International Labour Organization Articles

Training and the Poor: Learning to change - Click To Read Article
This paper explores the role of training in assisting individuals who are economically vulnerable and socially excluded (EVSE) in developing countries. Roughly speaking, almost one in four of the population in the developing world lives in absolute poverty and this number continues to increase rather than decrease. Poverty reduction is now at the top of the policy agendas of most bilateral donor agencies and international development organisations within and outside the United Nations system as well as a growing number of governments. Ambitious targets to halve poverty by 2015 have been set by the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD (see UNDP, 1998; OECD, 1997).

Training vouchers for Jua Kali enterprises in Kenya - Click To Read Article
The Micro and Small Enterprise and Technology Project in Kenya incorporates many of the key features of the Bank's overall approach to VET. The provision of training vouchers to 60,000 entrepreneurs and workers among already established jua kali (hot sun) manufacturing enterprises is the main mechanism for improving skill levels. The total cost of the project is US21.83 million over a six year period (1994/95 - 2000/01).

The Skills Development Strategy in South Africa - Click To Read Article
The recently introduced Skills Development Strategy in South Africa seeks to cater for the training needs of both the formal and informal sectors.

The Vocational Education and Training Agency in Tanzania - Click To Read Article
Since the early 1970s, the government of Tanzania, with very considerable donor support, has developed a national network of 18 vocational training centres catering mainly for the traditional artisan trades.

Study objectives: Learning to change - Click To Read Article
The main objective of this paper is to analyse the reasons for this alleged failure of national VET systems to provide the main target groups among the poor with the knowledge and skills needed to increase significantly their productivity and incomes.

References: Learning to change: Skills development among the economically vulnerable and socially excluded in developing countries - Click To Read Article
References

Preface: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
This is my third opportunity to offer the Director-General’s Report to the International Labour Conference. The first, Decent work,revisited our mandate, interpreted it and defined our mission for the world of today, based on ILO values. You subscribed to the agenda we set out, which affirmed that the ILO had to be concerned with all workers, including those beyond the formal labour market.

Principles of good practice for business development support projects - Click To Read Article
Business-like and demand-led. The best BDS organisations at supporting MSE are like those MSE in terms of their people, systems and values.

Executive Summary: Learning to change - Click To Read Article
In the context of mass poverty in most developing countries, the critical role of training in furnishing badly needed skills to improve productivity, incomes and equitable access to employment opportunities seems particularly obvious and straightforward.

EVSE target groups: Learning to change - Click To Read Article
Poverty is the inability to maintain a minimal standard of living. It consists of two elements. The first is the expenditure necessary to buy a minimal standard of nutrition while the second element varies from country to country and reflects specific national normative concepts of welfare. As societies become wealthier, perceptions of the acceptable minimum level of consumption also change. Consequently, poverty is a context-specific concept and, as such, is very much a moving target (See DANIDA,1996).

5.0 Support for SME development in Tanzania: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
The Government of the United Republic of Tanzania began its first major attempt to promote the small industries sector as far back as 1966 with the formation of the National Small Industries Corporation (NSIC) under the National Development Corporation (NDC).

5.1 The SME Development Policy (SMEDP): Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
It should be noted that the latest round of SME development policies are very recent. The MIT released its national SME Development Policy in 2003, a process it has been working on since 1998. The SME Development Policy was approved by Parliament on 11 February 2003 and officially launched on 27 August 2003. The overall objective of the policy is “to foster job creation and income generation through promoting the creation of new SMEs and improving the performance and competitiveness of the existing ones to increase their participation and contribution to the Tanzanian economy” (MIT, 2003). The implementation plan for the SME Development Policy includes a list of priority programmes and projects,24 categorized under seven major objectives:

5.2 Structure for implementing the SME Development Policy: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
The Ministry of Industry and Trade is the lead ministry for coordinating the implementation of the SME Development Policy. Three entities are in place, all parts of the implementation structure.

5.2.1 The MIT-SME section: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
Prior to 1997, the small business development function rested within a Unit whose status was equivalent to that of a department and reported to a deputy minister.

5.3 Other government SME agencies and organizations: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
The Small Industries Development Organization (SIDO) is the main government arm for small-scale industries promotion in the country; its main budget comes from the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MIT).

5.4 Inclusion of women in the SME Development Policy: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
Recognizing that women have less access to productive resources such as land, credit and education due to cultural barriers, and that they stand on uneven ground, the SME Development Policy specifies that gender mainstreaming will be enhanced in all initiatives pertaining to SME development, and outlines the need for specific measures that promote women’s entrepreneurship. These are stated as follows:

6.0 The integrated framework for development of women entrepreneurs: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
In the following sections, an assessment will be made of the Tanzanian support environment in favour of growth-oriented women entrepreneurs according to each of the areas set out in the Stevenson and St-Onge (2003) integrated framework.

7.0 Policy/programme coordination and leadership: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
At the time of the field visit to Tanzania (November 2003), there was no formal focal point for women’s entrepreneurship development within the government. An officer in the MIT-SME Section was assigned responsibility for co-implementing the ILO-WEDGE programme in collaboration with the ILO Dar es Salaam Office.

7.1 Recommended actions – policy coordination and leadership: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
Staff an official position responsible for women’s enterprise development

8.0 Promotion of women’s entrepreneurship: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
According to key informants from the University of Dar es Salaam, entrepreneurship is only now becoming considered a legitimate and valued activity in Tanzania. There is a huge need to increase this and to create more awareness of the important role that owners of micro and small enterprises play in the economy. A much higher value has to be attached to opportunities in the SME sector and to the role of entrepreneurs so as to make it an acceptable and preferred option for college and university graduates, the next generation of entrepreneurs.

