Towards Skills Development For Pro-poor Growth Enhancing The

Economic Development and Employment Division (41) Technical and Vocational Education and Training Section (4115) Sector Project: "Innovative and Integrating Approaches to International Cooperation in Technical and Vocational Education and Training"

Work in Progress Towards Skills Development for Pro-Poor Growth: Enhancing the chances for gainful (self-) employment and improved quality of life

Edda Grunwald Marian Nell Janet Shapiro Eschborn, November 2003 / Revised December 2004

TOWARDS SKILLS DEVELOPMENT FOR PRO-POOR GROWTH: Enhancing the chances for gainful (self-) employment and improved quality of life

PURPOSE AND SUMMARY The purpose of this paper is to provide some guiding principles to support development project planners and implementers in conceptualising and implementing pro-poorgrowth-oriented vocational education and training (VET) initiatives in developing countries. The paper looks first at current thinking around pro-poor growth. With this as the overall context, it then considers the specific role, or potential role of VET/skills development in supporting pro-poor growth, and at some of the problems encountered by VET thus far in trying to make a difference in poverty reduction. The paper is seen as an ongoing work-in-progress. Suggestions and Examples are given as a starting point: •

Suggestions are made for reconceptualising the issues so that VET is able to make a more significant difference.

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Examples are given of projects and interventions that are already working within the very fluid parameters of the changing debate.

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The paper suggests “Nine generic building blocks for a VET intervention aimed at pro-poor growth”.

Finally, the paper attempts to draw the discussion together in suggested guidelines for those practitioners conceptualising and implementing VET programmes in the developing world at the current time. Some specific acknowledgements are given in the course of the paper. However, the paper is, in fact, the result of discussion and debates with many people working in the field to whom our gratitude is enormous. Together we are trying to push the boundaries of understanding and implementation of VET so that it can fulfil its enormous potential. November 2003

Edda Grunwald Marian Nell Janet Shapiro

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Note to the December 2004 revision:

This paper was always meant to be a “work in progress”. Since it was made available in November 2003, we have been fortunate to receive feedback from a number of sources. At the same time, the debates and discussion, both within GTZ and outside of it in the wider development arena, have moved on. Although much in the original paper still remains relevant and important - especially for poverty reduction oriented vocational education and training (PROVET)1, there are also whole new areas of significance to be thought about and debated, and different ways of thinking about some of the issues raised in the original paper. Our own thinking, informed by ongoing reading and experience in the field, has also clarified. We have, therefore, written a new paper which encompasses many of the thoughts and ideas that came from those who read the first paper, as well as our own growing understanding of the issues. However, as the first paper still remains relevant and is quoted in the 2004 paper, it is, with some minor changes, presented here. We hope people continue to fine it useful. The focus of the first paper is on starting a skills development initiative. The focus in the second paper is on understanding how skills development programmes fit into a broader understanding of poverty reduction approaches.

December 2004

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Edda Grunwald Marian Nell Janet Shapiro

The term means VET that has a direct impact on poverty reduction. Such interventions use bottom up approaches, in contrast to interventions which emphasise indirect impact, hoping for a trickle down effect from economic growth generated through interventions which work on overall or mainly structural aspects.

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CONTENTS ACRONYMS.......................................................................................................iv 1.

POVERTY AND PRO-POOR GROWTH.................................................... 1

2.

THE ROLE OF SKILLS DEVELOPMENT IN PRO-POOR GROWTH........ 5

2.1 Crisis in VET .............................................................................................. 5 2.2 Formal and non-formal education, formal and informal economic sectors ....................................................................................................... 6 2.3 Three categories of poverty ....................................................................... 8 2.4 The emphasis on enterprise-based training ............................................. 13

3.

THE NINE GENERIC BUILDING BLOCKS FOR A VET INTERVENTION AIMED AT PRO-POOR GROWTH .............................. 16

3.1 An enabling environment ......................................................................... 17 3.2 Appropriate financing mechanisms .......................................................... 18 3.3 Adequate infrastructure............................................................................ 20 3.4 Linkages................................................................................................... 22 3.5 Networks .................................................................................................. 23 3.6 Empowerment content ............................................................................. 26 3.7 Appropriate methodology ......................................................................... 27 3.8 Complementarity...................................................................................... 28 3.9 Monitoring and evaluation ........................................................................ 29

4.

GUIDELINES ........................................................................................... 31

5.

LITERATURE........................................................................................... 36

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ACRONYMS AURA ..........................Commissioning Framework for German Technical Cooperation BAFIS..........................Employment oriented Vocational Training BESD ..........................Basic Entrepreneurial Skills Development DAC ............................Development Assistance Committee DfID.............................Department for International Development EMVET........................Entrepreneurial Management for Vocational Education and Training FASP…………………..Focal Area Strategy Paper ICT ..............................Information and Communication Technology LDC.............................Local Development Centre LearnNet……………….Learning Networks MDA ............................Mineworkers Development Agency NUM............................National Union of Mineworkers OECD..........................Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development PROVET .....................Poverty Reduction Oriented Vocational Education and Training PTC.............................Provincial Technical College SDC ............................Swiss Development Corporation SDRA ..........................Skills Development for Rural Areas SL ...............................Sustainable Livelihoods SMME .........................Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises SWAp.........................Sector-wide Approaches VET .............................Vocational Education and Training VTC.............................Vocational Training Centre

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1.

POVERTY AND PRO-POOR GROWTH1

Increasingly, poverty reduction (with the intention of eventual eradication) has become the central aim of development efforts and the focus of development agencies in developing countries and of the national governments of these countries. Poverty reduction is seen as the outcome of what is termed pro-poor growth. As Vocational Education and Training (VET)2 can also contribute to pro-poor growth, it is important to locate it in the current debates and understandings. The analysis of poverty has shifted from an incomes-based understanding of poverty, to recognition that poverty is a multi-dimensional challenge. In the Guidelines on Poverty Reduction of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) poverty is seen as denoting people’s exclusion from socially adequate living standards and as encompassing a range of deprivations. The dimensions of poverty, as defined by the DAC document, cover certain distinct aspects of human capabilities: ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Economic (income, livelihoods, decent work); Human (health, education); Political (empowerment, rights voice); Socio-cultural (status, dignity); Protective (security, risk vulnerability).

Cross-cutting issues, that impact on poverty reduction are gender balance and sustaining the natural resource base. Enlarging on this, the manifestations of poverty can be seen in lack of income and productive resources sufficient to ensure sustainable livelihoods hunger and malnutrition, ill health limited or lack of access to education and other basic services increased morbidity and mortality from illness homelessness and inadequate housing unsafe environments social discrimination and exclusion. To sum it up: Poverty is characterised by a lack of participation in decision-making and in civil, social and cultural life. This holds true especially for women who bear a disproportionate burden of poverty. Children growing up in poverty are often permanently disadvantaged, perpetuating the

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In the 2004 Paper we focus more on pro-poor development and explain the difference. In the 2004 Paper, the emphasis is on skills development rather than VET and the difference is explained in more detail.

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cycle into the next generation. The following definition is useful in discussing issues that are relevant to this paper: Poverty exists when an individual’s or a household’s access to income, jobs and/or infrastructure is inadequate or sufficiently unequal to prohibit full access to opportunities in society. The condition of poverty is caused by a combination of social, economic, spatial, environmental and political factors. Due to the multiplicity of causal factors and their spatial dynamics, individuals and households may move in and out of poverty depending on stages in life-cycle and shifting political economy patterns. Poverty is therefore much more than a lack of adequate income.3 Broadly defined, Pro-Poor Growth is growth that benefits the poor and gives them more access to economic opportunities.4 Klasen (see footnote) in a thoughtful article on pro-poor growth, goes on to refine this definition, adding that, for him: ♦ Pro-poor growth must benefit the poor disproportionately; ♦ Pro-poor growth requires that asset inequality be addressed as a priority (this implies material assets such as land, as well as equity in human capital such as health and education). ♦ Pro-poor growth must address gender inequality.5 ♦ Pro-poor growth must focus on rural areas, improve incomes and productivity in agriculture, and off-farm activities and make intensive use of labour to combat both under- and unemployment.6 In general, pro-poor growth should be particularly concentrated in geographic pockets of deep poverty.

