Set to promote skills development and job creation, the Inter-Country Quality Node on Technical and Vocational Skills Development (ICQN-TVSD), coordinated by Moussa Dosso, Minister of State of Côte d’Ivoire in partnership with ADEA, will from tomorrow hold a Ministerial Conference on “Providing Africa’s Youth with Skills and Training for Jobs” in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.
The two day conference to be officially opened by Prime Minister of Côte d’Ivoire, Daniel Kablan Duncan on 22 July, will be backed by some 25 African Ministers responsible for vocational training, employment and youth matters in their respective countries attending the event. Participant will also include 30 experts from various parts of the African continent and other regions of the world as well as representatives of technical and financial partners.
The event comes at a time when although Africa has recorded an annual economic growth of nearly five per cent over the last ten years, reports show that job creation is largely insufficient. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the World Bank, young people make up 60 per cent of the unemployed population, not counting those who are under-employed. Reports also indicate that between 2000 and 2007, Africa’s working population increased by 96 million while jobs increased by only 63 million and four out of five of these new jobs were created by the informal economy.
Nevertheless, the conference is expected to focus primarily on the pooling and sharing of pathways and modalities to improve through skills development and job creation, young African’s access to the world of work.
The organiser of the event ADEA’s Inter-Country Quality Node on Technical and Vocational Skills Development (ICQN-TVSD) was set up in 2010 was created to enable countries to share experiences, strategies and policies in the field of TVSD. Ultimately it seeks the effective implementation of policies and actions at the service of Africa’s accelerated and sustainable development.
The Ministerial Conference will be preceded on July 21 by a one-day experts’ meeting, to be attended also by the technical and financial partners. The meeting will share and analyze the training, workforce integration and job creation strategies that countries have begun to implement in order to address the real needs of the labour market. Actions taken by countries and their effectiveness will be discussed on the basis of reports produced on these by each country. The discussions will support the formulation and endorsement by the African Ministers of a Regional Action Plan to significantly facilitate youth’s access to employment.
The Ministers will adopt the Regional Action Plan (2014-2017) that will address youth employment through training and skills development and enhanced inter-country cooperation in these areas. Ministers will also decide on the institutionalization of the ICQN-TVSD as a permanent structure for inter-country cooperation on TVSD and define the ICQN-TVSD’s work program (2014-2017).
The experts’ meeting and Ministers’ Conference are organized by the Inter-Country Quality Country Node (ICQN) on Technical and Vocational skills Development (TVSD) in partnership with ADEA and with the support of the French Agency for Development (AFD), the African Development Bank (AfDB), the International Development Research Center (IDRC), the German Cooperation (GIZ), Luxemburg’s development agency (LuxDev), the Swiss Cooperation through NORRAG and the International Organization of La Francophonie (OIF).
The ICQN is led by the State Ministry for Employment, Social Affairs and Vocational Training of Côte d’Ivoire. Twenty-five countries from all the sub-regions of Africa, currently participate in the activities of the ICQN.
