgeted within a larger education sector, the Education for All (EFA) initiative, begun in 1990, has had a major impact on skills development in the last decade.

However, whilst some agencies have maintained a major interest in skills development work throughout this period, others reduced their employment-oriented skills development and training programmes in the 1990s. The World Bank's powerful critique of public sector provision may also have contributed to agencies' lesser emphasis on vocational training, particularly of the publicly provided variety. Many were influenced by the World Bank's emphasis on basic education and acquisition of foundation skills as a basis for learning advanced skills throughout life, seeing the acquisition of those advanced skills as something best left to the market.

Recently, however, several development agencies (e.g. The Danish Agency for Development Assistance (DANIDA), Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), the Swiss Development Corporation (SDC) and the U.K.'s Department for International Development (DFID) have adopted sector wide approaches, with a greater emphasis on coherent planning across education and training. The emergence of concerns with the knowledge economy, globalization and information and communications technologies (ICTs) have also encouraged the beginning of a rethinking of the previous, strongly basic education, focus. Thus, after a fall in the volume of Bank lending for vocational training due to the new emphasis on primary education and lower secondary education - and the questioning of traditional training approaches - annual lending increased to just under US$ 400 million in 1995-8. The Bank has given many countries support in the form of "labour force training" to up-grade workers skills, retrain laid-off workers and improve competitiveness. Bank supported training programmes in, for example, Cote d'Ivoire, East Asian countries are integral elements of efforts to restructure entire industrial sectors. Nevertheless, the Bank's total educational lending goes to primary education (more than 30 per cent) and to secondary education (some 20 per cent). The need to develop new combinations of education and training, and of theoretical knowledge and practical skills, have emerged in approaches of agencies such as the Australian Government's Overseas Aid Program (AusAid) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

B. Integrating Education and Training with Other Economic and Social Policies and Programmes: Focus on Sectors and Groups with Special Needs

In order to have optimum impact, education and training must be an integrated part of a comprehensive set of policies and programmes for economic and social development. This important principle - strongly endorsed by the Conclusions - is recognized in international cooperation. Since the 1990s, the international development agenda has had a strong equity focus, endeavouring to integrate education and training into other economic and social programmes that combat poverty and social exclusion. For example, DANIDA, ILO, Swiss Development Corporation and Germany's GTZ (Gemeinschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit) have formulated strong policy statements that call for overcoming traditional biases in human resources development, particularly in relation to women.

One practical example of poverty focus is the ILO's community-based training for self-employment and income generation. The programme has assisted employment and training organizations in countries such as Kenya, Cambodia, and Pakistan to develop community-based and -owned, demand-driven initiatives to meet the training needs of poor communities. Box 5.1 provides an example of the approach taken in Cambodia.

On a broader scale, the International Development Targets (IDTs) and the new Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) have major implications for agency and national education and training programme priorities. The PRSPs are the key policy instrument for country agreements with the IMF and the World Bank. Five agreements have been agreed upon in the first half of 2001 and another 40 are in an interim stage. These will locate education and training within a broad, anti-poverty focus and are likely to have an important influence on the work of other agencies.

A gender focus is central to many agencies' anti-poverty policies and programmes. For example, the ILO has developed a capacity-building programme that addresses critical issues identified in the Beijing Platform for Action, in particular the feminization of poverty. The main prongs of the programme are: taking a gender perspective in macro-economic reforms and structural adjustment programmes; institutionalizing social dialogue on the issue; and adopting, and also implementing with ILO assistance, priority plans of action. For example, in collaboration with national and state authorities, and employers' and workers' organizations in Mexico, a National Plan of Action for More and Better Jobs for Women has been formulated. It targets some 4,000 salaried women in the "maquila industry" in Coahuila State. Women workers are assisted to organize themselves, represent and defend their interests, and to improve their working conditions. In Guerrero State, women are given entrepreneurship training and technical and financial assistance in order to enhance the profitability and viability of their micro-enterprises. The Government's aim is to extend these "model schemes" to other states and groups of beneficiaries.

International cooperation also traditionally targets youth as a core constituency for skills development and training. With endemic unemployment among youth, there has been recently a renewed commitment to provide them with skills and entrepreneurship training. In Latin America, in particular, IDB finances large programmes that target youth, and also other vulnerable groups. The programmes provide training, and services for recognition and certification of competencies attained. ILO/CINTERFOR supports these programmes.

HIV/AIDS and its skill, education and training implications loom as an important area of international cooperation. High levels of infection among staff and trainees result in increased inefficiencies of training provision, just at a time when a massive expansion of skills development activities is needed to replace formerly productive workers. However, DANIDA's imminent sectoral policy may well be the first formal statement that addresses the education and training needs arising from the pandemic.