For our purposes, in discussing skills development, Klasen’s statement that “the extent to which growth will be pro-poor will depend also greatly on the amount of human capital the poor possess” is significant. He believes that “heavy investment in the human capital of the poor will yield two benefits on poverty reduction. It will increase economic growth and it will make growth more pro-poor”. Our immediate concern is with vocational education and training (VET) as an instrument of pro-poor growth through investing in building human capital. However, given a multi-dimensional definition of poverty, it is no longer sufficient simply to look at skills training as providing access for the poor to income generating skills:

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From Parnell and Pieterse 1999, quoted in: ‘Defining Poverty’, Pieterse and van Donk - OD Debate, Volume 10, no 1, March 2003. 4 From Stephan Klasen’s article: In search of the Holy Grail: How to Achieve Pro-poor Growth? 5 So, for example, female literacy levels have been shown to have a high impact on poverty reduction. 6 The vast majority of the poor in developing countries live in rural areas, although the needs of the poor in urban areas must also be addressed.

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We need to look more widely at issues of organisation, reducing vulnerability and increasing resilience, providing adequate infrastructure, strengthening networks and increasing the ability of the poor to voice their needs.

Within this context, the notion of empowerment needs to be understood beyond its rhetorical value. Empowerment can be defined as the “expansion of assets and capabilities of poor people to participate in, negotiate with, influence, control, and hold accountable, institutions that affect their lives”.7 As poverty is multi-dimensional, poor people need skills at both the individual level and at the collective level. They need skills to generate income and to lead a healthy life; they need the ability to organise and mobilise to take collective action to address their problems.

For poor people to be empowered in the context of encouraging pro-poor growth, interventions are needed at the macro, meso and micro levels. A recent GTZ paper8 looks at capacity development as change processes at the level of individuals (micro), organisations (meso) and framework conditions (institutions and policies which would correspond with the macro level) to strengthen the abilities or capacities of individuals, organisations and societies to make “effective and efficient use of resources, in order to achieve their own goals on a sustainable basis”. This is an important understanding in looking at what VET means in the current GTZ context especially under a pro-poor growth orientation. It will extend the boundaries of a more traditional understanding of VET. The sustainable livelihood (SL) approach builds on existing best practice in how to provide sustainable pro-poor development. The SL approach contains certain important principles for those involved in VET. These include: ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

People-centredness Empowerment A responsive and participatory approach An holistic approach which recognises the inter-relationships between different aspects of people’s lives ♦ Sustainability in economic, institutional, social and environmental terms ♦ The need to build on people’s strengths and not just focus on their problems ♦ The need to work at multiple levels: micro-level activity should feed into development policy and institutional development, macro- and meso-level structures and processes should support people to build on their strengths

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From Deepa Naryan’s Empowerment and Poverty Reduction: A Sourcebook, The World Bank. Policy Paper No 1, Strategic Corporate Development Unit, Policy and Strategy Section – Ricardo Gomez; March 2003

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♦ Recognition that poor people are not one homogenous group, and a commitment to understanding the differences in terms of strengths, vulnerabilities, organisation and so on ♦ Recognition that poverty reduction requires long-term commitments and a flexible approach to providing support.9 One final point here: Work in the context of VET needs to be linked to Sector-Wide Approaches (SWAps). SWAps focus on the overall effectiveness of a particular sector, such as education, in addressing what has currently been defined as the major development challenge: poverty. They combine institutional development, policy dialogue and service delivery, and they are a response to perceived short-comings of project-led approaches to development aid. The intention of SWAps is to encourage national ownership of development processes, to integrate government and donor support within a coherent planning, management and expenditure framework, along lines determined by national priorities, and to emphasise capacity building so that government systems can sustain ongoing development. A SWAp does not exclude cross-sector co-operation and, indeed, given the multi-dimensional nature of poverty, cross-sector co-operation seems to be a requirement. This is very much the case with VET which provides a direct link between the world of learning and the world of work and which has the potential to cross the divide between formal and non-formal training, giving it a flexibility that could be invaluable in the context of a pro-poor growth approach.

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This section is based on an article entitled “Poverty and Sustainable Livelihoods” in: OD Debate Vol 10, No 1, March 2003.

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2.

THE ROLE OF SKILLS DEVELOPMENT IN PRO-POOR GROWTH

The above analysis of the challenges in pro-poor growth approaches indicate that there is a role for VET that goes beyond the traditional provision of technical skills training and which encompasses a broad range of capacity development and support interventions to enable countries to meet the demands of a pro-poor growth agenda. If this is linked to an SL approach, it further expands the possibilities for VET that is able to meet the demand, inherent in the situation, for flexibility, innovation and creativity.

2.1

Crisis in VET

The approaches discussed above recognise the need for concerted efforts to build the human assets and capabilities of poor people. In the past, VET initiatives have tended to focus on the provision of technical training for people who will be employed in the formal sector of the economy. As John Grierson points out in his book Where There is No Job10, this emphasis does not take into account the three crises of vocational training: ♦ The crisis of cost; ♦ The crisis of relevance; and ♦ The crisis of equity. All of these crises relate directly to the role of VET in pro-poor growth where VET interventions are premised on prioritising the needs of the poor. The crisis of cost comes about because vocational training as traditionally conceived is inherently expensive. It involves infrastructure, equipment, training materials, and institutional and personal overheads, usually for a fairly lengthy period of time. A large proportion of these costs is fixed. Unit costs become very expensive, particularly with declining levels of enrolment and high drop-out rates. These are, certainly in part, due to low post-training placement rates and limited application of skills taught during training. Institutions cannot be economically viable on this basis. The crisis of relevance reflects an increasing mismatch between the training offered by vocational training programmes and the skills needed for dynamic competitive markets. Relevance refers to the degree to which the skills acquired in vocational training programmes can be used to meet the needs and aspirations of those who undergo training. If training is to be relevant, it must attract people by responding to their aspirations and their understanding of their own situation, and serve them by imparting skills that help them gain access to, and compete in, local markets. While we 10

SKAT, 1997

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agree with Grierson that, ultimately, the principal measure of relevance is “jobs”, whether as an employee or through self-employment, in the context of a broader understanding of pro-poor growth and how it can best be achieved, this can be fairly widely interpreted.

Example: In a BMZ/GTZ project in Swaziland aimed at providing skills to a group of crafters to enable them to generate a better income, one of the important by-products was the development of a sense of collective strength. After the skills part of the training was complete, the crafters decided to form a self-help association and the project provided some support and organisational training to them in achieving this.

The crisis of equity is of specific concern in the context of a pro-poor growth approach. Vocational training programmes are often difficult to access and use, especially for the poor. Barriers to access for the poor could be age, education, gender, literacy levels, fees and physical proximity. There may also be barriers to participation, even once access is gained. The level, style and language, teaching methods, course schedules, course structure, type of training on offer, and cultural considerations may all be barriers to participation. Vocational training programmes that are meant to be accessible for the poor need to be designed flexibly to reflect the needs and situation of those they are meant to serve.

2.2

Formal and non-formal education, formal and informal economic sectors

So far, we have not touched on two distinctions that are often made in the more recent literature on VET: ♦ The distinction between formal and non-formal education and training; and ♦ The distinction between training for the formal sector and training for / in the informal sector. Non-formal education and training usually takes place outside of a formal institutional framework and curriculum, often within a work or community environment. There are ongoing debates about whether or not to provide accreditation for nonformal education and training within the overall education system of a country. Such accreditation adds to expense and may reduce the flexibility which is one of the advantages of non-formal education. One argument for accreditation is that it provides some kind of quality control with regard to the provider. However, people provide their own quality control by “talking with their feet” in most cases. In other words, if a course or programme does not provide them with something useful, they will not use the provider again, and will share

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their dissatisfaction with other potential users. Market forces will determine quality. The exception to this is when market forces do not apply because of e.g. donor intervention. Where courses are offered free, people may attend them just because they are there, rather than out of genuine need or reports of learner satisfaction. In this case, the training becomes supply-led rather than demand-led and the market forces are distorted. The lesson from this is that non-formal training should be as cheap as possible (to provide and to purchase), while still giving useful input. Summarised, this means: as much as is necessary but no more. Where some form of accreditation is useful is when a person wants to move from the non-formal education and training system to the formal system, and/or wants some form of accreditation to “prove” competence. So, for example, a motor mechanic who has learned his or her skills through traditional apprenticeship may aspire to get a formal qualification so that s/he can charge more for services, and service a more affluent clientele. (At the lower end of the market, people are far more concerned with “does s/he do the job well enough?” than with qualifications for which they would have to pay more.) Increasingly, institutions within the formal sector, from colleges to universities, are acknowledging the importance of recognising prior learning as an acceptable entry point and are willing to test and accept entrants to the formal system on this basis. It is important to remember that it is not necessary or possible or meaningful to accredit some of the skills which will further pro-poor growth. So, for example, the ability to develop a personal vision for an enhanced quality of life is very empowering and may make a distinct difference to how people conduct their lives, but reducing this ability to a certificate of some sort does not add anything to its intrinsic value.11 The distinction between the formal and informal economic sector seems increasingly to be of less importance as people move fairly fluidly along a continuum of poverty and wealth. Their needs at any one time may encompass one or both forms of training, and they may, at different times, be part of the formal or part of the informal sector. There are, after all, poor people in the modern or formal sector and those who are not-so-poor in the traditional or informal sector.12

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Many people like to have certificates as proof that they have participated in a programme or course, and there is no reason not to provide these. However, the meaning lies in the personal outcomes of such training or capacity development and not in the certificate. 12 Today most governments recognise the important role that the formal education sector has to play at the basic primary level in giving young people a sound literacy, numeracy and problemsolving basis that will stand them in good stead in the labour market. Hence the emphasis in the educational SWAps on compulsory primary school education for all. However, in many countries, there is still an enormous backlog of those who did not receive sound basic primary education.

