SOUTHERN AND EASTERN MEDITERRANEANETF OPERATIONS - CONTEXT AND ACTIVITIES

September 2012

CONTEXTThe Southern and Eastern Mediterranean region is characterised by an extremely young population. Recent events, the so-called Arab Spring of 2011 served to highlight inefficient governance systems, weak economic competitiveness, high unemployment, low social equity and a lack of social stability. Young people led a wave of revolts that swept through Tunisia and Egypt, brushed Algeria, Lebanon, Morocco and Jordan, and ended up in violent bloodshed in Libya and Syria.

The policies and measures implemented - or neglected - now will determine the labour market performance and development prospects of the vast majority of the population for decades to come. Therefore, the strategic development of human capital is a top policy priority and is recognised in the political agendas of all the countries of the region.

Notwithstanding diversity, the region’s countries share a number of common features:

� demographic pressure;

� very low activity rates;

� economic vulnerability; and,

� low return on education and training.

Providing the right training to young people is necessary to ensure active participation in the labour market in the future.

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DEMOGRAPHIC PRESSUREOver 60% of the population of the region is under 30 years old. This exerts pressure on education and training systems and labour markets. If current trends continue, by 2020 the number of young people in the region will be close to 100 million.

VERY LOW ACTIVITY RATESThe region is characterised by socio-economic irregularities that represent serious challenges for development. There are highly segmented labour markets that reduce the policy impact and the most urgent challenge remains youth unemployment that also requires more balanced employment policies.

JOBLESS YOUTHThe region tops the world’s youth unemployment statistics with peaks above 25%, in spite of the very low activity rates. The past decade brought “jobless” growth with most jobs created in the informal sector.

Limited job opportunities in the private sector and shrinking public sectors have made the employment situation of university graduates even worse (so called educated unemployment).

This youth employment gap leads to a waste of education investment and de-valorisation of scarce national human resources. Ultimately this undermines social stability.

GENDER GAPMost women are not active in the labour markets. On average one woman in four is in work, the world’s lowest rate. This is the main reason for the overall low labour activity rates (40% - 50%).

Despite decreasing gender discrimination in the education system, women are treated unequally in the labour market. Even though there has been a trend towards a slow but sustained increase in female activity in most of the countries (around 0.5% annually), the situation has been adversely affected by the recent events.

INEQUALITIES Social and economic gaps between rich and poor persist, as do those between people living in towns and in the countryside. What is particularly worrying is the imbalance in job opportunities according to age and gender and the disparities between regions and territories within national boundaries.

SKILLS-HUNGRY MICRO AND SMALL ENTERPRISES In addition to skills mismatches, another key constraint to employment is insufficient labour demand, in particular for qualified labour. Micro and small enterprises make up the lion’s share of job creation. It is estimated that 60-70% of jobs are created in micro enterprises, both formal and informal, meaning that these kinds of business make a significant contribution to sustainable growth and employment. The region has an entrepreneurial spirit with a high proportion of the working age population declaring a preference for starting an entrepreneurial activity (15% compared to 6% in the EU). Nevertheless education and training systems are not well-equipped for providing entrepreneurial learning and skills. Access to training, particularly that suited to the specificities of micro and small companies, is urgently needed.

MIGRATION AND SKILLSMigration features high on the EU – Mediterranean cooperation agenda. It is a complex phenomenon in the region. On one side, for an individual, emigration is an alternative to informal low quality jobs. On another, some countries are badly affected by the loss of qualified workers, while others welcome unskilled immigrants.

The skills dimension of migration is crucial. It is essential to efficiently match supply and demand, enhance access to information, and make professional qualifications portable all parties are to reap the benefits of increased labour mobility.

WORKING POORAt least 30 million young people - mostly unskilled or low-skilled - work in informal, poor quality jobs earning subsistence wages. They have little technical, entrepreneurial or life skills, which could give some prospects for improvement. They are at risk of social exclusion.

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MOROCCORegarding qualifications and labour mobility, the ETF supports the development of a national qualifications framework. The ETF is also carrying out a skills and migration survey that will bring new evidence on the skills dimension of migratory flows.

Advice to the national authorities for the design of a new VET strategy is also being provided and project identification is on-going in the region of Tanger. It is accompanied by a series of awareness raising measures at national and regional level on the importance of multilevel governance. The focus is on territorial cohesion.