8.1 Recommended actions – promotion: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
Launch Women entrepreneurs in Tanzania: A woman’s golden hands

9.1 Women’s access to micro-finance and other forms of credit: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
An unmet demand for credit

9.2 Barriers to financing women entrepreneurs: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
Although women entrepreneurs have consistently proven to be good credit risks (as a result of good repayment histories), limited access to credit for both new and growing women-owned firms is confirmed by researchers and key informants as a major constraint.

9.3 Micro-finance institutions (MFIs): Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
Micro-finance operators in Tanzania function within the framework of the Government’s National Micro Finance Policy of 2000. The objectives of this policy are to provide the basis for the evolution of an efficient and effective micro-finance system to serve the low segment of society and contribute to economic growth and poverty reduction (as described in MIT, 2002). The policy establishes a framework within which micro-finance operators will develop, lays out the principles to guide operations of the system, defines roles and responsibilities of actors, and provides guidelines for coordinating mechanisms. The Central Bank was given the mandate to coordinate implementation of the policy. It is interesting to note that the Micro Finance Policy includes “gender equity” as a best practice.

9.3.1 The CRDB Bank: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
The CRDB Bank, 90 per cent owned by DANIDA (the government still holds 10 per cent of the shares) provides both wholesale and retail lending services. Reportedly, it has a 40 per cent share of the micro-finance market, with centralized lending provided through their 24 branches.

9.3.2 The Small Industries Development Organization: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
SIDO, with an office in 20 of the 21 regions of the mainland, is a large provider of financial and non-financial services to MSEs. They have 70,000 credit-delivery clients and reach 300,000 MSEs through their small business training and consultancy services. The key informant from SIDO stated that there is a big gap in the capacity of the organization to meet the demand for credit – of the 71,000 credit applications they had in the system in November 2003 (for loan amounts totalling TShs 27 billion), they will only be able to fund about 10 per cent.

9.3.3 Other micro-finance providers: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
A number of NGOs also do micro lending, some of them predominantly oriented towards women-owned MSE clients. During the Tanzania field visit, interviews were held with the Tanzania Gatsby Trust (TGT) and the Zanzibar Fund for Self Reliance, two examples of such NGOs.

9.3.4 Commercial banks: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
With respect to commercial bank financing, key informants indicated that banks lack experience in dealing with the SME sector.

9.4 Recommended actions – access to credit and micro-finance: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
Recommendations to alleviate some of the challenges encountered by women in accessing credit to support the growth of their enterprises are presented for each of three levels of intermediaries – micro-financing operators, financial institutions and government.

5.0 Decent work, poverty eradication and policy coherence: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
Over the next ten years, over 1 billion young people, today aged between 5 and 15, will enter the working-age population. However, the global economy is not well organized to make full use of the enormous potential of their skills, energy and ambition to fight against poverty and make development sustainable. Today’s working life offers opportunities to some, but lowpaid work, unemployment and poverty to a great many.

5.1 Employment, productivity and social dialogue: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
The ILO is mandated both by its Constitution and by the United Nations to examine the functioning of economic, social and financial policies from the perspective of employment creation as a central goal. Full, productive and freely chosen employment is the primary means of reducing and eventually eliminating extreme poverty. Moving toward this objective requires a steady and brisk pace of growth that is sustainable in environmental, social and economic terms.

5.2 International economic integration and social justice: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
Policies to improve the governance of the labour market based on the decent work approach can create and enlarge the channels that ensure that sustainable growth yields the largest possible reduction in poverty. However, a large proportion of people experiencing extreme poverty live in countries that are themselves economically and socially excluded.

5.3 Harnessing the potential and sharing the stresses of economic integration: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
Many low-income countries are already closely connected to international markets, with exports and imports of goods and services constituting on average 43 per cent of GDP for the LDCs in 1997-98.

5.4 Solidarity in a globalizing world: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
Despite efforts to reduce the burden of excessive debt, many lowincome countries are still using a substantial portion of their resources to pay interest and repay the capital of earlier borrowing.

5.5 The HIV/AIDS threat: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
Over 25 million workers are infected with HIV/AIDS, and millions more affected by the pandemic. The ILO has calculated that the size of the labour force in high-prevalence countries will be between 10 and 30 per cent smaller by 2020 than it would have been without the effect of HIV/AIDS, which poses a serious threat to economic growth and development prospects. Macroeconomic performance is undermined by rising labour costs associated with the pandemic, through skills shortages, sickness and absenteeism and reduced productivity and economic competitiveness, resulting in a shrinking tax base, less foreign investment and fewer jobs.

5.6 A coherent framework for national and local action: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
Increased in-depth analysis of the multifaceted experience of poverty is leading to a growing awareness of the need for a range of policies that are specific to the problems faced by different communities and countries. Given that the causes of poverty are many and interconnected, targeted policies have most effect when they act in combination to break cycles of poverty. One of the most encouraging aspects of the new approach to poverty reduction and eradication is therefore the emphasis on policy coherence, based on a comprehensive development framework.

5.7 The Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper process: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
The ILO experience

5.8 Looking towards the future: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
A tripartite commitment to the eradication of poverty

5.9 Employment and enterprise development: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
Analysis of trends in employment to identify sectoral or regional patterns of growth or decline. Improving the information base on where people work and how much they earn, labour force participation and household incomes, disaggregated by sex and age.

5.10 Social protection: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
The impact of poor health, particularly HIV/AIDS, on employment and incomes and the policy priorities.

5.11 Rights and labour law reform: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
Development of a programme to eradicate child labour and the linkages to improved access to schools. Data on child labour require a special approach, given that it is often hidden.

5.12 Social dialogue: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
Promotion of tripartite mechanisms to strengthen the decent work dimensions of national economic and social development policies aimed at poverty reduction.

5.13 Gender: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
Review of policies to promote equal opportunities and treatment of women in employment and self-employment, and as entrepreneurs.