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Example:

In Cambodia, there is no “official” informal sector as all enterprises pay license fees of some kind. Within the SMME sector, however, there is a huge range of enterprises, varying from one person survivalist businesses to flourishing medium-sized family businesses, able to access loans as big as $ 200 000 to “grow” their enterprises.

If one defines the informal sector as the sector of the economy in which people largely “make their own jobs” and through that are sometimes able to employ and train others, then it is likely that this sector will continue to grow and it already is responsible for more than 80% of (self-) employment in many developing countries. It should, therefore be a significant site of VET. Of more importance than these distinctions may be the ability of a VET system to provide what is needed to people, in the most appropriate form, when they need it, with the intention of building the capacity for flexibility and resilience. In a single working life-time, it is likely that people will move from one sector to the next, and that the range of skills they need will, at times, best be met through formal education and training, and at others, through informal methods.

Example: In Uganda, students trained at government technical training institutions using the “sandwich method” are now being allowed to get their practical training through placements in relevant enterprises in the informal sector. In the sandwich method, formal classroom-based training is interspersed with on-the-job training. In Uganda, there was recognition that, as the formal sector shrinks, graduates along a continuum of training options will need to look at informal sector options as well as traditional wage employment in the formal sector. This made the informal sector placements for the practical work a useful option.

2.3

Three categories of poverty

Within GTZ, three distinctions between reasons for, or causes of, poverty are discussed (although there is clearly some overlap): Category 1: Poverty through modernisation. This happens when something in the economic dynamics of the society excludes those who, formerly, were part of the economic mainstream. So, for example, workers may lose their jobs when industry becomes more mechanised. Structural adjustment policies in many developing countries have led to the retrenchment of many former government employees. People who are poor as a result of modernisation usually have relatively good educational backgrounds, they may have retrenchment settlements, and their options for “catching up” are relatively good.

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Category 2: Poverty through marginalisation. This kind of poverty happens when, through legislation or regulation or simply neglect, or through changes in market demands, certain areas (geographical or sub-sector) of the economy and certain forms of economic activity are marginalised. The creation of business nodal points in certain geographical areas may disadvantage other areas, or skilled service providers may become deskilled as technology or globalisation outstrips them (as in the case of piece workers in the garment industry). In situations such as these, people have some assets to help them cope with modernisation, but they may also be able to use the growth potential of the informal sector itself, because they know and understand “the system”.13 Category 3: Poverty through lack of adaptation in a changing environment. This may happen because people who have operated in the informal sector cannot make the transition to the modern sector, out of lack of opportunity or lack of skill or capacity or lack of will. It is this kind of poverty that often afflicts traditional rural people engaged in agricultural pursuits. People in such situations do not have an obvious way of plugging into the more mainstream economies, whether formal or informal. They are often under-employed. Their survival techniques depend heavily on their own individual ingenuity and on their family and community networks. One form of adaptation is migration to urban areas, but even there, family and community networks remain important. There is potential for people in Category 3 to engage more pro-actively in an increasingly dynamic informal sector and even, longer-term, to forge links with more formal enterprises as the distinctions between formal and informal sector blur along a continuum.

Example of an intervention in Category 1: In South Africa, thousands of mineworkers have lost their jobs since the 1980s because of changes in the economy. South Africa has a strong labour movement and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) set up the Mineworkers Development Agency (MDA). Its mission was to increase the incomes of existing and ex-mineworkers and their families. At the same time, government was keen to transform the economy and strengthen black-owned SMMEs and to create new jobs for black people through further SME development. Mining companies were also keen to be seen transferring assets to, or directly funding, ex-mineworkers. DfID (Department for International Development, Britain) provided funds for technical assistance to MDA, and initial operating costs for MDA’s programme to develop new Local Development Centres (LDCs) in the areas where ex-mineworkers lived. One of the services offered by the MDA at these centres was training/skills development. The LDCs have training contracts from the government and the private sector; they also sell and 13

Sometimes, workers have been so deskilled, and what they know has been so broken down into isolated units, that they cannot build on their skills to do anything else. Apparently this is the case with the Cambodian garment workers.

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hire equipment and input supplies and marketing services. The MDA is comparatively well-resourced and well-led and benefits from being embedded within a strong and growing institution (NUM). It has multiple stakeholders, several of which have significant resources that can be used by the MDA. The MDA strategy is to transfer economic resources from better-resourced stakeholders to support the social and economic development of those of its members who are in need. Macro level: The South African government framework is supportive of SMMEs and concerned to develop systems and structures that alleviate the problems of poverty caused by economic dynamics. South Africa has progressive labour legislation which ensures that retrenched mineworkers have retrenchment packages which, with business advice and training, can be reinvested in the SMME sector. NUM has developed a pioneering national initiative to help it deal systematically with unemployment and to build on the potential of the informal sector. Meso level: The LDCs are providing an intermediary structure to ensure that support and re-training are available. Micro-level: Ex-miners are being given the support and re-training needed to initiate their own businesses and at least maintain their earning capacity.

Example of an intervention in Category 2: In Zimbabwe, the BMZ/GTZ ISTARN project initiated a traditional apprenticeship project. Traditional apprenticeship is a widespread practice in many developing countries. For centuries people have acquired skills by informally apprenticing themselves to smallscale business enterprises which offer manufacturing or service skills. The ISTARN project sought to add value to this practice without interfering with it excessively. It did this by offering would-be apprentices a few weeks of more formal training in a skill, once they had themselves found placements. The range of skills training offered was fairly limited but included traditional manufacturing such as carpentry, and new skills such as motor mechanics. This input was offered at the beginning of the training period and during the training period. At the end of the training period, apprentices were offered a brief period of business training. One of the problems of the traditional apprenticeship system is that it does not encourage innovation or the use of new techniques. The “masters” or existing business owners tend to be quite conservative and to do things the way they have always done them. Training, which was done using the facilities of underutilised training centres, was intended to overcome this. The project was very successful and was institutionalised through local technical colleges in a number of locations in Zimbabwe. Graduates of the process were very successful in getting jobs or setting up their own businesses. The recent political and economic problems in Zimbabwe may, however, have impacted negatively on the initiatives.

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Macro level: The project initially had the support of the relevant ministry. It was combined with Business Development Services and there was government approval to use ministry people to be trained to provide these services. Meso level: The Vocational Training Centres (VTCs) provided a base for the training and then took over the running of the programme in local areas. Staff personnel were given training to enable them to make the kind of adaptations to their teaching methods that were needed in working at a more informal level. Appropriate materials were developed. Micro level: Participants were encouraged to be independent and entrepreneurial from the start. Training was largely enterprise-based and apprentices had the opportunity not only to learn trade and business skills, but also to make business linkages in the context of the local market, including getting knowledge about raw material suppliers and customers. The “masters” found the pre-training useful as the apprentices did less damage and were more useful in the early period of the apprenticeship. The project also gave them access to new ideas.

Example of an intervention in Category 3: In the Ivory Coast, a Rural Training Network project is supported by BMZ/GTZ, in conjunction with the Ministry of Agriculture, the Republic of France, The World Bank and the African Development Bank. It is a non-formal training and education programme which deals with skills development and basic know-how in relevant fields so that participants can respond to changes and opportunities, general education and training such as literacy programmes, management and organisational training, and training in accessing information. The programme prepares participants so that they can use the support of the normal agricultural extension services. It is gender-sensitive and low cost. People can access it without prior certificates. The intention is to build the training “centres” within a village as private associations of users that will organise and manage the programme in their areas, using existing infrastructure (broadly defined). The villages then form an inter-village association where funding issues are dealt with. There is also a regional level of governance, made up of representatives from the inter-village associations. Up to 80% of training fees are subsidised by public funds. Participants are mainly small scale farmers, groups of youth, members of co-operatives etc. Macro level: Government has created a framework through which national policy, the design of the training system, donor co-ordination, funding and co-ordination can take place. Meso level: Regional structures are being developed for information exchange and financial decision-making and management. Micro-level: Local training groups (450 in 2001) and associations and their needs are at the centre of the intervention which is demand-driven.