ALGERIAIn Algeria, the ETF focuses on the implementation of the Torino process for the first time, for an updated and participatory diagnostic of the state of VET reform in the country;

TUNISIA

The ETF has begun the implementation of a project to support the development of human capital in the Médenine region. It will focus on key economic sectors such as tourism. The project includes significant capacity building packages for regional authorities, school boards and enterprises, and foresees the setting up of an observatory network that will bring together all actors to support the identification of skills needs.

LIBYAThe ETF started operations in Libya following a request from DG DEVCO to design a new EU project to support education and training in the country. Libya has also expressed interest in participating in the Torino Process from 2013.

The ETF provides access to good practice and opportunities for exchange with the international community by inviting Libyan representatives to regional and international initiatives and networks.

A SELECTION OF ETF ACTIVITIES IN THE SOUTHERN AND EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN REGION

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EGYPTThe ETF has completed its support for the design of the new EU vocational education and training programme with an overall budget of €55 million. The ETF will also provide a review of EU support to education and its contribution to the overall sector reform.

OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORY

The ETF is helping to improve the quality of teaching with focus on teacher training and bringing innovation to the classroom. The ETF has supported the EU in the design of a new project to support VET in the Gaza Strip and is carrying out an employability survey in the Israeli-controlled Area C in the West Bank.

LEBANONThe ETF is implementing projects co-funded by the Italian Trust Fund to establish national qualifications framework and develop entrepreneurial learning. The training of teachers and school principals in entrepreneurial learning will take place in summer 2012 and will be followed by the pilot implementation of entrepreneurial modules in secondary general and vocational schools.

The ETF is supporting the EU in the design of the project for UNRWA VET Centres, in particular on issues linked to career guidance. The ETF is also helping to design a new EU project on “cooperative” training.

ISRAELIsrael is involved in an ETF project to review the role of VET schools in improving social inclusion together with countries in the Enlargement region.

JORDANSupport is being provided to career guidance with a focus on gender issues by rolling out an action plan developed with national counterparts. Following the formal establishment of the Certification, Accreditation and Quality Assurance Agency (CAQA), the ETF is discussing possible support in terms of capacity building and know-how.

SYRIA

ETF activities in Syria are currently suspended due to the political situation.

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LOW RETURN ON EDUCATIONThe weak correlation between educational attainment and labour market performance is another specific feature of the region. The low return on education derives from three conditions of the education and training systems:

� fragmented institutional settings with responsibility for education and training policy divided between different ministries and little structured involvement of external stakeholders in governance;

� fragmented architecture of education and training sub-systems leading to a disconnection between education and training, or between education and training and labour, or both;

� low quality and relevance of the content of skills development provided to young and adult learners in the region for their socio-economic needs as well as those of enterprises.

RIGID GOVERNANCE Efficient governance remains a key challenge in terms of the need for increased participation and public accountability. Any improvement in the governance of VET systems depends on three main factors:

� increased involvement of social partners at all stages of the policy cycle;

� decentralisation and/or greater flexibility in training provision to allow VET providers to be more reactive to the labour market and to better contribute to local development; and,

� setting up and enforcing mechanisms of accountability.

ECONOMIC VULNERABILITY There are some features shared by these countries that make their economies particularly vulnerable. Micro and small enterprises dominate the economies and these tend to have lower levels of productivity, find it hard to compete internationally and face difficulties in securing sufficient financial investment for growth.

The region is also fairly dependent on economic sectors such as tourism, construction and agriculture that are very sensitive to external factors such as weather, political stability, etc. These and other prevalent sectors in the region such as textiles for example, tend to be unproductive and highly vulnerable to global competition. Many countries in the region and also overly dependent on international economic fluctuations.

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Further information on ETF activities can be found on the website:

www.etf.europa.eu

For additional information please contact:

European Training Foundation Villa Gualino Viale Settimio Severo 65 I - 10133 Torino

info@etf.europa.eu

ETF PRIORITIES AND ACTION IN EDUCATION AND TRAININGSouthern and Eastern Mediterranean countries face a big challenge to improve the return on their VET systems within the difficult context of high demographic pressure, very low activity rates and vulnerable economies which lag behind in job creation. On one side, ETF action focuses on the overarching system level through:

� VET policy analysis: through the Torino Process, the ETF engages broad stakeholder groups in joint analyses of current VET policies. The analyses emphasise the gathering of evidence on how they contribute to goals set in each country and whether they are ready to meet the changing needs for skills and qualifications. Policy analysis findings inform the policy making agenda, assisted in some cases by the ETF directly or with proposals for EU programming.

� designing large scale EU interventions: with a firm basis in these policy analyses, a key aspect of the ETF’s work in the region is to identify and formulate large scale EU interventions which support the development of VET systems.