Sector programmes supported by donor agencies, like programmes for support of health and agriculture sectors, have strong education and training components. Human resources development and training are also increasingly an integral element of industrial and technology transfer policies and programmes. Many agencies, for example, the InterAmerican Bank (IDB), DANIDA, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, have made explicit the linkages between skills development and environmental protection.

Since the 1990s, agencies' enterprise development programmes have been receiving increasing support. One salient example is the ILO's work on Start and Improve Your Own Business (SIYB) programme. It consists of a range of training packages and materials - which provide small scale entrepreneurs and managers in developing countries with practical skills for starting, consolidating and expanding their businesses. Manuals available in 35 languages have been used in some 70 countries worldwide, with more than 100,000 entrepreneurs having benefited from the programme. Evaluations suggest that SIYB trained entrepreneurs have significantly improved the performance, profits and job creation potential of their businesses.

Many agencies are bringing together their skills and entrepreneurship development activities. There has been some success with programmes that strengthen business development services (e.g. business advice, training, credit and extension) for existing artisans, e.g. by DANIDA, ILO and the World Bank. However, the attempts to develop entrepreneurial attitudes and skills among students in formal training institutions have been less successful. A further trust of donors has been support given to the reconstruction of war affected countries. An example of UNDP/ILO collaboration in this area is shown in box 5.2.

The informal economy, pioneered by the ILO as a concept, has become a major recipient of policy and practical development support by the donor community. This is particularly true in Africa, where economic crisis and structural adjustment have forced the bulk of the labour force to eke out a living in informal work. In cooperation with DANIDA, Zambia is up-grading training for the informal economy and integrating it into the overall national training policy framework. In addition to the ILO, France, Swiss Development Corporation and the World Bank have been working with informal economy associations, up-grading their training activities, and engaging them in curriculum development, business management and certification with formal providers. The focus of these agencies, and also of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and Austria, is on up-grading the skills of existing artisans. Voucher schemes have also been developed, notably in World Bank sponsored programmes, in order to stimulate a market for skills-upgrading of apprentices and artisans in the informal economy.

Active labour market programmes

Education and training have also been part of active labour market responses in developing countries in times of rising structural unemployment. Particularly ILO and the World Bank have provided support in this area. Large numbers of workers have lost their jobs during the industrial restructuring process that is still continuing in Central and Eastern Europe. The ILO has successfully introduced modular training methods and programmes in these countries that target unemployed workers. It also provides skill-upgrading programmes for employed workers and general employability training that meets labour market requirements. In the Russian Federation, for example, a national network of some 150 institutions has been set up that offer modular training for more than 100 types of jobs in industry and services.

C. From Operational Programmes to Policy Development

International (agency) cooperation in human resources development is increasingly one of support for policy development, and institution and capacity building, rather than actual provision of training and skills development programmes. The latter are increasingly done in the context of partnerships between the social partners, public institutions and the private sectors in both donor and recipient countries. Cooperation on policy development has covered such areas as: overall national training policies; the development of institutional and governance frameworks, including establishment of a national training authority; shift towards in-service training, re-skilling and lifelong learning as opposed to initial training; and also emerging specific areas, such as design of national qualifications frameworks (NQFs) and competency-based training systems. While some agencies have moved out from supporting public sector training, others, like SIDA and GTZ have sought to support institutional reforms in the sector. Improving demand responsiveness, and a focus on outcomes, cost recovery and links with industry, are some elements of the policy prescriptions for the public training system.

ILO has played a lead role in advocating, and assisting a large number of developing countries in designing, human resources development and training policies for employment. This cooperation has particularly focussed on the equity and continuous training dimensions of policy and system reforms. Capitalising on its tripartite structure, the ILO has been a catalyst for strengthened dialogue on new policies and system frameworks in training. At the Copenhagen Social Summit (1995), the ILO was given a mandate to assume leadership in promoting employment-based economic and social policies and programmes, including human resources development and training. Recently, the ILO was entrusted with designing a national training framework ("An integrated training strategy for the new millennium") in Mauritius. The framework was subsequently endorsed by the social partners and approved by the Council of Ministers (January 2001).

DANIDA has been another pioneer in policy development, for example, in United Republic of Tanzania and Zambia, and more recently Malawi, where it has supported reforms of policy, governance frameworks and training delivery systems. In Zambia, a specially assigned task force, comprising major stakeholders, including the government, employers, trade unions, training institutions, and entrepreneurship institutions, has been the catalyst, and the manager, of the review and policy formulation process.

National Training Authorities

Until recently, ultimate authority over national training and education systems tended to lie with Ministries of Labour or Education, providing little articulation between donor initiatives, other public provision and private providers. In the 1990s, in the context of policy review and reforms, many development agencies, for example, DANIDA, SIDA and GTZ, advocated the Latin American inspired National Training Authority model for African countries. The former was based on large scale employer involvement and had secure levy-based funding. Having a small formal sector, African agencies have struggled to replicate the Latin American model. Financial sustainability, widespread stakeholder involvement and quality training provision are still major challenges for many authorities, and for the donors active in this area.