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Depending on the purpose, how one designs a VET programme and the kind of interventions needed will differ, although considerable overlap is likely. So, for example, entrepreneurial and business skills are likely to be important for all three categories. Skills in building on community and family networks (also known as “livelihood coalitions”) are likely to be particularly significant in the third category, skills in forming formal associations and self-help groups will be important to the first and second categories, skills in accessing micro-loans in the first and, to some degree, in the second categories, and so on. What is required in terms of national government intervention and regulation will also differ between the categories, as will the approach taken by donor governments. What is required in terms of financing for VET will differ and so will needs in terms of formal and non-formal education, accreditation, location of training, marketing of training, exactly how broadly training is defined, how gender imbalances need to be addressed etc. Thus, the challenge for development agencies is to move out of the “box” of a “formula for VET”, to be prepared to be responsive and innovative, and to use the VET base to meet the needs of people for skills development and lifelong learning across all three poverty categories in a flexible and cost effective manner. The intention in VET aimed at pro-poor development should, to the extent possible, be to build on and support initiatives that have local origins that fit within the SWAp of the host country, and that encompass a broader empowerment intent than simply skills development. In the context of a progression in the understanding of the heterogeneous nature of the causes and implications of poverty, it is also possible to see appropriate skills development interventions along a continuum. There is a place for employmentoriented vocational training even in the informal sector (e.g. the GTZ BAFIS programme) at one end of the continuum, serving a relatively small group of people who may be able to find employment in the informal sector, or even access employment opportunities in the formal sector. It is likely that those in Category 1 of the poverty-cause classification will benefit most from such an approach. Re-training for other positions for those, who become redundant as a result of modernisation, falls along the continuum at this point. In more recent times, however, the emphasis has shifted to basic entrepreneurial skills development (BESD), with the understanding that people are going to have, on the whole, to create their own jobs. In this approach, entrepreneurial training is combined with skills training. This kind of training often works with both Categories 1 and 2, where people already have links to the modern sector and, with some support, are able to exploit their knowledge and understanding to carve out commercially viable space for themselves. Even more recently, people concerned about skills development, particularly for Category 3, have begun to grapple with the complexities of skills development in, for example, traditional rural communities, where people are struggling to adapt to changing modern conditions. In such communities, one of the few major assets that people have in combating poverty is family, group, community affiliation. A suggested

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training approach here is “solution-oriented learner-networks” (or LearnNet). In these situations, the challenges can be technical, business management, infrastructural, individual. There is no ready made training “quick-fix”. What is needed is a multi-pronged approach that supports families, groups, communities, networks in finding their own solutions within their functioning unit. In other words, support towards empowerment, guided by the needs of the particular unit. This may involve a range of skills training, from negotiation and advocacy skills to skills in vegetable processing to coaching in design or computer skills, etc. The intention is to empower people to take control of their own lives, and it is on this basis that impact needs to be evaluated. These approaches are not discrete, nor only specific to one poverty category. But they do represent a continuum of potential interventions that fit into a broadly defined VET approach, each of which need to be seen in the context of the GTZ capacity development emphasis.

2.4

The emphasis on enterprise-based training

(In this sub-section, we are indebted to Michael Schulz for many of the insights and for his innovation in terms of the examples.)

A key principle in German bilateral co-operation is support to self-help processes, and, increasingly, there is an emphasis on the business enterprise as a focus for development support. This is particularly valid in the context of VET which has come to be more about empowering people to help themselves, giving them the capacity for resilience, than simply about imparting technical skills. This change is part of the developing understanding of what is needed in pro-poor growth and development. A key element of the approach is to link the world of learning and the world of work and to recognise the business enterprise as a site of learning. This is not a “new” idea. In fact, it has a history that goes back to the middle ages when education resources were scarce and most people in Europe got their skills through apprenticeships and not through any form of institution-based schooling. In most developing countries, institution-based training is out of reach of the vast majority of people, it is often inadequate (see above) and it does not build on established self-help principles. In contrast, enterprise-based training has all the elements of a self-help process, involving, as it does, enterprise owners, apprentices and employees in an ongoing active process of learning in the context of actual business practice. Enterprise-based training is financed largely by enterprises14 and those who receive training within them. It adheres to business principles in this regard, ensuring that it is demand-driven, not supply driven. Outcomes are measured practically in the form of jobs and incomes secured. The driving force is entrepreneurial initiative and the “invisible hand of the market”. People in businesses whether the enterprise owners or trainees, are learning in a “real” situation all the time. The basis is responsiveness, flexibility, resilience. The link to employment and self-employment is strong. Growth 14

Although, in developing countries not many formal sector economy companies are prepared to offer placements.

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potential is high and assisted growth potential can be accelerated and sustained. This understanding further expands the borders of what should “legitimately” be considered VET. If the enterprise is a significant site, and potential growing site, of VET in the context of pro-poor development, then interventions that “grow” businesses through capacity building and enable them to offer training and employment opportunities to young people, can also be seen as VET interventions.

Example: In Cambodia, BMZ/GTZ has been assisting a VET project which used barefoot consultants to support micro and small businesses through business improvement circles (BICs). The rationale was that, by helping the businesses to grow, the project would create more training opportunities for young school leavers (many drop-outs) who would otherwise be condemned to eke out a living as unskilled labourers all their lives, probably living below the poverty line. Although it is too soon to measure the impact of this project on the intended beneficiary group (school drop-outs), groups of young people have been trained to facilitate business improvement circles and are doing so on a commercial basis with considerable success at least to the extent that there is an ongoing demand for their services, and enterprises are willing to pay for them. These services are currently offered mainly to micro and small enterprises. There are plans to develop the process at a higher level, so that similar services can be offered to mediumsized businesses. This is an innovative way of addressing VET. It builds on the understanding that entrepreneurs learn best from one another and in an environment familiar to them. The BICs facilitate this. They strengthen networking and business linkages. The BIC concept could also be extended to product improvement circles and training improvement circles, both of which have the potential to strengthen the SME sector as a site of learning for both enterprise owners and employees and apprentices. While this project is still in the stage of hypothesis testing, it has exciting potential for addressing VET problems for which there is no quick-fix solution, building on local initiative and creating a strong potential for sustainability in the long-run. We see this as an example of working with Category 2 (marginalisation) in terms of causes of poverty.

Not all training can, or should, be enterprise-based, although, in the context of pro-poor growth in developing countries, there should always be a link between VET and the world of work. Some training will take place in an institutional / organisational context and, therefore, some VET interventions should be focused on making these institutions / organisations more appropriate environments for VET that is pro-poor growth oriented. Again, Cambodia provides an example:

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Example: In most developing countries there have been efforts to re-orientate training institutions, mainly government ones, towards more appropriate service delivery. There have been many failures. It is very difficult to turn institutions that have been run as bureaucracies into fee-generating, demand-driven centres. A BMZ/GTZproject in Cambodia (see above for this project’s BIC initiative), introduced a programme called Entrepreneurial Management for Vocational Education and Training (EMVET) to a number of Provincial Technical Colleges (PTCs) in Cambodia with considerable success in certain instances. The purpose of EMVET is to introduce entrepreneurial management at the level of vocational training providers in order to create an entrepreneurial culture at the system level. The programme covers planning, marketing, delivery and evaluation. The GTZ project advisor believes it also needs to do more on financial management of different sources of income. However, in a number of the institutions where it has been offered, the training has produced better than expected results. The best performing Institute now generates more than US $100,000 a year. The Cambodian government has allowed the institutions to use this money (or at least has not prevented them from doing so) to offer incentives to staff and to continue running short courses for business people in their locations. The intention of the EMVET approach is to enable the colleges to run courses that are modular, relevant, cost effective and impact on the ability of participants to improve their socio-economic status. Whether or not the approach results in the desired impact is still to be tested.

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3.

THE NINE GENERIC BUILDING BLOCKS FOR A VET INTERVENTION AIMED AT PRO-POOR GROWTH 15

In this section, we look in some detail at what we have called the nine generic building blocks for any VET intervention that hopes to contribute to pro-poor growth. While not every intervention will require that each of the building blocks be in place, most will require that a significant number of them be in place. Several of them take us back to the core principles of an SL approach. We see this paper as a work-in-progress. There may well be other generic building blocks, or other ways of looking at these nine, that need to be added or developed.

