Liban

This brief examines key factors that influence the labour market demand and supply of skills, while providing an assessment of specific skills in demand, based on the ILO’s study of supply and demand in the agriculture sector in 2018. The brief also looks at key measures to be considered by the Ministry of Agriculture and other stakeholders to promote a market responsive technical and vocational education and training (TVET) system.

This tracer study targeting a number of agriculture graduates from Agriculture Baccalaureate Technique and short-term courses is a result of a joint effort of a number of organizations. It was conducted as part of the project “Upgrading the technical agriculture education system in Lebanon”, led by FAO with funding from the Kingdom of the Netherlands and implemented in partnership with the International Labour Organization (ILO), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and AVSI, to help the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) increase the market relevance of its training programmes.

The study was conducted by the Consultation and Research Institute and ILO with the extensive support of the Ministry of Agriculture, AVSI and FAO. It benefited from technical review and inputs by Leon Gaskin, Chief Technical Advisor, Patrick Daru, Senior Skills and Employability Specialist at ILO-ROAS, Rania Hokayem, ILO National TVET Programme Coordinator, and Serajul Islam, Skills Development Officer at ILO, Fatima Halbawi, head of Education and Extension Services at Ministry of Agriculture. It was also reviewed by Sonia el Abiad, director of directorate of studies and coordination at the Ministry of Agriculture, Hayfa Jaafar, head of education and training department and Dr Salem Darwish, Minister of Agriculture Advisor.

In 2018, the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS) supported the implementation of a one-year programme to improve access to employment opportunities for Lebanese and refugee graduates. The accelerated skills training programmes (ASTP) consisted of theoretical and practical courses and periods of paid internship within private companies, cooperatives and local public institutions.
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) provided support to programme stakeholders through capacity building and guidance on non-formal market-based skills training. A total of 1,436 vulnerable persons living in Lebanon received a certificate after completing the training and internship.

Two years later, this tracer study aims at assessing the outcomes of the vocational training programme in terms of graduates’ appreciation of the training, employment and income trajectories, relevance between skills learned and jobs obtained, and, more generally, the enabling and disabling factors to participation in the labour market among the population of graduates.

The multi-faceted crisis that Lebanon is currently experiencing (financial crisis, anti-government protest movement, the Beirut Port explosion in August 2020 and its repercussions, and the Covid-19 pandemic) makes the context exceptional. The results of the programme in terms of employment should be read bearing this context in mind.

These guidelines are intended to support non-formal vocational training providers in Lebanon, with specific guidance on how to improve the market relevance and employment impact of their programmes. They were designed in a participatory way in order to increase “ownership” among stakeholders and to facilitate usage in Lebanon.