5.14 Partnerships: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
Identification of opportunities for partnerships between the ILO and its constituents.

5.15 Conclusions: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
Mobilizing the community of work to end poverty

5.1 Is there a poverty reduction crisis? Training outputs and impacts - Click To Read Article
To what extent are the disappointing outputs and impacts of training interventions in support of the poor symptomatic of a much wider problem, namely the failure of government and NGO efforts to reduce significantly the level of poverty in most countries?

5.2.1 Training outputs: Public sector training - Click To Read Article
Despite a chronic lack of supporting evidence, most training for the poor provided by public sector training institutions has been widely criticised for being inaccessible, irrelevant and of poor quality.

5.3 Training impacts: Public sector training - Click To Read Article
Despite the lack of evidence, it is widely argued that the impact of public sector training for the poor has been minimal in most countries.

5.3.2 Pre-employment: Public sector training - Click To Read Article
Most post-secondary public VET institutions have no explicit goals with respect to poverty reduction.

5.3.3 Women: Public sector training - Click To Read Article
common criticism of public sector training for the poor is that, at least up until fairly recently, it has been largely 'gender blind' which is part of a wider problem of mainly male policymakers simply 'not seeing' women.

5.3.4 The unemployed: Public sector training - Click To Read Article
The unemployed in most developing countries are generally not the most economically vulnerable because, in the absence of state income support of some kind or another, the poor cannot afford not to work.

5.3.5 Micro and small enterprises: Public sector training - Click To Read Article
Generalisations abound about the generally poor performance of public sector training institutions in supporting MSEs.

6. For-profit and NGO training activities - Click To Read Article
There are two basic types of private sector training institutions (PSTI) - for-profit and not-for- profit. For-profit PSTIs usually focus on the sale of training services. With economic liberalisation, most governments have adopted a more positive attitude towards PSTIs and have, therefore, taken steps to create a more enabling environment. Many NGOs are only involved in income generation and other activities (advocacy, life skills) where skills development is mainly on a learning-by-doing/learning-by-earning basis.

6.2 Traditional interventions: For-profit and NGO training activities - Click To Read Article
The training programmes of traditional NGOs have been similar in many respects to those offered by public sector VET government institutions. In particular, long-term pre-employment training in traditional trades for school leavers and the disabled have predominated.

6.3 Participatory skill development: For-profit and NGO training activities - Click To Read Article
'Participatory skill development' is perhaps the best term to describe the underlying rationale of an altogether new approach to skill development among the poor that has been adopted by many NGOs.

6.3.1 Indigenous skills and knowledge: For-profit and NGO training activities - Click To Read Article
The following discussion summarises the basic premises and key features of this new approach.

6.3.2 Group empowerment: For-profit and NGO training activities - Click To Read Article
The new approach to skill development tends to be more overtly political in that its primary focus is to support collective action among groups of the poor and, particularly women, in order to achieve specific economic, social and political objectives. Self-help associations (SHA) have become one of the main institutional mechanisms for achieving this. There are two main types of SHA- work-related (i.e. trade or occupation) and community-based.

6.4 Limitations of participatory skill development - Click To Read Article
There is simply too little information in the public domain to be able to draw meaningful conclusions about the outputs and impacts of this new approach to skill development among the poor. However, the following concerns are frequently mentioned.

7.1 Making the case for reform: A pro-poor training strategy - Click To Read Article
The need for fundamental reform of VET provision in most developing countries is compelling and should, therefore, be seriously addressed by governments and all other major stakeholders as a matter of urgency.

7.2.1 A pro-poor training strategy: Room for manoeuvre - Click To Read Article
Recommendations concerning poverty reduction are frequently flawed because they fail to take adequate account of underlying political and social constraints and the ability of the state to fund and deliver effective programmes.

7.3.1 Pro-poor development: Mainstreaming skills development for the poor - Click To Read Article
Creating a training system that effectively supports the needs of the poor can only be done as part of a broader pro-poor development strategy. Training on its own cannot solve the fundamental underlying problem of the lack of productive employment opportunities for EVSE. It must be linked to broader processes of economic and social change.

7.3.2 Training as a basic social service: Mainstreaming skills development for the poor - Click To Read Article
Redressing inequities and under-provision in the formal education system is of vital importance, both for achieving a more equitable allocation of jobs in the formal sector for women and other disadvantaged groups and, more widely, for sustained poverty reduction.

7.3.3 Reconceptualising the role of training: Mainstreaming skills development for the poor - Click To Read Article
The whole concept of training should be reformulated more in terms of purposeful skills development based on a variety of modalities/interventions and not just conventional, formal training courses. Because 'training' frequently has pejorative connotations, serious thought should be given to replacing it with other terms. 'Skills development' is generally preferable with 'facilitators' (rather than trainers) in appropriate supporting roles.

7.3.4 Labour market reform: Mainstreaming skills development for the poor - Click To Read Article
Training for the poor must also be part of a coherent set of active labour market policies. Without concerted government interventions to eliminate key impediments that prevent women, disabled persons and other discriminated groups from gaining equitable access to formal sector jobs, efforts to equalise training entitlements will ultimately fail.

7.4 Characteristics of a pro-poor training system - Click To Read Article
Many of the key characteristics of market-driven VET reform strategies can and should be incorporated into the design of pro-poor training strategies. In particular, the state should perform a largely regulatory and facilitatory role while actual training provision should, wherever possible, be contracted out to independent training providers. The state must, therefore, take primary responsibility for the funding of such a strategy and, in consultation with the major stakeholders, take the lead in the overall design of the strategy with clear priorities and related resource allocations.