THE NINE GENERIC BUILDING BLOCKS FOR A VET INTERVENTION AIMED AT PRO-POOR GROWTH

APPROPRIATE PROPOOR VET

MONITORING AND EVALUATION

COMPLEMENTARITY

APPROPRIATE METHODOLOGY

AN ENABLING ENVIRONMENT

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APPROPRIATE FINAN-CING MECHANISMS

EMPOWERMENT CONTENT

ADEQU-ATE INFRASTRUCTURE

NETWORKS

LINKAGES

The general idea for the design of this section came from A Guide to Rural Economic and Enterprise Development (REED), a working paper of August 2003, published by GTZ but reflecting a joint DfID, FAO, GTZ, IFAD, SDC, World Bank and EU ACP (CTA) process.

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3.1

An enabling environment

At the very least, the context in which the intervention operates should not be opposed to the basic tenets of pro-poor growth VET and should encourage and support the growth of the informal economy. Policies need to encourage VET that favours pro-poor growth. This may mean that there is a SWAP that makes specific provision for VET, financially and infrastructurally, that emphasises the need to link the world of learning and the world of work, that encourages entrepreneurship and enterprise-based training, which has gender as a cross-cutting issue. It should also influence other sectors appropriately e.g. the finance sector towards micro loans and appropriate financing schemes, ministries such as gender, and labour towards enterprise-based learning. Rules and regulations need to be appropriate but also transparent and consistently applied, both within VET, and within related sectors such as regulating small businesses, addressing corruption, ensuring access by the poor to all services. There also needs to be an acknowledgement that - in pro-poor growth - the poor need a voice and their networks and associations need to be supported and recognised. And, in terms of the GTZ capacity-development approach, there needs to be high level capacity to support interventions at all levels. To what end? Interventions at this level should be aiming at encouraging practices and policies that strengthen democracy, empower the poor, are flexible, community specific, decentralised, sustainable and fair. There needs to be tangible political will to protect and promote the interests of the poor, visible in policies and implementation. Stakeholders Stakeholders most likely to be involved at this level include donor and development agencies, national, regional and local legislatures and authorities. Business and wider civil society associations can also be important here, either through their expertise or through a lobbying and advocacy function. Possible goals Some possible goals within this building block: ♦ VET policy that is pro-poor and in tune with the overall economic and educational direction of government planning. ♦ The progressive decentralisation of VET in line with the policy framework. ♦ VET as part of local poverty reduction strategies. ♦ The active involvement of the private sector in the planning and provision of VET. ♦ A two way process between governments and the poor, and between donors and the poor. ♦ Overall pro-poor policies that support innovation and initiative, and reward these with incentives. ♦ High level capacity to support a diverse approach to VET that is pro-poor oriented.

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3.2

Appropriate financing mechanisms

GTZ completed a guideline16 on the financing of vocational education to which we are indebted here. However, we have focused on points of interest within our particular pro-poor growth framework and have in no way attempted to reproduce the complexity of that paper. The financing of education and vocational education is closely bound up with the task of poverty reduction. In general, when we are talking about VET in the context of propoor growth, we are not any more concerned with professional training (broadly defined) or with large company-based training. Professional people and those employed by large companies do not feature large in the profile of the poor. Mostly, they can afford the kind of training offered by state or commercial training facilities, and will invest in it if they think the return in terms of future earnings will be sufficient. Sometimes the state or the employer pays for the training. The training offered tends to be relatively lengthy and costly, relying on major infrastructural development and full time training and administrative staff. We are mostly concerned with how people operating at the lower end of the scale finance their training. At this level, people also invest in their own training on the basis of return expectations. At times, the state intervenes in an attempt to counteract social and geographical imbalances. However, direct subsidies run the risk of distorting market forces and impacting negatively on the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of VET. People in all three of the poverty categories discussed above are looking for training that is relatively short, work-oriented, and practical. People want to spend little and get as much as possible. Often, in any case, there are opportunity costs to their participation in the training (in the form of foregone earnings). This is true for those who already have some kind of (self-) employment or who could be earning in a job, even if a low paid job. Where training is fully paid for by the state or a donor, and/or when trainees are given allowances, the cost to the financing body increases and the issue of sustainability becomes a major factor.17 At a primary training level, financing solely by the state can be defended in the context of poverty reduction and compensation for social or economic imbalances but, as a long-term solution, such financing puts a heavy burden on the state and/or donors, is probably unsustainable, and may well distort the demand-focus in skills provision. In general, VET financing mechanisms should reflect the principle that training is a service and that its beneficiaries should bear the cost. The authors of the guideline on financing of Vocational Education (see above) believe that vocational education finance should contribute to: ♦ Adapting the range of training and further training to individual demand; 16

Horst Idler / Walter Georg / Antonius Lipsmeier: Dealing with Financing of Vocational Education – A guide for advisors, planners and their partners; 2003 17 Practices such as traditional apprenticeship deal with the sustainability issue quite effectively, allowing the burden of training costs to be shared at a community level.

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♦ Covering society’s requirements for qualifications (and we would urge the principle here: as much as is necessary, but no more than is essential); ♦ Avoiding or minimising distortions in competition between enterprises resulting from the burden of training and further training costs; ♦ Minimising structural incompatibilities between vocational learning programmes and the demand for them (i.e. between what is offered and what potential learners want or need); ♦ Avoiding structural inequalities between vocational learning programmes and the need for qualifications in the employment system; ♦ Reducing as far as possible the costs of regulating and administrating training and further training as well as its financing; ♦ Avoiding inflationary thrusts through changes in modes of finance; ♦ Achieving high quality training and further training; ♦ Reducing the range in quality of training and further training; ♦ Dismantling and avoiding discrimination against certain potential client groups in the vocational training and further training system. While no one project or programme can hope to pursue all these goals at the same time, those involved should be clear about which they are pursuing within any project or programme. The paper suggests that donor interventions take as their starting point a partner country’s historically developed VET-system and its funding mechanisms. Presumably, this means looking at state systems, private sector systems and private individual and informal systems. To what end? Interventions at this level should have two main aims: sustainability (the ongoing existence of the intervention and/or the ongoing impact of the intervention) and redress (recognition that the poor have been unfairly disadvantaged and some attempt to make up for this). Balancing the two requires a real understanding of the social and economic dynamics of the society, community and extended family. Stakeholders Stakeholders here include the state, learners and their families, NGOs, employers, employees, international donor agencies. To the extent that taxes and levies are used, almost everyone in the society is a stakeholder. Possible goals Some possible goals within this building block: ♦ Employers, trade unions, accrediting and regulating bodies set up training funds (either voluntarily or through statutory regulation) for those who cannot afford unsubsidised training. Such funds would then be administered by a multistakeholder governance structure on which there were representatives of the proposed beneficiaries. Even when training is subsidised there should be some beneficiary contribution, in money or kind, to ensure that market forces prevail.

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♦ Governments offer incentives to enterprises that provide training. If this approach were extended to the less formal sector, then there would need to be some kind of quality control for the training offered. ♦ Co-financing arrangements, including cost recovery, involving local authorities, public/private partnerships and, where possible, giving the beneficiaries a say in what they want to do (ensuring that the demand emphasis remains). Voucher systems have many problems but they do make provision for the demand emphasis, as do low or no interest fixed term loan schemes. These allow for special attention to be paid to those who would otherwise be excluded because of the extent of their marginalisation e.g. AIDS orphans. ♦ Decentralisation of provision and of control of income generated through provision by community and local based institutions. ♦ Providing incentives (e.g. training for facilitators, materials, fees), and some quality control, with regard to private providers. ♦ Minimising the need for new infrastructure, using existing infrastructure, keeping costs as low as possible, creating a strong possibility of sustainability.

3.3

Adequate infrastructure

Within the term infrastructure, we include physical and equipment infrastructure as well as appropriate trainers, governance and administration. Infrastructure is, in fact, a set up, whether physical or personal, that facilitates the functioning of an operation. It may even mean the development of a transport infrastructure that enables rural enterprises to get their goods to market. The greater the use of enterprises as sites of training, the less “centralised” physical infrastructure is needed. The enterprise becomes the classroom and it is usually appropriately equipped (although this does not necessarily mean “perfectly” equipped.) Often, local buildings that already exist can be put to use. Schools and formal training institutions often stand empty during holiday periods and are generally under-utilised. Even a community hall or meeting place can be used as a venue (for example, in Cambodia, pagodas are sometimes used as meeting places). In countries where people are very spread out and have to cover fairly long distances to reach central venues, the possibility of mobile training units might be explored. The intention should be to avoid “white elephants” (infrastructure that is unused or not fully used). The “soft” infrastructure issues are more complicated to address and, many would argue, more important. A good trainer can probably achieve something under a tree; a bad trainer, or an inappropriate one, can probably achieve little even in a state of the art building with state of the art equipment. It seems to make sense to use people who have already been trained as trainers to support learning processes that are meant to be pro-poor growth. However, many of these existing trainers have learned to train in the formal context, and, even then, their methods may well be unsuited to changing circumstances. They need to be trained in adult education participatory methodologies.

