
Sector/ Subsector : Food Processing and Furniture sectors in Egypt (as a part of ILO’s Fast Track 2014)
Implementing Agency: International Labour Organization
Project’s Partner (s) : Egypt, Kuwait, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Swedish International Cooperation Agency (Sida), ITFC, IsDB, UNDP
Brief Description: Output 3 of the 2014 Fast Track Work Plan targets promotion of skills development to expand opportunities for the creation of decent employment in priority exports sectors. It aims to enhance the skills of workers in selected export sectors in Egypt through the application of the ILO’s STED tool. It aims to build stronger links between skills development and trade development, and therefore to help to match the needs of the industry and the skills of job seekers in sectors that have potential to increase exports and to contribute to economic diversification.
Overall Result |
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Target Countries: | Arab countries |
Duration: 09 months | 09 months |
Start date: | March 2014 |
End date: | December 2014 |
Expected Results: | Developed and delivered STED Training. Organized Knowledge Sharing Workshop. Skills strategy developed and STED report validated in Egypt for two selected export sectors. |
Expected impact: | Enhance the employment effects of trade and trade-related policies by ensuring the alignment of human resource related policies with policy changes in the area of trade. |
Approved budget: | $ 353,114 |
List of deliverables | Deliverable 1: STED Training module developed and delivered in Egypt.
Deliverable 2: Regional Knowledge Sharing Event on the trade and skills development successfully organized. Deliverable 3: Skills strategies developed and STED reports validated in Egypt for two export sectors. |
Main Lessons learnt: | Lesson 1: There is potential for skills-focused interventions to meaningfully improve the productive capacity, capabilities, and competitiveness of the Egyptian food processing and furniture sectors.
Lesson 2: Involvement and engagement of national and sectoral stakeholders are essential in implementation and sustainability of the project’s results. Lesson 3: It is imperative to establish a close collaboration between the project team and national focal points. Lesson 4: Priority and needs of beneficiary countries must be factored into the content of these activities with corresponding delivery modalities. |
Recommendation (s) for
follow-up: |
Promoting skills development is a collective responsibility of government, social partners, the private sector and other stakeholders. The Arab States need to invest more in skills development, and employers’ need to increase cooperation with the government in providing information about skill needs and gap, and in promoting lifelong learning. Vocational training should be integrated into all forms of education, beginning with primary education. Establishing Arab regional qualification framework, quality assurance mechanism, and skill recognition system would contribute to building skills relevant to labour market needs, and in labor migration.
Social dialogue, is imperative as skills are important but without social dialogue it cannot contribute to equal benefits of trade. Feedback from country participants in the Regional Knowledge Sharing Workshop was :
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