7.4.1 Governance and organisation - Click To Read Article
Once again, little or no systematic research has been undertaken on the governance and organisational arrangements of national training systems in developing countries. In particular, little is known about recent attempts that have been made to improve the level of representation and thus the power and influence of the poor in governance structures and with what results. Similarly, virtually nothing is known about specific organisational changes that have been made in an attempt to ensure that the special training needs of the poor are adequately catered for.

7.4.2 Planning and research - Click To Read Article
There is a strong consensus that demand-driven training requires comprehensive 'labour market information systems' (LMIS) based on market indicators.

7.4.3 Funding - Click To Read Article
The poor do not have the resources to pay for their own training. The experience of nearly twenty years of structural adjustment has conclusively demonstrated that merely 'getting prices' and creating the appropriate enabling environment' for farmers and microenterprises is not sufficient in order to ensure a strong 'supply response'.

7.4.4 Donors - Click To Read Article
In poor, aid-dependent countries, the likelihood of pro-poor training strategies being introduced will depend very heavily on the policies and practices of their main donor partners. Unless, therefore, donors are prepared to concentrate the bulk of their assistance on poverty reduction as well as change their policies on VET, the prospects for the implementation of pro-poor training strategies are seriously reduced in most of these countries.

7.5.1 Institutional specialisation: Institutional design and capacity building - Click To Read Article
The debate about specialist training versus multi-purpose organisations offering a range of services to the poor is still unresolved.

7.5.2 Social capital, community organisations and NGOs: Institutional design and capacity building - Click To Read Article
Another key issue is that most of the poor do not have access to the wider social networks that are usually needed to sustain new enterprises. Since enterprise creation is fundamentally a social rather than a technical process, appropriate steps must be taken to create and nurture social networks. A closely related concern is the need to develop 'industrial clusters' within the informal sector (see Schmitz, 1997).

7.5.3 Public sector services for the poor: Institutional design and capacity building - Click To Read Article
Within the public sector as well, concerted efforts need to be made to improve the pre- and in-service training of all personnel who are directly involved in facilitating knowledge dissemination and skills development among the poor.

7.5.4 The role of public sector training institutions: Institutional design and capacity building - Click To Read Article
Many believe that public sector training institutions are intrinsically unable to support the training needs of the poor and disadvantaged and that, for this reason, primary reliance should be placed on NGOs and other private sector training institutions.

7.5.5 Vocationalising the school curriculum: Institutional design and capacity building - Click To Read Article
Vocationalisation of the school curriculum will continue to appeal to politicians and policymakers as an appropriate way of promoting productive self-employment and thereby reducing poverty, especially in rural areas.

7.5.6 Women and disabled persons: Institutional design and capacity building - Click To Read Article
Increasing female enrolments in secondary and tertiary education is critically important, especially in subject areas that have been traditionally male dominated and where long-term occupational prospects are more promising.

7.6 ILO Convention No. 142 and Recommendation No. 150 - Click To Read Article
The International Labour Convention No.142 and Recommendation No. 150 concerning Human Resources Development, which deal with vocational guidance and vocational training in the development of human resources, are the key ILO policy statements on VET.

1.1 Background and Introduction: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
The International Labour Organization (ILO) entered into a general agreement with the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MIT) in 2003 to implement a Women’s Entrepreneurship Development and Gender Equality (WEDGE) Programme1 in Tanzania.

1.2 Mission Objectives: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
The mission objectives for Tanzania were to: • review recent ILO and other relevant research on women in enterprise in Tanzania;

1.3 Methodology: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
Preparation for the mission involved a preliminary review of relevant research and documentation on the state of economic development in Tanzania, the general environment for SME development, the status of women entrepreneurs in the economy, and barriers to their growth and development.

2.0 The economic context: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
Tanzania has a population of just over 37 million, a GDP of US$22 billion, and GDP per capita of US$610.6 An estimated 51 per cent of the population lives below the poverty line. Eighty per cent of the country’s poor population live in rural areas, depending on subsistence agriculture and unable to participate in broader markets. Poor roads, exorbitantly expensive utilities and prohibitive policies have compounded this problem, significantly impeding the growth of the economy.7 Agriculture, the mainstay of the economy, is almost 50 per cent of GDP, and small-scale peasant farmers, who make up 70 per cent of the population, carry out over 80 per cent of agricultural activities. About 30 per cent of the population over 15 years of age is illiterate (UDEC, 2002).

2.1 The rise and fall and rise of private sector: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
At this point in Tanzania’s history, the culture of entrepreneurship is in need of revitalization. During the years of colonial rule in the country, the development of indigenous entrepreneurship was hampered. Tanzanians of African origin were mainly employed as laborers in cash crop farming, with limited access to business.

3.1-3.2 The SME sector in Tanzania: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
The Tanzanian government defines SMEs according to sector, employment size, and capital investment in machinery. Accordingly, SMEs are defined as micro, small, and medium-size enterprises in non-farm activities, including manufacturing, mining, commerce and services. A

3.3 Major Constraints facing the MSM sector: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
There are two levels of constraints facing MSMEs in Tanzania, those acting as barriers to general operations and those impeding growth. The UNDP, ILO and UNIDO (2002) report concluded with a list of factors impeding the development of informal MSEs:

4.0 The state of women’s enterprises in Tanzania: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
Currently, there is no comprehensive data on the number of women in the MSME sector, the size of their enterprises, or their distribution by sector. Only proxies are available. In NISS (1991) women accounted for about 35 per cent of informal enterprises. By 1995, it was estimated that the proportion of women in the sector could have risen to 70 per cent of the informal sector labour force. In a 2000 Economic and Social Research Foundation (ESRF) study, 55 per cent of the enterprises in the sample were owned by women (as reported in Mlingi, 2000, p. 89). Swisscontact (2003) estimated that women owned 43 per cent of MSEs.

