Innovative solutions for skills-based mobility across borders

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Background and rationale

The global labour market and skills demand are being reshaped by demographic change, geopolitical shifts, globalization, technological and green transitions, and migration. These forces generate skills shortages in some countries and skills surpluses or underemployment in others. Left unaddressed, such mismatches hamper productivity, growth and decent work; well-governed, skills-based mobility pathways can convert them into shared gains for origin and destination countries and for migrant workers themselves.

A skills-based mobility pathway an end-to-end system that begins with the anticipation of labour-market needs and the development of relevant skills — often before departure, through bilateral training partnerships — continues through fair and transparent recruitment and job matching, and is sustained by the ability of migrants to have their qualifications and competencies signalled, validated, recognized and, where appropriate, certified once they reach the destination country and, on return, in the country of origin. Recognition remains a critical link in this chain, but it is only one link: pathways also depend on the quality and labour-market relevance of the skills developed upstream, the integrity of the recruitment and matching processes that connect workers to jobs, and the institutional coordination that keeps these stages aligned with one another.

Building such pathways is a matter of fairness and an economic priority. Done well, they help address skills shortages, improve productivity, reduce skills underutilization, strengthen the developmental impact of migration for countries of origin, and support inclusive growth on both sides of the corridor.

Relevant international standards and frameworks

The International Labour Organization (ILO) and the international community have developed a body of instruments addressing the different stages of skills-based mobility pathways — from skills development and fair recruitment through to recognition and portability:

• The Human Resources Development Recommendation, 2004 (No. 195), which addresses human resources development broadly, including measures to promote recognition, certification and portability of skills for migrant workers.
• The Employment and Decent Work for Peace and Resilience Recommendation, 2017 (No. 205), which calls for mechanisms to recognize the skills and qualifications of refugees and other displaced persons as part of broader employment and livelihoods responses.
• The Migration for Employment Recommendation (Revised), 1949 (No. 86), whose Model Agreement encourages bilateral cooperation not only on recognition of occupational qualifications but on the organized movement of workers more broadly, including training and placement.
• The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, particularly Objective 18 (skills development and mutual recognition) and Objective 5 (enhancing availability and flexibility of pathways for regular migration), read together as complementary pillars of skills-based mobility.
• The ILO Multilateral Framework on Labour Migration (2006), which provides guidance spanning fair recruitment, skills development, skills matching, recognition and portability within a single governance framework.
• Bilateral and multilateral skills mobility partnership models — such as Global Skills Partnership arrangements — which explicitly link pre-departure training, employer-informed curricula, and recognition protocols within a single agreement.

Strategic interventions in skills-based mobility pathways

Current initiatives vary in scope, maturity and institutional mandate, and can be grouped along the pathway rather than treated as isolated instruments:

• Upstream skills development and training partnerships, including bilateral or transregional labour-mobility partnerships that co-design curricula with destination-country employers, align training with anticipated demand, and prepare workers before departure — exemplified by Global Skills Partnership–type arrangements.
• Fair recruitment and job-matching systems, including public employment services, digital labour-market information systems and matching platforms that connect trained workers to verified job opportunities while safeguarding against exploitative intermediation.
• Recognition, assessment and portability mechanisms, including regional or transnational interoperability standards, digital credential frameworks, common qualification frameworks, occupational trade testing, and migrant skills passports — particularly important where formal documentation does not fully capture a worker's competencies.
• Alternative pathways for document-deprived populations, including approaches for refugees and other forcibly displaced persons that help reconstruct education and work histories to support further study, employment or formal recognition procedures.
• Return and reintegration linkages, which extend the pathway concept beyond outward mobility to ensure skills acquired or certified abroad are recognized and usable in the country of origin upon return.

These interventions are most effective when integrated within a coherent labour migration governance framework — one that treats skills development, recruitment, matching, recognition and reintegration as interdependent stages of a single pathway rather than as separate, uncoordinated instruments.

Challenges

Despite international commitments, significant challenges persist across the pathway, not only at the recognition stage. Skills development efforts are not always demand-driven or aligned with destination-country labour markets. Recruitment and matching processes can be opaque or exploitative in the absence of strong fair-recruitment safeguards. Recognition mechanisms remain difficult to access, especially for asylum seekers, refugees and forcibly displaced persons, who face barriers linked to missing documentation, divergent qualification standards, complex procedures, costs, language requirements, discrimination or limited institutional capacity. The absence of bilateral or regional agreements spanning the full pathway — rather than recognition alone — compounds these gaps. As a result, migrants and refugees may experience skills underutilization, employment below their qualification level, delayed entry into decent work, or a disconnect between the skills they developed and the jobs ultimately available to them. These challenges are more pronounced where qualification and quality-assurance systems, including recognition of prior learning, are still developing, and they affect both destination and origin countries by undermining the developmental benefits of well-governed labour mobility.

Purpose of the Master Class

The Master Class aims to support governments, employers' and workers' organizations, education and training institutions, employment services and development partners in identifying practical approaches to strengthening skills-based mobility pathways for migrants, refugees and forcibly displaced persons — from pre-departure skills development through fair recruitment and matching to recognition, portability and reintegration. It will examine barriers along the full pathway, present selected policy and operational responses, and discuss how partnerships across sending and receiving countries can support fair mobility, decent work, skills utilization and social inclusion.

Key questions to be addressed

1. Why does building coherent skills-based mobility pathways matter for decent work, social inclusion and sustainable development?
2. What barriers arise at each stage of the pathway — skills development, fair recruitment and matching, recognition and portability — for migrants, refugees and asylum seekers?
3. Which tools and institutional arrangements are being used to support pre-departure training, skills assessment, recognition of prior learning, digital credentialing, labour-market matching and portability?
4. How can governments, employers' and workers' organizations, skills authorities, education and training institutions, employment services and international organizations collaborate across the full pathway rather than within isolated stages?
5. What lessons can be drawn from regional frameworks, bilateral skills mobility partnerships (including Global Skills Partnership–type models) and country-level initiatives, including experiences from the Global South?

By the end of the session, participants will have a clearer understanding of available approaches along the full skills mobility pathway, their limitations, and the institutional frameworks and stakeholder engagement needed to make these pathways more coherent, inclusive, credible and effective.

Agenda

Language: The working language of the webinar will be English.

Target groups

The target groups include education and training policymakers and administrators; employers' and workers' organizations; skills authorities and institutions; sector councils and TVET providers; public and private employment services and job-matching intermediaries; fair recruitment and labour migration professionals; migration and mobility-partnership industry leaders; international development organizations and NGOs; and researchers.