Message at the Training of Trainers on Generate Your Business Idea and Start Your Business for IPEC partners

By Mr Lawrence Jeff Johnson, Director, ILO Country Office for the Philippines at the Training of Trainers on Generate Your Business Idea and Start Your Business for IPEC partners, Manila, Philippines, 1 June 2012

Greetings:

• Trainers and partners in the fight against child labour
• Ladies and gentlemen, magandang hapon sa inyong lahat (good afternoon to all of you)!

Let me first start by thanking each of you for taking the time to join us and for agreeing to complete the training course on ILO’s core entrepreneurship development modules.

Indeed, each of you has a crucial role in contributing to the global goal of ending the worst forms of child labour by 2016.

As trainers on entrepreneurship, you are in the business of empowering people and improving communities. You empower people which support them in making choices, take calculated and reasonable risks, which can in turn improve their lives and that of their families.

In fact, by doing this you are contributing to the attainment of decent and productive work for these families.

Entrepreneurship development is one of the cornerstones of the ILO’s decent work strategy. As the ILO Director-General Juan Somavia said, “no decent work strategy can be successful without encouraging entrepreneurship, innovation and productivity.”

Employment in the private sector today is driven by small and medium sized enterprises or (SMEs) in both developed and emerging economies. SMEs also tend to be a significant driver in terms of employment generation.

 

In the Philippines, there are about 775,000 SMEs providing jobs to more than 6 million workers.These SMEs play a crucial role in the development of the Philippine economy. According to the Labor Statistics Yearbook 2011, they represent 99.6 per cent of all businesses registered in the country and employ about 62.3 per cent.

In addition small and medium size establishments account for 32 per cent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP). People often turn to entrepreneurial activities to earn a living in order to support themselves and their loved-ones.

However, studies have shown that SMEs have high failure rates and face challenges in providing quality jobs. Clearly, something needs to be done to continuously upgrade the skill sets of SMEs and correspondingly the quality of the jobs created.

In the early 1980’s, the ILO began supporting entrepreneurship development by coming up with the first of the Start and Improve Your Business or SIYB modules, called Generate Your Business Idea. Soon after, advanced modules were developed to meet the growing demand of entrepreneurs.

Overall, our strategy has been to provide support to the needs of two groups of entrepreneurs – the entrepreneurs operating out of opportunity as well as those out of necessity.

Over the years and through this wide range of tools that were made available, the ILO has helped build national SME support structures in more than 100 countries, including the Philippines.

During this period, the ILO has developed considerable expertise, credibility, networks, tools and experiences in order to support start-ups as well as micro and small entrepreneurs.

In China alone, due mainly to its widespread adoption, over 4.5 million people were trained on these modules and as a result an estimated 2.7 million new jobs were generated, making it one of the biggest programmes of its kind.

There is a great potential in the Philippines to achieve a similar level of success. First, the foundation is in place and we believe it’s a strong foundation.

Currently, there are now more than 100 trainers coming from at least 50 institutions all over the country and we expect this number to grow in the coming years.

In addition, the Department of Education has adopted another ILO entrepreneurship module for the schools – Know About Business - KAB – and incorporated it in the new basic education curriculum.

In the next few years we also expect entrepreneurship skills development to be fully integrated in the vocational and technical skills training programme of the TESDA.

With support from the ILO, TESDA will train its national and provincial staff on SIYB sometime this year. The potential is also great for entrepreneurship development in the Philippines because of the demand side.

The demand for this set of skills in light of growing concerns over vulnerable employment, child labour and unemployed youth, will not go away.

In fact, it will increase over time unless we take clear and meaningful steps to address the fundamental cause.

Although the latest national statistics on child labour are to come out this June, the past two surveys reveal an increasing nominal trend – from 3.7 million in 1995 to 4 million in 2001.

 

We know that one of the main causes of child labour is poverty – poverty that is caused or perpetuated by the lack of decent and productive employment opportunities.

To effectively contribute to ending the worst forms of child labour, we will continue to take full advantage of the potential of entrepreneurship development.

We will work towards improving our materials so that they are better understood by our clients regardless of educational levels. We will also make entrepreneurship training services accessible.

Likewise, we will strive to expand the number of people trained to deliver this service. This is what we are continuing here today.

And so I call on you – our partners and constituents - to use your skills and know-how to reach out to child labourers and their families.

As such, we can help keep children in school and out of child labour so they are not forced to mortgage their future or that of their community or the country.

 

Through our work here today we will strive to offer better alternatives to their parents in order to help lift themselves and their families out of poverty through decent and productive work.

Moreover, we can help the economy grow and which in turn can create additional decent and productive employment opportunities.

As I close, I hope that we are actually opening a new chapter in your life as trainers and as partners in the fight against child labour, so let me wish you all the success in your future endeavours.

By working together, we can have a “Child-Labour Free Philippines” thereby contribute to the global goal of ending the worst forms of child labour by 2016.

Thank you and Mabuhay!