4.1 The situation of women in MSMEs: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
Key informants confirmed findings from the literature – that women are predominantly found in informal, micro level, and low-growth sectors, and encounter high competition while earning subsistence incomes. Seriously encumbered by their low levels of education, women are unable to find employment in the formal, private sector, and are the first to lose their jobs in retrenchment exercises. Of necessity, they are driven into entrepreneurial activities.

4.1.1 Constraints faced by women in the MSE sector: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
Women in the MSE sector face a number of serious obstacles.

4.2 The profile of growth-oriented women: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
Since recent statistics disaggregated by sex are not available, it is not possible to estimate how many women among informal economy enterprises and SMEs are operating growth firms, or how many of them have medium-sized enterprises.

4.2.1 The challenges and barriers of growth: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
Most women entrepreneurs face many growth barriers

10.0 Training – business management and technical skills: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
Findings from research on women entrepreneurs in Tanzania and interviews with key informants indicate that women tend to have low levels of business and technical skills, and often do not value the importance of business training.

10.1 The education system: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
Over 690 vocational training centres are registered with the Vocational Education and Training Authority (VETA),38 over 90 per cent of which are either private businesses or NGOs. VETA centres do offer skills training courses suitable for self-employment (tailoring, batik making, housekeeping, etc), but UDEC (2003) states that the primary emphasis on training is for employability in large public and private enterprises. Because there are few jobs available, most of the VETA graduates go unemployed or are inadequately trained for entrepreneurship. Data on the proportion of women students is not available.

10.2 Pre-start-up training: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
Data from a 1997-98 training needs assessment of informal sector operators found that over 75 per cent of informal sector operators had primary education, while only seven per cent had attended vocational training courses. Most had acquired their skills in a variety of trades through apprenticeships or directly from their peers, but were unaware of the theoretical aspects (reported in Mlingi, 2000, p. 81). Only 5.3 per cent of the MSEs in the Swisscontact (2003) study had received any entrepreneurship training, and even fewer in new product technologies or costing and pricing. This suggests that most MSEs are “learning through trial and error” or from the practical know-how of other operators.

10.3 Training for existing enterprises: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
Once in business, women entrepreneurs express a strong need for training in marketing, product quality, financial management and business planning. But access to this business and management training is limited.

10.4 Recommended actions – training: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
(i) Increase women’s awareness of the need for training and its availability

11.0 Business support and information: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
The state of BDS provision in Tanzania is not well known. A 2003 SME-Mapping of Tanzania report concluded that existing BDS services are generally designed and financially supported by donors for the micro-enterprise market (and thus, are very basic), or are offered by professional consulting firms at high prices.

11.1 Recommended actions – business support and information: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
(i) Establish a coordinating office for BDS and outreach services for women-owned MSEs.

12.0 Business premises: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
Tanzanian MSMEs face serious problems being able to access proper business premises. A large proportion of informal economy enterprises operate along the roadside.

13.0 Business environment issues: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
The Tanzanian government is in the early stages of reviewing the regulatory and operating environment for its SMEs. According to the UDEC report (2002), most existing business policies and regulations were set up with large businesses in mind and are inappropriate for smaller enterprises. It also reported that existing policies are either gender blind or gender insensitive and thus fail to support women entrepreneurs in growth sectors.

14.0 Women entrepreneurs’ associations and capacity-building: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
There are over 30 business associations in Tanzania, seven of which are identified as being representative of SMEs (MIT, 2002). Only four of the total are oriented towards women members.

14.2 Recommended actions – women entrepreneurs’ associations: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
(i) Build capacity of women entrepreneurs’ associations through ILO’s WEDGETanzania project

15.0 The state of research on women in MSES in Tanzania: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
There is more available research on women entrepreneurs in Tanzania than in Ethiopia and Kenya. One of the major reasons for this is the presence of the Entrepreneurship Centre at the University of Dar es Salaam (UDEC).

16.0 Closing comments: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
In recent years, Tanzania has embarked upon the economic recovery process and is continuing to build upon and address the needs of MSMEs. Key informants from the MIT-SME Section acknowledged the current and future potential of women entrepreneurs and, although seriously under-resourced for the tasks ahead, the SME Section is enthusiastic and committed to working with the international donor community to support this target group. Coordination of all support efforts is crucial. A mechanism for achieving this is recommended – either an officer fully dedicated to the development of women’s enterprise or the establishment of a more formal Office for Women’s Enterprise Development (OWED).

17.0 References: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005 - Click To Read Article
References

1.0 Overview: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
The decent work dividend

1.1 Our mandate: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
The ILO is anchored in social justice. The opening phrase of the Constitution of the ILO, drafted in 1919, speaks to the headlines of today: “universal and lasting peace can be established only if it is based upon social justice”.

1.2 From Copenhagen to the Millennium Declaration: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
In 1995, the Copenhagen Social Summit put the “people’s agenda” back into the forefront of international policy. By stressing the interlinked challenges of poverty, unemployment and social exclusion as central to a global social justice strategy, the Social Summit marked a turning point for the multilateral system. It reinforced the ILO mandate in the world of work and gave new impetus to the promotion of core labour standards.

1.3 Towards a fair globalization: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
In recent decades, governments and international institutions focused on opening international and domestic markets to increased competition. The powerful new force of information and communication technology (ICT) was released. Globalization, as it became known, was changing the policy landscape and distribution of power and gains.

1.4 Our experience: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
Decent work is a powerful tool in selecting the path to the attainment of the interrelated goals and human development outcomes of the Millennium Declaration. The ILO’s four strategic objectives are a contemporary formulation of its mandate and a development strategy that responds to the most urgent demands of families today. Decent work unites the international drive to wipe out poverty with the fundamental right to work in freedom. Within each of the strategic objectives, there are tools to help eliminate poverty.