On the other side, ETF action at country and regional levels focuses on four main challenges which are in line with the renewed European Neighbourhood Policy priorities:

� improving the employability of young people through better and more relevant VET. This area focuses on rethinking existing qualification systems through national and regional dialogue.

� reducing economic vulnerability by supporting small businesses through the promotion of entrepreneurship and skills for SMEs in the education and training system and in enterprises.

� introducing multilevel governance concepts in VET by increasing inclusiveness and accountability. Emphasis is on increasing the awareness and capacity of social partners to engage in the governance of VET and on the role of human capital in regional development to promote territorial cohesion in the regions of Médenine (Tunisia) and Tanger (Morocco).

� linking skills and migration in the context of mobility partnerships and circular migration, providing insights on the links between skills and labour migration.

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As part of the EU agenda, the ETF facilitates regional policy dialogue in VET in support of sustainable development focussing on economic, territorial and social cohesion.

GOVERNANCE FOR EMPLOYABILITYIn October 2011 the European Commission represented by DG Education and Culture and DG Development and Cooperation agreed to a €2 million project on VET development in the framework of the Communication “A new response to a changing Neighbourhood”. The project focuses on “Governance for Employability”.

Few platform opportunities are available at regional level (South-South) to share experiences between peers, build partnerships and learn from good practice. The project facilitates the contribution of all countries to enhanced regional cooperation and integration. It addresses the overarching problem of youth and female employability by improving the quality and relevance of VET and the institutional capacities of various stakeholders involved in its governance. The project equally includes analytical work (e.g. a cross-country analysis on governance at central and school level).

REGIONAL DIALOGUE ON SME DEVELOPMENT AND EMPLOYABILITYThe ETF supports the EU in its policy dialogue with the countries in the region on issues linked to entrepreneurship and skills development for SMEs, including good practice exchange in the framework of the industrial cooperation agenda. It also supports DG Enterprise in monitoring the implementation of the EuroMed Charter for Enterprise and DG Employment

POLICY LEARNING: NEW CHALLENGES FOR SKILLS DEVELOPMENT Under the auspices of the Cypriot Presidency of the EU, the ETF is organising a High-Level Ministerial Forum on 25 September at the Dead Sea in Jordan. The Forum will build on the preliminary findings of the 2012 VET policy analysis in the Arab countries of Mediterranean region, which the ETF is carrying out under the Torino Process. This process is the external dimension of the European Copenhagen Process.

The focus is on the development of policies that boost youth employment as well as measures to strengthen the governance and performance of skills development related public policies.

The Forum will be followed by a regional conference organised by the ETF, in conjunction with the Fifth Euro-Mediterranean Dialogue on Public Management, on “New challenges for skills in the Mediterranean”,

VET TO ENHANCE REGIONAL COOPERATION

which will take place on 26-27 September with a broader audience composed of practitioners, researchers, social partners, and representatives of civil society, youth and women’s organisations.

In the follow-up to the conference, as for other projects, the ETF will seek coordinated action and potential synergy with international organisations, regional bodies and bilateral donors.

GIVING YOUNG MEDITERRANEAN LEADERS A VOICEDuring the regional event in September in Jordan, a new initiative, Young Mediterranean Leaders, will be launched. This initiative has been designed to contribute to the public policy development debate, to give a space for young people’s aspirations for dignity and democratic life in a more equal society. In other words, to build their futures.

with the provision of analytical work, including elaboration and dissemination of the UfM Employability Review. The ETF also contributes to the labour-market high-level experts meetings and the EuroMed Social Dialogue Forum.

EURO-MEDITERRANEAN QUALIFICATIONS In 2010, following requests from its partner countries, the ETF began a multi-annual project on the regional dimension of sectoral qualifications. It involves countries on both sides of the Mediterranean: Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia, and France, Italy and Spain. Tourism and construction are the sectors selected for pilot action due to their human capital and economic significance.

The objectives are to: 1) equip countries with the tools to make qualifications more transparent, comparable, and understandable and, where possible, enable convergence; and 2) stimulate on-going dialogue and reflection on qualifications and systems focusing on issues such as governance and quality assurance. Phase two will cover all interested countries on both sides of the Mediterranean.

Through the Euro-Med qualification network and the Euro-Med qualification strategic committee, a regional community of practice will be organised with key stakeholders including from governments, social partners, employment observatories and research centres on qualifications. The European Commission and relevant European and regional institutions will also be involved.

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