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One issue is that, where there is an entrepreneurial content to the training, or even the intention of the training, many of these trainers will have no understanding of this. So retraining of trainers becomes a priority, as does developing potential trainers with the necessary background, and considering the idea of “peer training”.

Examples: In the Cambodian barefoot consultant initiative discussed above, the idea of Business Information Circles (BICs) was used. The barefoot consultants facilitated BICs where enterprise owners learned largely from one another. The barefoot consultants run their services as a commercial enterprise and so are also engaged in entrepreneurial activities. In a project in South Africa (Khuphuka), trainers were encouraged to use opportunities to turn their skills to income generation through production and some of them were able to set up their own enterprises, as well as continuing to train. This was particularly useful when the organisation had to retrench staff. These trainers already had a viable alternative to wage employment.

In the area of governance, or control and management of initiatives, again the emphasis needs to be on local governance with, if necessary, this feeding into regional and even national structures. The example given of the Ivory Coast Rural Training Networks is a case in point here. In these, governance began at the village level and went through to the regional level. Hard infrastructure was minimal, but people were not only learning immediately applicable income generating skills, they were also learning governance skills, a key factor in democratic participation. Beneficiaries of training may form associations which then manage and organise appropriate training. In the case of the retrenched miners in South Africa, the beneficiaries already had considerable trade union experience and were able to mediate their own training to some degree. To what end? Interventions at this level should be aiming at sustainability and decentralisation. Building expensive buildings which need constant upkeep and staff to run them may not be the route to go. Transport in many rural areas is difficult and expensive and getting to a central venue, even within a region, may be a problem. Using existing hard infrastructure, wherever possible makes sense, as does encouraging the use of functioning enterprises. Training and retraining of trainers is a priority. How this is done requires innovative approaches. Providing financial incentives to trainers based on their success-rate, measured not only in numbers trained, but in the impact of the training, is in line with a market-oriented approach. Governance needs to be as closely linked to the people being trained as possible.

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Stakeholders Stakeholders in this building block are clearly governments (at all levels), donor agencies, training institutions, other service providers, enterprise owners and, importantly, local communities. In some instances, local economic development centres may be important facilitators of infrastructural development. In some places, certainly in rural areas of Africa, accessing appropriate venues and getting a degree of local control may mean working with tribal chiefs. Possible goals Some possible goals within this building block: ♦ Use of existing facilities wherever possible, including functioning workplaces. ♦ Use of venues that are as decentralised as possible. ♦ Focused and appropriate training and retraining of trainers, and use of peer trainers, with some mediation. ♦ Participatory governance structures that give beneficiaries a significant voice in the control and management of VET initiatives.

3.4

Linkages

Here we are talking about the linkages between a VET initiative and other aspects of the social and economic functions in a society or community. In any market-oriented society there are value chains around production and distribution, stretching from raw materials through to after-sales service. Pro-poor growth VET needs somehow to incorporate an understanding of these value chains and it needs, wherever possible, to link training to these chains as part of the process of linking the world of training and the world of work. The practice of traditional apprenticeship, at its best, does this particularly well. Informal apprentices work alongside a “master” who shares not only a trade or service skill, but also information about raw materials, accessing equipment, finance, customers. The apprentice gets the opportunity to make links and connections that will stand him/her in good stead in the future. Another way of looking at linkages in VET is to see the training part of VET as part of an overall package, a part that will better achieve its ends (reduction of poverty) if the training process is part of a package that includes micro-financing, business development advice and marketing exposure. The kind of support and advice will vary from situation to situation. So, for example, one of the important goals of the Ivory Coast Rural Training Network project quoted above was to ensure that those trained would be able to access the normal agricultural extension services. This does not in any way mean that the training provider should provide all these elements as well (in fact, they should not !), but the better connected the training provider is in terms of business and potential support linkages, the more useful the training is likely to be. Through these linkages, training extends into the workplace. Business enterprises that are part of an extensive set of such linkages may also be more likely to be able to take

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on trainees or new graduates with some training, or to be able to refer them to other potential employers. To what end? The main significance in this building block is the essential link from the world of learning to the world of work. Training providers who have these links themselves are far more likely to be able to guide trainees towards them, and their training is likely to be far more geared to the realities of the workplace. Stakeholders These include the training providers, the linking enterprises, the trainees and, particularly for those in poverty Categories 1 and 2, business associations. Also included are service providers in areas such as BDS (Business Development Services). If these can be strengthened they form a set of linkages in themselves. At a more meso level, where associations become members of regional or even national associations, the linkages are further extended, bringing in new ideas and opportunities down to the community level. Possible goals Some possible goals in this building block: ♦ VET initiatives directly connected to business association linkages as the governance structures of VET-specific institutions include a range of business people. ♦ Objectives set for enterprise-based training to ensure wider exposure to business links. ♦ Exposure to the various elements of the value chain included even in institutionbased training. ♦ The creation or strengthening of local business associations so that they can contribute to work-linked VET. ♦ The skill of accessing appropriate support e.g. from micro finance networks and institutions, built into training curricula.

3.5

Networks

Networks are closely related to business linkages, but go beyond them, particularly, but not exclusively, for people in Category 3 of the poverty categorisation used above. This is the group that is struggling to make the adaptation to a more modern and constantly changing economy. The large, and largely rural, group that falls into this category relies for its survival on its network of family and community connections.

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These networks have been called livelihood coalitions.18 They are informal groups, described as having “a strong core, but a loose and open edge”.

Example: Franz Moos describes one such coalition in Albania were he works:

The Qerreti group is a group of women who have just started jointly processing their fruits and vegetables, partly for their own consumption, partly for informal exchange with relatives and friends in town, and partly for selling and creating income. The group members are both close and slightly more distant neighbours, most are related and belong to the same clan. On the one hand, the group is quite informal. There is a core of those who show more initiative and are more active, and they work with casual suppliers of raw materials and other collaborators. On the other hand, the group is supported by the regional producers’ organisation which is supporting a grant to the group for a new processing facility, and collaborates with them in training and marketing. The core group has a contract with the organisation. The core Qerreti group consists of people with different skills and potentials. One has a suitable space, others have suitable land and experience as producers of raw materials, others have time to work at the processing centre, one is an agronomist with experience in fruit-tree cultivation. They have joined forces and are now joining together with an outer circle of their friends and relatives in town to make the initiative work. The kinds of skills they need include basic skills in producing good quality fruits and vegetables, but also skills in processing fruit and vegetables, in developing a marketable product, and some will need skills in management, in negotiation and in co-operation with other groups. Not everyone needs all the skills and the skills they need as a group go beyond “trade skills” or even “commercial” skills to encompass a whole level of empowerment. The group has potential links to people who have migrated from the area and now live in towns. In the future they may be an important part of the livelihood coalition and will need other skills. It also has the potential to train young people once it is established.

The significance of this example for us is that it indicates: ♦ How important such networks can be. They can be built on by VET initiatives so that they are more likely to be successful. ♦ The challenges they present to VET. ♦ That there cannot be a “one solution solves all” approach in VET that is aimed at pro-poor growth. ♦ Training for such groups needs to be planned in the context to maximise the synergy they already have. 18

The comments on livelihood coalitions are based on a current debate being co-ordinated by SDC by e-mail. The Swiss Development Corporation has taken the lead in an e-mail discussion around Skills Development for Rural Areas (SDRA).