1.5 Skills development for sustainable livelihoods: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
We all know skills are essential to improve productivity, incomes and access to employment opportunities. Yet a striking feature of most poverty reduction strategies is the absence of vocational education and training – even though the vast majority of working people living in poverty cannot afford and have no access to training opportunities. The ILO is working with its constituents and others to rethink human resource development policies.

1.6 Investing in jobs and the community: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
The ILO has invested 25 years of pioneering work in the field of employment-intensive infrastructure programmes. It has been successful. It is now widely recognized that these programmes are effective in bringing much needed income to poor families and their communities. These efforts create between three and five times as much employment for the same level of investment.

1.7 Promoting entrepreneurship: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
The tools developed by the ILO to promote micro and small enterprises can be targeted to meet the needs of the poorest.

1.8 Making money work for poverty reduction: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
It is impossible to build an enterprise without access to credit. Poor people all over the world have little access to formal financial services. Microfinance activities go hand in hand with entrepreneurship, enabling the poor to borrow for productive purposes, save and build their assets. The ILO has advised central banks on the design of laws and regulations for povertyoriented banks. This has been instrumental in creating an enabling environment for pro-poor banks to emerge and prosper, particularly in Africa.

1.9 Building local development through cooperatives: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
Participation and inclusion are central to a new approach to poverty reduction.

1.10 Overcoming discrimination: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
Discrimination is a basis for social exclusion and poverty.

1.11 Working to end child labour: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
Child labour is both a cause and a symptom of poverty. In its worst forms, it robs children of their health, their education and even their lives.

1.12 Ensuring incomes and basic social security: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
The Declaration of Philadelphia and a number of international labour standards recognize access to an adequate level of social protection as a basic right for all.

1.13 Working safely out of poverty: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
The poorest workers are the least protected. More often than not, prevention of occupational accidents and diseases is missing from the agenda where they work. Hazardous work takes its toll on the health of workers and on productivity. It is unacceptable that the poor must be resigned to facing disproportionate risks to their safety and health because they are poor. South Asian countries are tackling hazards to workers, communities and the environment in the ship-breaking industry, and the ILO is working with them and other international partners to do so. We are showing that improvements can be made in working conditions and the environment in micro and small informal enterprises by low-cost investments that also raise productivity.

1.14 Our common challenge: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
Poverty is not just a problem of the poor. It is a challenge for all defenders of social justice and all seekers of sustainable growth. The goal of a stable and prosperous world economy is only possible if the productivity and consumer power of all its citizens are realized. A successful drive to raise the consuming power of the majority of the world’s population, particularly those on the lowest incomes, is fundamental to the broadening and deepening of markets – the lifeline of enterprise and growth. Only when the poor become real consumers will the economy become truly global.

1.15 Building an employment agenda: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
Employment, and the promotion of enterprise that creates it, remains the most effective route to poverty eradication. The objective of full employment is essential – an issue on which the European Union has given political leadership. Most policy prescriptions, however, do not view job creation as an explicit objective of economic and social policies, but rather as a hopedfor result of sound macroeconomic policies. At the ILO, we believe that sound macroeconomic policies are essential for desired growth, but such growth must be employment-intensive to effectively reduce poverty. While the main challenge remains at the national level, development cooperation has a role to play. Donor countries and institutions, especially international financial institutions, should build this in as an integral part of their vision.

1.16 Building a more inclusive global economy: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
A strategy that combines local action in a sound national macroeconomic framework with an international effort to boost and sustain investment, trade growth and technological transfers could yield a substantial dividend in the form of poverty reduction and growing markets. I would like to flag a few issues.

1.17 Building partnerships: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
I have often talked about the need for team play in the multilateral system to face the challenges of today’s world. Most would agree that the multilateral system is underperforming in this respect. We can and must renew our efforts to work together in a true global partnership of mutual responsibility and accountability.

1.18 Building bridges: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
The majority of people in developing countries live and work in the back alleys of the marketplace, the informal economy, the rural subsistence economy and the care economy.This presents a major challenge.

1.19 Building trust: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
Given the multifaceted and interconnected character of poverty, there is a growing awareness of the need for a range of policies that are specific to the problems faced by different communities and countries.

1.20 Building together: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
Attacking poverty and promoting social integration are not the job of any one country or organization acting alone. They form the inescapable common agenda for today’s world.

2.0 Work and the life cycle of poverty: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
Surviving on the poverty line requires considerable ingenuity, courage, self-discipline and endurance. No opportunity to earn some money or payment in kind can be missed. Children and elderly dependants as well as adult members of the family often have to work in some way or other for a bare subsistence income. Hunger is ever present. Sickness or an accident means disaster. Mending the roof, buying clothes, furniture, even exercise books and pencils for school are major investments.

2.1 The cruel dilemma of school or work: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
The education and preparation for working life of the current generation of children are of key importance to the drive to reduce and eradicate extreme poverty. Access to basic education has improved in a large number of countries, but the poor have benefited much less than those who are better off. Over 115 million school-age children, mainly in low-income countries, were not in school in 1999; 56 per cent of them were girls. On current trends, a large number of South and West Asian and African countries are unlikely to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of ensuring that all children complete a full course of primary education by 2015.

2.2 Wasting opportunities: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
Youth unemployment

2.3 Women workers and the work of women: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
Today’s girl child is tomorrow’s older woman worker, and it is her opportunities and experiences now that will shape her ability to obtain and maintain decent work throughout her adult life, and enjoy security and protection in her old age. If girls, compared to boys, face negative cultural attitudes and practices and discrimination from birth, they will grow up to be women with greater constraints and few choices and opportunities. In turn, they will be less able to influence positively the lives of their daughters and sons, so that poverty is likely to be passed on from one generation to the next.

