Plan and program proposal for the two year period 2006-2007

This plan and program proposal for the two year period 2006-2007 was approved in the 37th Meeting of the Technical Committee of Cinterfor/ILO, Dominican Republic, 19-21 2005

The transformation taking place in the world of work is confronting governments and also employers’ and workers’ organizations with the need to continue adapting their organizational schemes and their policies, including those that have to do with vocational training, so as to contribute to reducing the decent work deficit, combating poverty and attaining globalization with social justice.

In this situation, vocational training and other kinds of education play a crucial role: they constitute an indispensable tool to respond to the challenges of competitiveness, the effective promotion of employability and social integration, and thus make a contribution to creating decent jobs in the lives of people, families, enterprises and communities.

It is being recognized more and more in national development policies that human talent is an indispensable factor in the production function. This is acknowledged in Recommendation 195, which was recently promulgated by the ILO. It is not possible to have highly effective competitive strategies without clear policies and programmes for developing workers’ capacities and knowledge, and also their effective integration into entrepreneurial and social ambits. In short, to increase employment and economic activity in the region it is essential to have a clear framework of training policies.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, young people move into the world of work at an early age, but not enough jobs are being created so they tend to be concentrated in precarious employment with low productivity in the informal economy. This makes it even more necessary to have clear and robust public policies for the labour market, policies in which vocational training plays a vital strategic role because it can become a pro-active tool to coordinate actors and resources to foster sustainable and equitable economic and social development.

It is clear from the numerous national experiences that are under way that this role means vocational training has become a privileged ambit for social dialogue in its many forms (bipartite, tripartite, sectoral, local, and so on), and also for developing the abilities of unions, employer´s organizations, ministries of labour and vocational training institutions to take effective action.

In recent years, vocational training institutions in the region have shown themselves able to maintain and improve their service to workers of both sexes. Their programmes have the dual objectives of promoting production through sectoral and local strategies and of working in the social ambit by catering to population groups that are afflicted with unemployment and a lack of labour qualifications. In order to gear the training offer to sectors using the latest technology, training centres and schools have undertaken a complete overhaul, re-working their programmes, acquiring new didactic equipment and constantly keeping their teachers up to date on the latest developments in their fields.

However, in order to respond to the accelerated rhythm of change and to the new challenges that have appeared because of economic integration, insertion in the world economy, the need for decent jobs, endogenous development and so on, training
needs institutions that are agile and programmes that are geared to quality, relevance and equity.

Cinterfor/ILO’s work programme is geared to strengthening training as an essential component in a range of policies that must converge in order for decent work to become a guiding principle in national economic, social and environmental strategies.

This means formulating solid public training policies to promote better and more equitable access for young people, women who are vulnerable or living in poverty, and unemployed adults of both sexes to quality training programmes that are relevant.

It also means developing training programmes that foster national and regional competitiveness and productivity, and it means strengthening the great potential of training as a privileged ambit for tripartite systems, social dialogue, and to reinforce the capacity of governments and employers’ and workers’ organizations in their participation in the formulation of training policies and in the planning and management of training in the countries in the Americas.

Cinterfor/ILO will continue to help strengthen the institutional structures of national vocational training bodies, ministries of labour, and employers’ and workers’ organizations in Latin America, the Caribbean and Spain with the aim of enhancing their competencies for the design, planning and operation of training, and thus improve the quality, relevance and equity of their training activities in the face of the current challenges in terms of the productivity and competitiveness of people, enterprises, communities and countries. Likewise it will continue to maintain a special emphasis from the perspective of the institutional organization of training on theneed to give specific attention to vast underprivileged social sectors to improve their employability.

The main objective of the programme for 2006 and 2007 is to stimulate the design and management of training policies whose central core is quality, relevance and equity, and to consolidate training systems, raise investment in training, and foster the planning and execution of programmes that will be able to suitably respond to the current challenges as regards competitiveness, productivity and employability.

These policies and programmes will have to be designed and implemented in a context defined by international development objectives so as to try to make globalization an integrating and equitable phenomenon in line with the goals and postulates of the Millennium Declaration and in particular with what is laid down in ILO Recommendation 195 concerning human resources development: education, training and lifelong learning.

Cinterfor’s work to foster the development of training is a solid and direct contribution to one of the four pillars that are the foundation of the ILO’s objective of attaining decent work, that is to say of creating better opportunities for men and for women to have equal access to decent jobs and decent income, and this falls within the guidelines of Recommendation 195 about human resources development: education, training and lifelong learning. The Centre’s work programme follows the regional strategy established by the regional office for Latin America and the Caribbean, and especially the priorities of the Training and Employability Department (SKILLS) in an ILO policy of integration, and the priority demands formulated by
the Member States.

In Cinterfor’s work programme for 2006 and 2007 three main priorities have been defined, and these are shown in the diagram below.

CINTERFOR’S PROGRAMME
COORDINATED WITH THE BASIC PILLARS OF THE ILO

WORK PROGRAMME 2006 - 2007