NN41, December 2008
The New Politics of Partnership: Peril or Promise?
Are Recent Development Strategies Really Doing Better?The New Aid Architecture for VET
By Manfred Wallenborn, European Training Foundation, Turin
Email: Manfred.Wallenborn@etf.europa.euKeywords
Partnership, VET
Summary
Development policies follow changing paradigms and agendas of politics. This article examines the international cooperation and partnership for vocational education and training (VET).
?If certain problems are approached in a complicated way, there are finally more solutions developed than problems exist?
(Management Centre, Witten, www.mz-witten.de)
Development policies follow changing paradigms and agendas of politics. The interests of Northern political systems are only on a very abstract level identical with the demands and needs of education and training in the partner countries. Different policies and approaches for development (e.g. the structural adjustment, MDGs, promotion of civil society, corporate social responsibility etc.) are consequences of paradigm shifts and the changing intervention logics of donors (new solutions for longstanding problems).
Since 1990, international cooperation in VET with developing countries has constantly declined in terms of financial investments and technical assistance (bi- and multilateral donor support). New approaches and contents (environment/pollution, energy, avoiding conflicts and crisis etc.) are considered as appropriate answers to the ongoing globalization of economy, transnational conflicts, scarce resources and environmental changes etc. The remaining problems, e.g. what qualifications, skills and competencies are required in stagnant societies with high population growth rates or how to address rapidly changing skills demands on globalized markets had been nearly ignored during 15 years (same neglecty for agriculture/rural development, accused FAO in June 2008).
The overall conclusion drawn was that the complexity of transnational problems in world society should be tackled with more complex approaches of development support and interventions in terms of quality and quantity (SWAP, budget support and mid term expenditure frameworks). This is partly acceptable, but a too simple linear correlation, assuming that human capital development problems can exclusively be solved with new instruments of intervention, instead of supporting more comprehensively the existing VET structures using new functional criteria for socio economic development.
Apart from the politicians, the education and training systems in the partner countries and their system logic mostly don?t like these new types of intervention. The structural imbalances of complex donor approaches, e.g. heavy evaluation procedures, overloaded monitoring instruments and reporting schemes do not correspond to the available manpower resources in the responsible ministries and management bodies of the partners. Capacity building or organizational capability as a precondition for modified interventions are not adequately considered from the donors; furthermore they are often seen as a long lasting precondition and obstacle for the immediate disbursement of funds.
One consequence of this problem is the reproduction of the vicious circles of intervention logic in development cooperation in other donor driven contexts: the new development paradigm considers e.g. technical assistance (?projectitis? with high transaction costs) as outdated, mostly creating artificial structures in the partner countries. This problem is today mainly ?solved? with new artificial structures/contributions of donors: plenty of consultants are working on outlining education strategies, reporting structures, following up the coherence of performance indicators with formulated objectives etc. which hardly anybody in the country is able to do. This undermines the so called ownership of the locals (which exists in many cases only on paper as political will of decision makers).
VET is back on the agenda of many donors (see Arab Human Development Report and the two last World Development Reports). This does not mean that old intervention logics of VET-cooperation would fit today in a more complex environment (e.g. simple transfer of systems like dual system or copying complicated regulations like National Qualification Frameworks) and structural inertia. VET and cooperation in VET must be perceived today from strategic socio-economic objectives of development (create rapidly new skills, employment opportunities, income generation etc.) and the foreseeable economic and social development context of a country. Consequently more heterogeneity in VET interventions will be necessary in international cooperation.
Highly fragmented societies in Latin America, in many MENA/MEDA countries and partly in Asia do not need a coherent and monolithic VET system. Flexible qualification strategies, which have answers for training needs and solutions for human capital development in a high technology based segment of modern industry and service sector, are different from skills development in traditional industries and the craft sector. Informal sector workers need skills development as well as business competencies, which are different from the other economic sectors. In other words: a functional approach (in terms of social and economic development objectives and strategies for more employment and productivity) for new human capital requirements of the future will be the focal point for VET interventions.
Furthermore the global division of labour, fostered by the transnational economy, will create different opportunities for economic and social development for various types of countries. Labour market trends will reveal clear signs of what is going on in the next future and what might be the challenges for initial VET, adult training and lifelong learning. The traditional school based VET structures will not be able to cope with these changes if they continue to be too costly, too far away from the world of work and not innovative enough for change. This will open another scope for the donors on private VET providers, work based training, more efficient and incentive based financing schemes etc.
This is the reason why traditional approaches of intervention with a mere systemic inside look in partner countries? VET are not any longer sufficient. VET or general secondary education should have for donor interventions no priority as such ? looking exclusively at the internal design of training or education systems. Rather, the challenges and the needs for improving the systems are coming from outside ? mostly from the economy and the labour market development, which are the new imperatives for more private sector driven training.
Donors must take into account this rapidly changing framework in a gloabalized economy. Looking to the above mentioned context, they should be constantly aware of the structural problems of intervention logics, which camouflages under the new approaches like SWAP and budget support the old problem of artificial structures, introduced by the agencies of the North, either formerly in project implementation units but now through international consultants in the line ministries.
This structural problem of donor cooperation could be partly solved by strategic capacity building for local institutions and experts. Development will take place through an innovative framework which fosters the initiatives of well qualified and trained people. Funds and assistance from outside might be necessary, but without the effective performance of local/national human capital nothing will be converted in a success story. ?The more funds . . . the more sustainable development? is the logic of donors who are only partly aware of the specific constraints in capacity building of local people and their organizations to foster organizational capabilities.
Ownership driven strategies should consequently use the local know-how and the performance capacities of national institutions. Projects which rely on partner know-how, hardly follow the project cycle management (a typical product of western societies) but are based on trial and error and learning loops for experts, partners, beneficiaries and donors. This is required in a donor environment which focuses too much on external resources.
The new VET-approaches will be holistic and must be outlined on the background of partner countries? economic context, labour market developments and new arrangements of the social partners in designing, implementing and conducting VET programmes. The VET system as such is not the reference point for improvement but the social and economic environment. Donors should therefore constantly and carefully look on the recent developments on labour markets and the demand of the private sector - a precondition for small, but good projects and for tailor-made interventions.
Full contents of NORRAG NEWS 41.
Download the full issue of NORRAG NEWS 41 in pdf.