2.4 Agricultural workers and rural communities: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
A better understanding of the social and economic dynamics of rural communities is critical to the reduction and eradication of poverty. The world’s poorest countries are those most dependent on agriculture. Threequarters of the people in extreme poverty live in rural areas.

2.5 Living and working in the urban informal economy: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
Street vendors in Mexico City; rickshaw pullers in Calcutta; jeepney drivers in Manila; garbage collectors in Bogotá; and roadside barbers in Durban – those who work on the streets or in the open air are the more visible occupational groups in the informal economy. The streets of cities, towns, and villages in most developing countries – and in many developed countries – are lined with barbers, cobblers, garbage collectors, waste recyclers, and vendors of vegetables, fruit, meat, fish, snack foods, and a myriad of nonperishable items ranging from locks and keys to soaps and detergents, and clothing. In many countries, head-loaders, cart pullers, bicycle peddlers, rickshaw pullers, and camel, bullock, or horse-cart drivers jostle to make their way down narrow village lanes or through the maze of traffic on city streets.

2.6 Hazards at work, health and the poverty trap: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
Inadequate housing and food, unsafe water, poor sanitation, hazardous working conditions and little or no access to health care – all of these contribute to ill health which is one of the main brakes on poverty-reducing development. Complications arising from undiagnosed or untreated diseases prevalent in many low-income countries and especially among rural populations (such as malaria, tuberculosis, gastro-intestinal disorders, anaemia and HIV/AIDS), combined with the health consequences of hazardous work, can be deadly and are certainly debilitating.

2.7 Growing old in poverty: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
Multi-generational relationships have sustained family and community life for centuries. Increasingly, however, older people have to rely on themselves to meet all their needs.

2.8 The foundations of a decent work strategy for poverty reduction: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
Most analysts of the nature and causes of poverty agree that growth in per capita income is essential to reducing poverty and that persistent growth failures are accompanied by a persistent failure to reduce poverty. However, they have not found a stable relationship between the rate of average per capita growth and the rate of poverty reduction.

2.9 Conclusions: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
For people living in poverty, discrimination and multiple deprivations cumulate to create a cycle of disadvantage. Recurring themes of the experience of poverty are the low returns to work of women and men in socially excluded communities and barriers to finding decent work opportunities.

3.0 Community action for decent work and social inclusion: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
Global and national strategies for poverty reduction should provide a framework for local strategies to escape cycles of low incomes from work and social exclusion. The ILO has considerable practical experience of community actions that create more and better jobs for women and men living in poverty and improve their chances of securing a life free from deprivation. Much of this work is in developing countries, but these approaches have also proved to be easily applicable in a number of transition and industrialized market economies.

3.1 Skills development for sustainable livelihoods: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
It is a commonplace in debates about how to reduce poverty to assert that poor people’s main or only asset is their labour. It seems obvious that training has a critical role to play in improving productivity, incomes and equitable access to employment opportunities. Yet a striking feature of most poverty reduction strategies in developing countries is that the vocational education and training component is largely absent.

3.2 Investing in jobs and the community: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
Spending on infrastructure represents about 20 per cent of total investment in developing countries, and from 40 to 60 per cent of public investment, according to the World Bank. A reorientation of policies on infrastructure investment to ensure that technically viable and cost-effective employment-intensive options are used speeds the reduction of poverty by generating productive and decent employment. The challenge is to develop the appropriate mix of capital- and employment-intensive investment techniques according to each country’s needs and resources.

3.3 Supporting entrepreneurship in micro and small enterprises: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
Small enterprises constitute a large and growing share of employment in the developing world, and are generally more labour intensive than larger firms.

3.4 Making money work for poverty reduction: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
The incomes of working people living in poverty are not only low, but also volatile. Poor people, aware of the risks of not having sufficient earnings to meet daily needs, tend to save proportionally more than families with more secure, higher incomes. However, most banks do not offer savings and loan facilities to poor people. Many must hide their savings in cash somewhere and, when they need a loan, resort to the local moneylender for credit at onerous rates of interest. Microfinance is the provision, on a sustainable basis, of financial services such as credit, savings, insurance, payments and guarantees to poor people generally outside the reach of the formal financial market.

3.5 Building local development through cooperatives: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
The participation of people living in poverty in policies to improve their livelihood and counteract social exclusion and vulnerability is increasingly emphasized in poverty reduction strategies.

3.6 Securing incomes: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
Societies at all levels of development face the challenge of organizing systems to provide security against contingencies such as sickness, accident, death of the main breadwinner, disability, old age, maternity and unemployment that make individuals, families and communities vulnerable to poverty. Through solidarity and fair burden sharing, social security systems contribute to human security, dignity, equity and social justice. They are also a foundation for political inclusion, empowerment and the development of democracy. Half of the world’s population is excluded from any type of social security protection, with the rate of coverage varying from almost 100 per cent in some industrialized countries to less than 10 per cent in the poorest developing countries.

3.7 Tackling work-related health hazards: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
Most workers living in poverty lack basic health and welfare services and work in an unhealthy and unsafe working environment. For many, their home and workplace are one and the same place. Vulnerability to disease and poor health thus result from a combination of poor living and working conditions. Most workers in the informal economy work in precarious and unsafe conditions, without sanitary facilities, potable water or proper waste disposal. Every year, more than 2 million people die of work-related accidents and diseases. In many developing countries, death rates among workers are five to six times those in industrialized countries. More than 160 million workers fall ill each year as a result of workplace hazards. The poorest and least protected – often women, children and migrants – are among the most affected.

3.8 Working to end child labour: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
Ensuring that children have a chance to break out of the cycle of poverty is a cause that has attracted worldwide support. The latest ILO estimates for 2000 are that some 352 million children between the ages of 5 and 17 were economically active.

3.9 Overcoming discrimination: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
All too often people living in poverty are not treated as equals by the rest of society.