In-service training and lifelong learning is another recent policy development in international cooperation, reflecting concerns about skills obsolescence and need for re-skilling in times of rapid technological and workplace change. In particular, the World Bank and the European Commission have shifted emphasis to training those already working, be they in the formal or informal economy. The ILO has stressed (WER 1998-99¹ and WER 2001²) the importance of re-skilling and learning over a worker's lifetime. The Conclusions (International Labour Conference ILC 2000) emphasize the role of initial training in building the foundation for an individuals' future employability and ability to learn. Hence, some donors (e.g. SIDA) support initial training that builds the foundation for later learning and re-skilling in a lifelong learning perspective.

Development of national qualifications frameworks (NQFs) has gained momentum in recent years, particularly in some advanced countries, e.g. Australia, New Zealand and the U.K (see Chapter IV, C.5). International cooperation is also taking place in this new area. GTZ and DANIDA have collaborated in the development of the South African NQF. AusAid has supported similar work in Indonesia. Most recently, Malawi, a "least developed country", has engaged in such an attempt with DANIDA support. A more coherent and competency-based set of qualifications, recognition of prior learning and the quality assurance that certification can offer make NQFs attractive. However, being highly complex, and difficult and expensive to manage, they remain controversial. In addition, much of the support for NQF approaches in the developing countries has not been through mainstream international technical cooperation, but rather through the marketing work of parastatal qualifications authorities in countries such as Australia, England, Scotland, and New Zealand.

Mechanisms for recognizing prior learning, an essential element of functioning national qualifications frameworks, is another possible emerging domain for international cooperation. So far, little work has been done, apart from some DANIDA support in South Africa.

Competency-based modular training has recently received more international support. Compared with time-based training programmes, competency-based approaches are seen as more efficient, relevant and outcomes-focussed. They are today quite common in developing countries. As with the closely related development of NQFs, promotion of competency-based approaches to training has often been part of sales efforts of public and private organisations as they seek to expand their markets for training in developing countries.

D. The Social Partners, Private Sector Partnerships and Encouraging Private Training Provision

The Conclusions concerning the role of the ILO in technical cooperation (ILC 1999) call for a more substantive relationship of the ILO with the international development community, including national development cooperation ministries or agencies and international agencies. New relationships should be fostered with the private sector, with foundations and non-traditional partners within the framework of the Organization's values and principles.

International cooperation, traditionally between government agencies (donor and recipient), is increasingly done in partnerships between governments, social partners and private and public institutions. Most donors today emphasize the value of partnerships and actively promote national "ownership" of training policy and system reforms. Therefore, they engage, as integral partners in policy reviews and reforms processes, a broad spectrum of national institutions, comprising employers and trade unions, Chambers of Industry and Commerce, public and private training institutions, universities, NGOs, representatives of civil society and others. Such partnerships have been a common feature of policy reforms undertaken or underway in Zambia, Malawi, United Republic of Tanzania and also in South Africa.

Encouraging partnerships and private training provision The social partners and the private sector are often implementing education and training programmes, but within a policy framework established in bilateral cooperation agreements between governments and donors. Also, direct partnerships in training provision are becoming common between private sector (donor country) institutions, and institutions in the recipient countries. For example, USAID provides seed money to encourage partnerships between American community colleges and partnership institutions in developing countries. Another example is DANIDA's Manufacturing Advisory Centres, which bring together the private sectors in Denmark and partner countries. Such partnerships are intended to encourage a wider range of partnership arrangements with both public and private institutions. Chambers of Commerce and Industry in France and Quebec (Canada), have established partnerships with equivalent (private) institutions in many developing countries. These provide training and extension services to small and medium-sized enterprises and also self-employed artisans. With its well developed textile industry, the Rhône-Alpes region in France has engaged in a regional partnerships with the Sfax region in Tunisia in a major training and retraining programme that supports the industry's restructuring programme there. These programmes are being financed, jointly, by France's cooperation technique programme, money from the European Union, and also the Rhône-Alpes region.

Training policy reforms have, in some cases, encouraged massive expansion of private sector training, spearheaded by the World Bank's sector policy (1991) that advocated pro-market education and training policies. While the Bank argued for the right mix between public and private training, the effect was often to encourage disinvestment in public provision, considered cost-inefficient and often irrelevant to economic and social needs. Believing that private providers, through market discipline and the right public incentives, would avoid these problems, many agencies sought to encourage private provision. Particularly the World Bank and IDB have stimulated markets for skills development through voucher schemes. Training levies were also used to encourage firms to do more in-house training as they could then claim back some or all of their levy contributions.

