Skills development is among the greatest challenges facing countries, enterprises and people all across the world today. It plays a vital role in promoting employment, economic growth, and inclusive societies.

Relevant skills training requires bridging the world of education and training to the world of work. Bringing together enterprises, labour, government and trainers at the local, industry and national levels ensures that training is relevant to the needs of businesses and labour markets and is accessible to young people and workers throughout their careers. This partnership can also ensure that skills is a driver of change – enabling innovation and technology adaptation, promoting investment, and creating more and better jobs.

The Global Public-Private Knowledge Sharing Platform on Skills for Employment (Global KSP) aims to help strengthen the links between education and training to productive and decent work by sharing approaches, knowledge and experiences that governments, employers, workers and international organizations have found effective in addressing these issues of common concern across the world. 

Initiated by the International Labour Organization (ILO), the Global Public-Private Knowledge Sharing Platform on Skills for Employment benefits from the support and collaboration of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the World Bank.

This collaborative platform pools the relevant knowledge products on skills for employment of each of the partner organizations. And it provides an unprecedented opportunity to enhance the exchange of ideas and experiences among policymakers, the private sector, TVET institutions, academic institutions, bilateral agencies, and other international organizations that have experience using skills development to improve employability and productivity, and who are interested in learning from others’ experience. 

At their Pittsburgh Summit in 2009, G20 Leaders called on the ILO to develop a training strategy that would help generate strong, sustainable and balanced growth. In preparing this strategy, the ILO worked with employers and workers, consulted with other international organizations, in particular OECD and UNESCO, and drew on the tripartite conclusions on Skills for improved productivity, employment growth and development adopted at the ILO's International Labour Conference in June 2008.

The Training Strategy was then submitted to the Toronto G20 Summit in June 2010 and included in the Action Plan on Development adopted at the Seoul G20 Summit later that year, which called on international organizations to work together to support developing countries, in particular low-income countries, “to continue to develop employment-related skills that are better matched to employer and market needs in order to attract investment and decent jobs.”

Intended as a framework to provide guidance on developing a suitably skilled workforce for the future, and ultimately for obtaining decent work in sustainable enterprises, the Training Strategy addresses strategic issues and identifies the critical elements, or ‘building blocks’, for connecting education and training to the world of work.

The Global KSP uses the G20 Training Strategy as its foundation and builds on it by: demonstrating how training and skills strategies and policies and systems work – with what resources and engagement by stakeholders and in combination with other policies and institutions; sharing valuable lessons learned more widely and more readily to inform policy choices; saving time and resources; and, helping to cast a wider net in capturing the experience and lessons learned from adopting policies in new ways and responding to new national circumstances and needs. 

Supporting the implementation of the G20 Training Strategy 

G20 members have committed to supporting implementation of the G20 Training Strategy in the area of human resources development, technical and vocational education and training for employment and promoting knowledge sharing. They include:

The organization of the Global KSP is designed to help users with different degrees of interest (e.g. policy advisors, employers, training institutions, academics) find what they need – what they could put to use. Organizing content by the themes of the G20 Training Strategy and its building blocks corresponds to actual policy dilemmas, which is also searchable by region, country, economic sector, and source of information.

Within each policy issue, information is organized as a pyramid presenting knowledge products based on how skills knowledge is built: starting from a base of statistics and lengthy research reports to national skills policies and concise policy alternatives at the apex

Search by ‘knowledge products’ 

By providing different types of ‘knowledge products’ – research findings, case studies, international standards, among others – the Global KSP allows different users to easily search for the type of information they seek. For example, policy-makers might want policy briefs; their advisors might look for international labour standards and national skills policies; employers and workers could search for illustrative case studies; academics might prefer in-depth research papers; activists and advocates might value videos, fact sheets and presentations. In short, this website would allow users with different areas of interest to find what they need – what they could put to use – without sifting through knowledge products that may be more relevant to others.

Search by ‘sources of information’ 

The website can also be searched by ‘source’ of information – the partner international organizations, employers and employers’ associations, trade unions, TVET institutions, and academic, bilateral and other international organizations that have contributed knowledge products to the platform.

Search by ‘country or region’ 

The ‘countries’ page provides users with an opportunity to search by ‘geographical regions’ – Africa, Americas, Arab States, Asia-Pacific, Europe and Central Asia – in addition to ‘economic classifications’ – OECD member countries, Developing countries, Least developed countries, and Transition countries. Within these pages as well as country-specific pages, users may conduct searches based on the filters provided – issues, knowledge products, date, and source.

Search engine 

The website's search engine on the left margin of each page works in two ways. Users can search by keyword or phrase and browse by specific category. Users can also check or uncheck options to filter search results by issue, type of knowledge product, country, source, and language. The system further refines results by organizing them in a tabbed list on the center of the page, with the most recent items appearing first.
 

The Global KSP does not attempt to be exhaustive, nor intend to be a repository of information on the full range of relevant documentation and tools on skills development or technical and vocational education and training (TVET). Rather, the intent is to operate an information exchange focusing on evidenced-based research and documented experience on the specific issue of skills development for employment.

Maintaining a clear focus on skills for employment is an asset in helping users to access knowledge in a way that corresponds to policy questions. However, the Global KSP provides direct access to databases on training materials, curriculum, qualification standards on institutions’ separate websites, for example, ILO Cinterfor and UNESCO-UNEVOC

If you have questions, comments or suggestions concerning the Global Public-Private Knowledge Sharing Platform on Skills for Employment (Global KSP), or are interested in contributing content for consideration, please contact us at: knowledge@skillsforemployment.org.