NN41, December 2008
The New Politics of Partnership: Peril or Promise?
Partnerships to Improve Disadvantaged Youth Transitions from Education to Work in Latin America
By Claudia Jacinto, redEtis, IIPE-UNESCO
Email: cjacinto@redetis.iipe-ides.org.arKeywords
Local and horizontal partnerships, ?good practices? in youth training, networking, intersectoral policies, challenge to sustainable partnerships
Summary
For disadvantaged youth transitions to work to succeed, there is a need to improve horizontal partnership between different actors in education, vocational training and public and private employment, as well as vertical partnership between local, regional and national levels.
When it comes to promoting the work insertion of poorly qualified youth in Latin America, there is consensus on the need to improve horizontal partnership between different actors in education, vocational training and public and private employment, as well as vertical partnership between local, regional and national levels.
There?s a consensus that partnerships are key to ?good practices? to improve youth training and employment opportunities. Amongst these would be: promoting a closer bond with the private sector employer in order to add work insertion strategies and on-the-job learning (internship/placements) as a part of the training; ensuring young people?s access to employment services and counseling, either on self-employment, micro-enterprises, or paid employment; advisory, coaching actions (in some cases in charge of local employment services) and access to micro-credit for inexperienced small self-employed entrepreneurs, in first stages of business development; linking different educational paths and learning environments (formal schooling, vocational training, workplace). Specially when addressed to disadvantaged youth, some methods and instruments on social education and linkages with social and health services seem essential.
As public policies on training in Latin America are increasingly decentralized, it is therefore indispensable to establish local networks, between institutions addressing training, companies, NGOs, and other social institutions, like health and social services. However, in most cases, the efforts are insufficient to establish lasting networks.
In fact, for sometime now, emphasis has been placed on the need for broader approaches in terms of youth transition policies. Evidence has proved the effectiveness deriving from integrated approaches through a youth protection network. But as it?s difficult to achieve, intersectoral strategies have been promoted as a way to improve links. However, experience has shown that there are still great political and institutional drawbacks to overcome for constructing strong linkages. The lack of links between different government levels and other actors reveals the complex structure of public policies resulting from the socio-political and cultural, regional and national history. One key aspect to understand the difficulties in creating sustainable partnerships derives from the fact that different social, individual and collective actors, with diverse political orientation, interests and values back up varied strategies and expectations, influencing and modifying the original plans. It is now necessary to accept and analyze the logic behind such actions to come up with creative ways to overcome the drawbacks they impose, also acknowledging that, in many cases, ?voluntarist? approaches have prevailed.
Some of the major challenges still pending are: a further co-ordination between national actors, the effective design of integrated and inter-sectoral approaches, the strengthening of actors? management and implementation competences, the consolidation of public-private partnerships, and preventing fragmentation in training-for-work policies.
Full contents of NORRAG NEWS 41.
Download the full issue of NORRAG NEWS 41 in pdf.