Recently, the ILO has embarked on a research and advocacy programme of good enterprise learning and training practices in some African and Asian countries. The objective is to influence public policies to promote such practices; stimulate partnerships between SMEs, and also with other intermediary institutions (local government, chambers of industry and commerce, training institutions etc.); and encourage enterprises to invest more of their own resources into learning and training. Based on the experience gained, the programme is expected to expand into technical cooperation activities that will emulate good policies and practices in other countries and enterprises.

Growing focus on private training has also led to new partnerships with NGOs, a type of alliance that has been emphasized by SDC, DANIDA and others. This mirrors a broader trend in development cooperation. NGOs are seen as being often more efficient than state bureaucracies and closer to local needs. However, the growing emphasis on policies and programmes over projects is beginning to raise new questions about whether small NGO projects can be transformed into more comprehensive assistance programmes.

Private training provision: Ensuring quality

Private training has expanded rapidly in areas where entry has been easy, and the requisite capital investments small, often gravitating towards commercial rather than technical areas. The need to ensure that private training providers maintain acceptable programme quality is a common concern. Therefore, IDB is engaged in staff and curriculum development of private training providers in Latin America.

E. Education, Training and Communication and Information Technologies

The power of the information revolution is that it can help deliver basic services, including education and training, more efficiently and innovatively. In fact, not putting these technologies to work for the poorest people carries a huge and growing cost. It means missed economic opportunities, and growing inequality within less-developed countries themselves, as rural areas become more isolated and fall further behind. The ILO³ and the World Bank, among others, have called for intensified efforts by the international community to bridge the digital divide that threatens to grow even wider, both within and between countries. Mobilising ICT in education and training has the potential of becoming a major area of international cooperation.

A well educated workforce is a prerequisite for harnessing the potential of ICTs. ILO has strongly argued⁴ that literacy and education cannot be leapfrogged; in fact, they are the fundamental building blocks on which the use and development of ICT are based. Many international agencies are venturing into technical cooperation programmes that use ICT for delivering education and training. They are also assisting countries with training programmes to build up their pool of ICT skilled professionals, another prerequisite for using and developing the new technology in the economy. The Distance Education and Learning Technology Applications (DELTA) Programme of the ILO Turin Centre provides technical assistance and teacher courses on the use of distance learning, multimedia and ICT in education and training. In Latin America, IDB has supported correspondence, TV, radio and internet based approaches to training delivery. The World Bank is financing the African Virtual University (AVU) which delivers science and engineering (non-degree) programmes using television, and internet, in universities and colleges in 15 countries. However, interactivity remains a weakness of AVU, as African users are linked to resources only in the advanced countries, while there are no links between the participating African countries. The Bank's Creating Learning Networks for African Teachers Initiative encourages educational institutions to become learning and resource centres for their communities. Current bilateral initiatives to bridge the "digital divide", like the British funded Imfundo scheme, a public/ private partnership seeking to use ICTs in teacher training and education more widely in Africa, are likely to proliferate in the future.

The role of the ILO in technical cooperation in the human resources development area is likely to be reinforced by a number of concurrent developments. These include a sharpened focus by the ILO in pursuing its four new strategic objectives, in particular the objective of creating greater opportunities for women and men to secure decent employment. In pursuing this objective, the ILO promotes investment in knowledge, skills and employability and emphasizes consensus building and dialogue with social partners, and partnerships with international, regional and national institutions. Also, the ILO has a strong, international mandate to engage in technical cooperation that supports anti-poverty strategies and promotes equity in employment outcomes.

In addition to continued work in strengthening policy frameworks and improving the design and delivery of skill development programmes, ILO will, in a new activity, support constituents in designing policies and programmes that encourage increased investments in training. Other areas of future ILO technical cooperation include helping constituents apply learning and training packages tailored for enterprises, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises; supporting countries in developing national qualifications frameworks and systems for recognition of prior learning; programmes that use ICT in training and employment services; and applying various information kits, tools and practical guides to promote the adoption of best practices for employment and training services for members of groups with special needs. The latter activities will form elements of the ILO's inputs into inter-agency strategies for poverty alleviation.

Technical cooperation activities are likely to be sustainable, and have most impact, if they are designed and implemented in the context of dialogue between the social partners. The ILO has a strong comparative advantage in acting as the catalyst for tripartite policy making and institution-building. However, meaningful, result-oriented social dialogue inevitably demands that employers' and workers' organisations and other partners have the skills and capacity to understand and analyse alternatives and advance prescriptions for policy. The ILO has a major task ahead in assisting its constituents in developing countries with training and capacity building in this key area of economic and social policy making.

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Chapter 4 | Concluding remarks | Annex 2 | Annex 3 | Annex 4 ]