For countries and companies to make the most of emerging economic opportunities, increase productivity, and upgrade production in job rich sectors, the capacity to identify what skills will be needed to achieve these ends is essential. Yet, changing a skills training programme takes time; in fact it may take so long that when the time comes to implement the programme, skills may already be obsolete. This challenge is particularly true for skills related to exports as well as high value added markets.

In the Arab region, the ILO builds the skills anticipation capacity of social partners in targeted countries with its Strategies and Tools for Export and Diversification (ILO STED), in order to identify growing sectors, jobs in demand, and required competencies in a timely manner.