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The importance of close networks of this kind goes beyond Category 3 (people in largely rural areas struggling to adapt to changes in the environment). People who migrate from the rural areas to towns and cities usually rely on their clan, tribe and family links to help them find their feet in the urban area. Enterprise owners are usually more willing to take on someone from their own tribe as an apprentice because they feel they “know” them and can trust them. So the tentacles of the network reach out and provide a base even far from home. In the SDC discussion, people even suggested that these links cross oceans when people migrate to new continents. These networks can be seen as an asset which poor people have and, therefore, as something to be built on and neither ignored or immediately replaced with more business-like arrangements. Being entrepreneurial should not mean having to give up an important asset of this kind.19 However, where the networks are counter-effective as, for example, in their specific attitudes to women and women’s work, it may be necessary to encourage change in the networks. There are also more formal networks, from business associations where people from the SMME sector working in the same field come together to offer mutual support, through to chambers of commerce. Business associations provide a meeting point, they sometimes access raw materials at good prices for their members, they can channel trainees to suitable enterprises and they should be able to provide a voice for their members so that they can impact on their environment. Chambers of Commerce take this a step further, bringing associations and individuals together in a professional body that, by mutual agreement, regulates their area of activity. Areas of concern here might be employment practices, training practices, government regulations and so on. All these different networks are assets for those attempting to rise out of poverty and engaging with them, supporting them, providing training for their members should be seen as a legitimate, if innovative, part of VET. To what end? Interventions at this level should be aiming at strengthening existing networks, addressing power relations so that already marginalised groups are not further marginalised, encouraging the formation of networks, developing the “voice” of the networks, and developing training solutions that are multi-faceted rather than linear. Stakeholders Stakeholders include, of course, the networks themselves, other networks with which linkages can be formed, the individuals within the networks, local training providers, 19

In many poor households, business and private earnings and expenses are dealt with from a common fund. As capital is limited and seasonal fluctuations determine how well the business is doing, private households often balance profit fluctuations of the business, serving as a kind of buffer. The economic unity of the household and enterprise is therefore essential for securing both the family’s livelihood and the long-term existence of the business. Interventions that take a “purist” view in cases such as this are likely to be counter-productive. (With thanks to Gunnar Specht for this insight.)

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donor agencies offering technical assistance; and, at the more sophisticated end of the scale, regulatory bodies. Possible goals Some possible goals for this building block: ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Recognition of the importance of networks as an asset for poor people. Strong networks at all the different levels. Business linkages between networks. Networks used as a basis for participatory planning to meet holistic training needs. Donor agencies willing to support network strengthening, even at the most basic unit level. ♦ Associations provide an entry point for dealing with external brokers (e.g. brokers reach an agreement with an association to sell the goods made by members).

3.6

Empowerment content

Empowerment content takes us back to the principles of pro-poor growth. For there to be successful pro-poor growth, the poor must have a voice in how that growth takes place. One of the side effects of poverty is that it marginalises those who are poor. Most often, the poor do not speak, others speak for them. However well-intentioned this is, in the context of a pro-poor growth orientation, it is not desirable. Given this, a pro-poor VET approach needs to be based on empowerment content, rather than simply on a process of skills transfer. What does this mean? It means that: ♦ The content should be decided in collaboration with, and with direction from the intended beneficiaries, and any networks of which they are part. ♦ The content should be about income generating skills, entrepreneurial skills, organisational skills. ♦ It should be aimed at helping poor people develop resilience, as well as providing them with specific skills. ♦ It should include skills that enable poor people to take control of their lives, skills such as information accessing, negotiation, lobbying. ♦ It should actively encourage poor people to develop and use their “voice”. To what end? The intention here is to give people not only skills but the confidence to manage the changing socio-economic environment in their own interests and that of their families and communities. The aim is to support people to become actors in, rather than victims of, their own lives. This may include content as varying as basic literacy and health, through to sophisticated negotiating and conflict resolution skills.

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Stakeholders The full gamut of stakeholders is important here. At the macro level, policy needs to be flexible enough to encourage training that does not fit within the neat parameters of vocational education and training. There also needs to be a democratic will that recognises that supporting poor people to acquire a voice is not a slippery slope to anarchy. This applies to government and donor agencies. At the meso level, institutions and training providers need to be willing to extend the definition of “vocational training / skills training” to incorporate a wider range of interventions and content. At the micro level, beneficiaries need to be willing to seize the initiative and demand and use the broader range of empowerment content. Possible goals Possible goals in this building block: ♦ Traditional curricula for skills training are extended to include empowerment skills. ♦ ICT, with a specific emphasis on accessing and using information, becomes an accepted part of VET. ♦ Donor agencies are willing to support programmes that emphasise empowerment skills. ♦ Poor people organise to access their existing rights and demand those they do not yet have.

3.7

Appropriate methodology20

This building block is really an extension of the previous one, empowerment content. Once the content has an empowerment emphasis, then the methodology needs to be appropriate to this. This means that the methodology needs to be interactive, participatory, experiential. It needs to take into account that learners are largely adult, that they have skills and knowledge on which new learnings should be built, that they deserve respect. It also needs to take into account that time spent in training is lost opportunity for income generation and so allow for modular approaches to training (short, competency-based modules that will enable people to apply what they have learned almost immediately). This does not mean “one-off” short courses, but rather the opportunity to participate in a coherent set of modules over a relatively long period of time. This is an important factor for donors when they are planning their involvement. Ideally, modules of this nature need to be interspersed with coaching/mentoring and mediated learning from practical application. Where the 20

One of the people who gave us feedback on the original paper noted that methodology differs depending on whether you are functioning at the macro, micro or meso level and that appropriate means something different in each case. Although we have only dealt with the meso and micro levels here, we agree with this point. We could also have said more about the need to ensure that facilitators and resource people have some skills in participatory adult education methodologies.

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overall donor commitment is too short, or too short-sighted, the whole investment might end up being wasted because it is insufficient and the learnings are unsustainable. To what end? Interventions should build on prior learning, they should enhance self-esteem, they should give people practical experience (preferably in the workplace, but otherwise through simulations and experiential exercises21), they should be aimed at transferring control and initiative from the trainer to the learner. Stakeholders The most significant stakeholders here are training providers, trainers and the beneficiaries themselves. Possible goals Possible goals within this building block are: ♦ Trainers skilled in experiential methodology. ♦ Appropriate resources for trainers available. ♦ Modular training, with short-term, immediately applicable learnings, available.

3.8

Complementarity

Complementarity is the principle that interventions work best when they complement others. This links back to the SWAP approach and to the concept of a focal areas strategic paper (FASP) which outlines a coherent sector approach in a particular location. It means working with others who have similar goals, without unnecessary duplication, learning from one another, optimising the resources available by leveraging further impact through other interventions or joint interventions. To what end? The intention here is to create synergy between a number of interventions so that the sum of the individual interventions is greater than the parts in terms of overall impact. Stakeholders The key stakeholders here are governments (all levels) and donor agencies. It is in this context that a SWAP becomes important. However, given the multi-faceted nature of VET, within governments the involvement needs to be multi-disciplinary, with complementarity between ministries and departments as well. Possible goals Some possible goals within this building block: ♦ Close co-operation, from planning through to evaluation, between donor and development agencies. 21

As in the CEFE-type approach.

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♦ Close co-operation with government ministries and departments, with the potential for inter-disciplinary work. ♦ Close co-operation with existing relevant projects in a particular geographical area. ♦ On a macro level, input into policy making processes on a national level to ensure that the VET sub-sector is integrated into the poverty reduction strategy.

3.9

Monitoring and evaluation

All development work is based on hypotheses. A methodological assumption is made that, under certain circumstances, certain activities will produce results which, longerterm, will lead to the achievement of a project purpose. The achievement of the project purpose, in turn, will lead to the impact as outlined in the overall objective. Given the expanding understanding of the impact sought in pro-poor oriented VET, it is important that indicators of impact be carefully set. An impact chain is to be defined, starting with the definition of project output, turning to the use of output – the direct benefit, the indirect benefit, to end up with the aggregated developmental benefit. Each project or programme tests the hypothesis on which it is based. In order to understand where the hypothesis works and does not work, and why it does and does not work, to learn from the experience, and to share the learning, monitoring and evaluation are necessary. Monitoring here means to keep ongoing records of progress and achievements. Evaluation is more summative and provides the opportunity to analyse monitoring records and progress overall, and to reach some conclusions about the hypothesis. Both need to be included in the planning process. To what end? The intention of this building block is to increase critical self-awareness, to make adjust-ments when things are not working, to share learnings, positive and negative with others, and to provide complementarity, albeit in a less direct way than in Building Block 8. The monitoring and evaluation process is the basis for designing up-scaling and mainstreaming of approaches. Stakeholders All stakeholders are important here. The learnings from monitoring and evaluation should be shared with everyone from the beneficiaries through to the national government and other donor agencies. Different sharing techniques will probably be needed. It is a common mistake to leave beneficiaries out of this process, particularly as their input will be necessary and invaluable to the monitoring and evaluation process, but also because sharing this level of understanding with them is a necessary part of the empowering process. GTZ is currently introducing a computer-based approach to evaluation called e-VAL. In this approach various stakeholders, including beneficiaries, are asked to formulate their own evaluation constructs and then to assess a project or intervention against them.

