One of the greatest challenges for economic and social development
and for the improvement of people's life quality is ensuring "decent
work" to all the population. In today's world, this challenge
has gained top priority since the spread of globalisation and
technological changes have not only created wealth but they have
also increased unemployment, inequity and poverty.
Therefore, this new labour scenario becomes a definitive impact
on the building up of collective and individual identity. From
the collective point of view, the employment quantity and quality
of a society determines its level of productivity and competitiveness,
as well as its degree of inclusion and equity. As a consequence,
the generation of conditions that may fulfil men's and women's
right to "decent work" is an economic imperative and
a crucial factor in the fight against poverty. Additionally, it
demands that the objectives and different repertoires of active
and passive labour market policies complement each other and become
articulated in order to pursue the shared aim of achieving sustainable
and equitable economic and social development.
From the individual point of view, the access to employment is
essential to conceive and carry out a life project as well as
to integrate to society and the community. In order to overcome
employment reduction, ongoing changes in contents and the way
of doing things, uncertainty and current requirements of the labour
world, people need to make continuous and additional efforts to
learn and to identify opportunities and resources with a high
degree of autonomy. To achieve this, it is necessary to know oneself,
know one's reality and recognise and value one's abilities and
limitations, all of this with regards to the demands, characteristics
and perspectives of integration and labour development offered
by the economic and social environment.
Moreover, it should be admitted that for accessing work as well
as for social integration, a wide range of individual and social
competencies is required; but this does not imply whatsoever putting
the blame on those who lack such competencies and releasing the
system and socio-economic policies from their duty and responsibility
of offering opportunities. On the contrary, it shows the need
to consider the adjustment process between the new production
conditions and demands and the abilities and competencies of men
and women, as well as the challenges and opportunities posed by
this project to build a more including social and economic model,
as an articulated and interdependent whole. This junction leads
and refers to training policies for work since they have the responsibility
of becoming a convergence point, a space for articulation between
the needs and possibilities of the productive system and those
men and women who produce. Training for work should simultaneously
address its two main principles in order to advance in the fulfilment
of this integrating function: employment and people.
Training policies cannot possibly generate employment themselves,
let alone on their own. However, they have the ability to manage,
through an integrating and systemic approach, the knowledge, efforts
and resources of various actors and instances that gather together
in order to generate employment. In the same way, they cannot
assure people a job and even less a lifelong job, but they can
offer support to them so that they can change their passive status
- individuals depending on an external intervention to draw them
nearer to a scarce job offer - into an active status, where they
become detectors and builders of opportunities, capable of identifying
and developing their own employability strategies.
In the present context, employability refers to a set of competencies
and qualifications that reinforce people's ability to take advantage
of opportunities that may arise in order to find, keep or change
job or even create their own job, whether in a freelance modality
or in association with others and to adapt to technological evolution
and labour market conditions so as to remain active throughout
life. Employability, thus, has to do with processes that take
place at different levels: structural, economic, regulatory and
cultural. Affective and relational factors and the life history
of each person are part of their specific context. As a result,
there are differences and inequities in the possibilities of access
to resources, employment opportunities or the generation of productive
activities and the participation and decision-making concerning
issues related to their community or belonging group. In this
sense, a sustainable development that does not include the right
to training does not seem feasible. Therefore, assuring men and
women equal conditions and opportunities to access and remain
involved in education and training and avoiding and fighting against
any form of discrimination become an inescapable condition for
training for work policies to fulfil their reason of being. To
achieve this, the gender perspective has to be unavoidably included.
Incorporating the gender perspective in training policies means
articulating the double logics of:
- mainstreaming the gender perspective to assess the implications
that any action planned may have for men and women, whether
it is legislation, policies or programmes of all areas and at
all levels. Mainstreaming gender dimension leads to the integrity
of interventions and it implies focusing on the person as placed
and conditioned by his or her environment. Its purpose is to
achieve gender equity.
- focus on methodologies and actions to address the needs of
population groups affected by disadvantages and discrimination.
It leads to the implementation of current actions of positive
discrimination in order to overcome the disadvantages women
may have from the start and it seeks to give an answer to the
specific problems of each group, sector or region (training
for technologically innovating areas, for participation in development
organisations, either enterprises or trade unions, for micro
and small enterprises, for labour retraining, etc.).
For the rural environment, this concept of training as an articulator
of resources and possibilities for the environment and promoter
of the leading role and re-appreciation of roles and contributions
of individuals in development processes is particularly relevant
and necessary. It leads to include and address the conditions
and needs of local development and it works with the tasks and
competencies men and women employ in their productive activities
in order to appreciate them, strengthen them and innovate so as
to improve productivity and competitiveness.
When training for work is thus conceived, it becomes a tool to
work in a network, to build strategic alliances, promote social
dialogue and develop a strategy of active interaction between
the productive and social environment and between the family and
the community - given its strong influence on work availability
and possibilities for women.
Vocational training has a long and rich experience of intervention
worldwide and in Latin America in particular. These interventions
are mainly concerned with the logic of focus, that is, they aim
at supporting the labour integration of rural women and, especially,
micro entrepreneurial activities. They contribute to this objective
by offering good practice and successful learning to a new generation
of policies that aim at articulating and enhancing gender mainstreaming
with positive discrimination actions in order to improve and enhance
rural women's personal and labour life quality. Although this
orientation of policies has spread quickly, it still needs much
effort of methodological innovation, dissemination and analysis
of articulation and coordination strategies with policies concerning
local development, micro entrepreneurial strengthening, training
in new technologies, science and innovation applied to the territory,
support to productive chains, etc.
This gate has the purpose of contributing to this process,
by providing methodologies and strategies already validated in
other scenarios, directed to strengthening the employability and
citizenship participation capacity of men and women, paying special
attention to poor and vulnerable women, and disseminating experiences
regarding both specific and comprehensive interventions with the
ultimate goal of contributing to the achievement of further gender
equity and enhancing and appreciating women participation in rural
development.
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