Promoting Social Cohesion and Peaceful Coexistence in Fragile Contexts through TVET

Based on the R205, the ILO is implementing the Jobs for Peace and Resilience (JPR) flagship programme which combines employment-intensive investments, technical, vocational and entrepreneurial skills training, and employment services to respond to the needs of the most vulnerable, including the unemployed, underemployed, and low-skilled, with a particular focus on youth and women. By simultaneously enhancing economic prospects, inter-group contact, and by addressing grievances of the most vulnerable communities, JPR projects aim to reinforce social cohesion and build resilience to future shocks.

However, too often in fragile and post-conflict situations, access to decent employment and vocational training are seen as secondary considerations to the policy discussions on social cohesion and peaceful coexistence. This is partly because training in fragile contexts is often short-term and narrowly focused on assisting vulnerable populations to acquire capacities for enhancing employability and accessing incomes. There is a growing evidence base of approaches that have the potential to contribute to peaceful coexistence in fragile settings. Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) can therefore act as a peace and resilience hub.

In this framework, the ILO’s Skills and Employability Branch together with the Coordination Unit for Peace and Resilience (CSPR) and under the Partnership for improving prospects for host communities and forcibly displaced persons (PROSPECTS), developed and piloted a new guide to foster the peace responsive role TVET plays in fragile settings.

The guide was piloted in Turkey, Kenya, Ethiopia, Jordan and Uganda and shall be systematically included in TVET curricula and delivery in fragile contexts and be a resource to support skills and employment interventions.