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Possible goals Some possible goals within this building block: ♦ Appropriate indicators of impact set and assessed. ♦ Projects and/or programmes reviewed and improved. ♦ A documented and shared body of knowledge about a pro-poor growth VET orientation exists as a basis for further developments. ♦ Trends and good practice become apparent. ♦ All the stakeholders learn from the experience and build on it. ♦ Where appropriate, the possibility of replicability exists. (Exact replicability is unlikely but, where an hypothesis has been proven, a degree of replicability may be possible.)

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4.

GUIDELINES

What should be clear is that the current challenges in VET are very different from those focussed on 20 years ago and that they do not respond easily to formulaic solutions or narrowly defined options. These guidelines, therefore, are not intended as a blueprint of any sort. Rather, they take the first two stages in considering any widely-defined VET response to poverty in developing countries, preparing the ground and planning, and suggest some principles and questions that could be used/asked within those stages. The hypothesis that underlies the guidelines is: VET, widely defined in terms of building capacity towards empowerment of the poor, and combining skills development across the boundaries of personal empowerment, community empowerment, economic empowerment, social empowerment, and political empowerment, is a significant tool in poverty reduction. This hypothesis needs to be tested through many innovative interventions. The following could be usefully considered in initiating such projects.

Stage 1: Prepare yourself thoroughly Do not take short-cuts: ♦ Research the location, read and understand all the relevant documentation including country poverty reduction strategy documents, SWAPs, SSPs. Talk to national, regional and local people, find out what is being done, what has worked and what has not, what the conditions are. ♦ Look carefully at crosscutting issues such as gender, the environment, capacity building. ♦ Be sure that, to the extent possible, you understand national, regional, and local networks and how they operate. Carefully analyse the positives and negatives associated with these networks. ♦ Be sure to look at the options for complementarity. ♦ Be clear about the principles of “helping towards self-help”, ownership and participation being vested in the developing country partner, capacity being built in developing partner countries, respect for democracy, human rights and rule of law, and support for a market-friendly socio-economic order. ♦ Do a careful, honest problem analysis. Do not start with a pre-conceived solution and hope to find a problem that will fit it. ♦ Be willing to be open-minded and innovative and to view VET in the broadest terms possible.

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♦ Be sure that any ideas are closely linked to your impact chain (AURA) and to the upper levels of your - may be still (internally) - formulated planning matrix: the overall goal (poverty reduction), the development goal and the project purpose. ♦ Remember that your project purpose is a hypothesis that needs to be tested: you are hypothesising that, if you achieve the project purpose, then it will contribute to poverty reduction. The ultimate test of the hypothesis is whether or not poverty is reduced. How to test the hypothesis along the impact chain is still the major challenge. ♦ Consider the three levels of capacity development emphasised by GTZ: people (micro), organisations (meso) and networks / institutions and policies (macro). Test your ideas against all three. How will the three levels interact? Is it necessary to intervene at all three, or only one or two? How will interventions at different levels link to one another and/or to levels at which there is no active intervention? Remember that, ultimately, development agencies such as GTZ are focusing on systemic change to achieve sustainable (or lasting) rather than one-off impacts. ♦ Be realistic about the timeframe needed to achieve impact. Some of the questions you need to be able to answer before you even begin to plan an intervention are: € Why are people in this country, region or community poor? € What do we hope to achieve:

Long-term? Medium-term? Short-term?

€ What difference will this make to poverty? € What are the systemic challenges that need to be addressed? € Who do we see as the direct beneficiaries of our intervention? € Who do we see as the indirect beneficiaries? € Are the direct beneficiaries likely to be “strategic”? i. e. will benefiting them stimulate the economy in some way? € Who else is working in a way that could complement our initiatives, or that our initiatives could complement? How can we leverage maximum impact? € What resources are available, directly or indirectly? € What are the existing assets on which we should build? € What are the capacity gaps that need to be addressed? € What will make this/these intervention/s sustainable? € What is the hypothesis we want to test?

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Stage 2: Plan carefully This does not mean plan rigidly, but it does mean designing an intervention that has been very carefully thought through. ♦ Ensure that the right people are included in the planning process. If necessary, break the process into stages so that it is inclusive but not laborious, e.g. a more inclusive group is needed for deciding the project purpose than for working out the details of the indicators. ♦ Clarify the project purpose and set indicators for it. ♦ Define the direct beneficiaries clearly – this is the level at which impact must be measured in terms of poverty reduction. ♦ Test the project purpose against key criteria such as systemic change, capacity building, partner ownership and participation, sustainability, feasibility, complementarity, not doing damage to what is already working. ♦ Review opportunities for integrating cross-cutting issues. ♦ Check indicators for the project purpose: Are they realistic? ♦ Clarify your contextual assumptions – what conditions in the environment are you assuming will exist? ♦ Plan your activities. ♦ Make sure that the systemic change possibilities inherent in the plan have been fully exploited. ♦ Focus your efforts on people who are “entrepreneurial” in the broad sense of the word – this may mean that they are motivated to help their communities, to lobby for changes or, in the more accepted sense of the word, to take up and exploit economic opportunities. In whichever sense they are entrepreneurial, they should be willing to put in effort on their own behalf that outstrips that put in by the external agencies by far. 22 Some questions to answer at the planning stage: € Who needs to be doing the planning? € What is the:

overall objective? project purpose? impact chain23?

€ Who will be the direct beneficiaries? € What are the specific implications that must be considered in terms of this beneficiary group? 22

In the 2004 paper we look more at the needs of the poorest, the destitute who also need to be taken into account. 23 project output – use of output – direct benefit – indirect benefit – aggregated developmental benefit

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€ What are the key results required / steps to achieve the project purpose? € Do there need to be key results at the people, organisation and policy / institution levels? If yes, why? If no, why not? (Remember that the emphasis is on systemic change for maximum impact.) € How do the project purpose build on or address: Complementarity? Sustainability? Enterprise-based training? Capacity building? Gender? Partner ownership? Environmental concerns? € Which of the following building blocks have been considered in the planning: An enabling environment? Appropriate financing mechanisms? Adequate infrastructure? Linkages? Networks? Empowerment content? Appropriate methodology? Complementarity? Monitoring and evaluation? € In what way does the proposed intervention strategically create leverage in the economy? € In what way does this proposed intervention extend the boundaries of our understanding of VET? In what way is it flexible and innovative? € In what way does the proposed intervention build on and extend the existing assets of the intended beneficiaries? € Is there any way in which the proposed intervention undermines the intended beneficiaries? If so, what should we do to avoid this? € Does the proposed intervention support on emphasis on a market- and demand-led approach to skills development? € Are the proposed beneficiaries “entrepreneurial” enough to take advantage of opportunities offered? € Will the proposed intervention be cost-effective in terms of the relationship between inputs and outputs/impact? € How will progress and impact indicators be monitored and evaluated?

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€ Has the intervention been planned and resourced over a long enough period to enable it to achieve sustainable impact? € How will the intervention be documented? € What plans have been made for the withdrawal of the external agency from the initiative?

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5.

Literature

Parnell and Pieterse 1999: ‘Defining Poverty’, in: OD Debate, Volume 10, no 1, March 2003 Stephan Klasen: In search of the Holy Grail: How to Achieve Pro-poor Growth? – (unpublished article) 2002 Deepa Naryan: Empowerment and Poverty Reduction: A Sourcebook, The World Bank. Richard Gomez: Policy Paper No 1, GTZ - March 2003 “Poverty and Sustainable Livelihoods” in: OD Debate Vol 10, No 1, March 2003 John Grierson: Where There Is No Job – Vocational Training for Self-Employment in Developing Countries; SKAT, 1997 GTZ-Working Paper, 08/2003: A Guide to Rural Economic and Enterprise Development (REED) H. Idler; W. Georg; A. Lipsmeier: Dealing with Financing of Vocational Education – a guide for advisors, planners and their partners; 2003 E. Grunwald; M. Nell; J. Shapiro: Making the Case for Skills Development in the Context of Pro-Poor Development – Looking for Sustainable Approaches; 2004

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Published by: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH Dag-Hammarskjöld-Weg 1-5 65760 Eschborn / Germany Economic Development and Employment Division (41) Technical and Vocational Education and Training Section (4115) Sector Project: "Innovative and Integrating Approaches to International Cooperation in Technical and Vocational Education and Training" Staff Responsible for Publication: Edda Grunwald Telephone: 00 49 (0)6196 791222 Telefax: 00 49 (0)6196 79 80 1222 Email: [email protected] Authors: Edda Grunwald, Marian Nell, Janet Shapiro Cover Design: www.formvorrat.de Printed by: ConverData, Friedrichsdorf December 2004