The Regional Skills Programme: Taking stock and mapping the way forward
The current event is organized as follow-up to the 2012 meeting. It will provide an opportunity to take stock on the progress towards established goals, as well as re-affirm priorities and/or establish new priorities. It will also provide an opportunity to examine what works and what does not work with regard to knowledge sharing.
Background
The ILO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific formed the Regional Skills Programme (RSP) to respond to the skills development challenges confronting the countries in the Asia and Pacific region, aligned with skills development priorities under the Decent Work Country Programmes of member States. The Programme is supported by resources from the ILO and selected donors, currently the Government of Korea. The RSP builds upon the earlier work of both the Asia and Pacific Skills Development Programme (APSDEP) and the Regional Skills and Employability Programme (SKILLS-AP).
Community of Practice (CoP)
The Asia Pacific Skills and Employability Network (‘Skills & Employability’) is a community of practice (CoP) which operates under the overarching framework of the Regional Skills Programme in reaching out to partners and constituents. The CoP provides a web-based platform and an interactive space for exchanging and sharing knowledge and experiences on the pertinent topics related to skills and employability. It is also a one-stop access point to resources, training programmes, events and news on different aspects of skills development.The CoP, launched under the Asia-Pacific Knowledge Network on Decent Work, was established in 2009 in response to constituents’ requests for improved sharing of the ILO’s knowledge resources. The 2007 Asian Employment Forum noted that ILO needs “to ensure that tripartite constituents, partners, stakeholders and other significant actors have easy access to the knowledge products, expertise, services and tools they need to effectively contribute to the implementation of the Asian Decent Work Decade”.
Specifically, ‘Skills & Employability’ aims to:
- deliver quality results on skills development;
- provide easy access to recent knowledge products, expertise, service and tools;
- provide a forum for discussion and dialogue;
- identify and understand the needs of constituents and stakeholders; and
- connect people and their experiences to each other through building communities of practice.
In May 2012, a visioning event was organized to discuss the key skills challenges and priority areas for the RSP and examine how the Skills and Employability platforms can assist the constituents to better address these challenges and priorities through knowledge sharing (see Visioning Event on Managing Skills and Employability for Decent Work through Building a Community of Practice and a Roadmap for the Regional Skills Programme). The meeting was attended by 18 participants from India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Viet Nam, representing government, workers’ and employers’ organizations.
The meeting resulted in a concrete plan for the Regional Skills Programme and the Skills and Employability Network Community of Practice. During the event, the participants produced a roadmap for realizing the products and services related to the priority areas of work.
The specific objectives of the event are to:
- Share and leverage technical and practical knowledge on skills development;
- Catalyze new thinking and approaches on skills and employability issues in Asia and the Pacific region;
- Strengthen the capacity of skills institutions in Asia and the Pacific region to exchange information and expertise on skills development among members;
- Engage the participants to develop ‘Skills & Employability’ community of practice further;
- Develop/update action plan and priorities to guide the future work of the RSP.
Participants
Tripartite representatives will be invited from the following countries (these countries are the same as the participants in the previous event referred to above – this is to maintain continuity):- India
- Indonesia
- Philippines
- Sri Lanka
- Thailand
- Viet Nam