3.10 Conclusions: Organizing to overcome poverty: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
The ILO portfolio of policy advice includes a range of interventions that act directly on the quantity and quality of jobs for the poor and the main expressions of social exclusion. The organizational base provided by trade unions and employers’ organizations is frequently at the core of action to bring together a variety of social institutions with government and public agencies in a common endeavour for sustainable community development.

4.0 Sustainable pro-poor growth and the governance of the labour market: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
It is revealing to look at the challenge of reducing and eventually eliminating poverty from the perspective of the drive to create decent work for women and men. Such a viewpoint helps to focus the attention of public authorities, from the local to the global level, the social partners and relevant groups in civil society on how to make institutions and markets serve better the needs of those most at risk of being trapped in poverty.

4.1 Institutions, markets and development: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
One of the leading thinkers about the importance of institutions and rules to making markets work for development, Nobel laureate Professor Douglass North, has explained that societies evolve institutions to “reduce uncertainty by providing a structure to everyday life”. He argues that this is essential to organizing the productive division of labour and that “institutions affect the performance of the economy by their effect on the costs of exchange and production”. He also stresses that many of the rules guiding daily behaviour are informal and that effective institutions for governing markets are a blend of socially accepted norms and laws underpinned by shared values.

4.2 Rights at work and development: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
A successful strategy for strengthening the governance of labour markets must recognize that they are different from other markets because they concern people. We all live in societies in which social status and self-esteem are strongly tied to both occupation and income.

4.3 Informal labour markets: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
A strategy for improving governance

4.4 Social dialogue and poverty reduction: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
Although fundamental principles and rights at work are an essential foundation for the governance of labour markets, they do not address all the issues of regulation needed to promote decent work. The governance of the labour market requires rules of various types to encourage working arrangements that are both efficient and fair.

4.5 Improving the performance of public services and formal sector enterprises: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
In many developing countries, pay and conditions in the public services have deteriorated badly over the long years of austerity associated with structural adjustment and the debt crises. This has seriously damaged morale and performance, led to the loss of some of the most talented public servants to the private sector, increased the risk of public servants resorting to “charging” citizens for services by demanding under-the-counter payments, and weakened confidence in the function of government.

4.6 Conclusions: Working Out of Poverty - Click To Read Article
Institution building for decent work and poverty reduction

2.1 Dimensions of crisis - Click To Read Article
There are two basic sets of concerns about VET and poverty reduction. The first focuses on the failure of most targeted training interventions to have any appreciable, sustained impact on livelihoods.

2.1.1 Poor outputs, limited impact - Click To Read Article
During the 1970s, there was considerable optimism among policymakers, donors and researchers about the potential impact of vocational training on productivity and incomes for the poor.

2.1.2 Lack of provision and system reorientation - Click To Read Article
It is widely argued that training systems in developing countries should meet the training needs of the poor in an effective and equitable manner. "The bulk of new jobs are being created in micro and small enterprises. Consequently, the training system should prepare people to be productively employed in these sectors" (ILO, 1998:57). The continuing lack of training opportunities for the poor and disadvantaged is, therefore, a constant refrain in the VET literature.

2.1.3 The potential for change - Click To Read Article
Given the received wisdom that training for the poor has had limited impact and training systems have not reoriented to meeting the need of the poor, the key question is 'what is the scope for improvement with respect to both these dimensions of the training crisis?' Again, the prevailing mood among leading commentators is decidedly pessimistic. Broadly speaking, two types of pessimism can be discerned.

2.2.1 Training provision, outputs and impacts: Contributory factors - Click To Read Article
There are a number of additional factors that have further compounded the pervasive concerns about lack of impact and re-orientation. In particular, there is considerable confusion about what exactly "training to overcome economic vulnerability" actually refers to and the availability of hard evidence on training provision, outputs and impacts continues to be 'lamentable' (CINTERFOR, 1998).

2.2.2 The concept of training: Contributory factors - Click To Read Article
The general failure to clarify precisely what activities should be included in "training to overcome EVSE" has resulted in considerable confusion and vagueness.

2.2.3 Training objectives: Contributory factors - Click To Read Article
Training policy objectives with respect to the poor are frequently poorly defined. Social exclusion is a complex theoretical concept referring to causal mechanisms producing poverty. Translating this concept into practical, poverty reduction policies has proved to be difficult in most countries (see Gore and Figueiredo, 1997).

2.2.4 National training systems: Contributory factors - Click To Read Article
While constant reference is made in the literature to 'vocational training systems', it is rarely made clear what exactly is meant by training system.

3.1 The public sector: Training priorities, resources and reorientation - Click To Read Article
"While there is long history of poverty-focused training in developed industrial economies, it is still relatively rare in the large majority of developing countries where most of the poor live" (Malik, 1996:46). This seems particularly ironic given that most of the world's poor live in developing countries. The following discussion looks at why public sector training priorities continue to favour non-poor groups. We shall focus in particular on the design of poverty reduction programmes, overall resource availability and competing claims over training resources from other sectors and groups.

3.1.2 Training for the formal sector: Training priorities, resources and reorientation - Click To Read Article
Despite oft-repeated government pronouncements about the need for concerted efforts to improve the skills of the poor, responding to formal sector training needs has remained the top priority for most public sector training institutions during the 1990s.

3.1.3 Market-driven training reforms: Training priorities, resources and reorientation - Click To Read Article
During the 1990s, the World Bank has taken the lead in promoting the benefits of pro-market reforms for VET.

3.1.4 Overall resource availability: Training priorities, resources and reorientation - Click To Read Article
The extent of public sector training for the poor is also strongly influenced by resource availability and the overall incidence of poverty.

3.2 The private sector: Training priorities, resources and reorientation - Click To Read Article
Little is known about the extent to which private sector training provision benefits the poor and even less is known about recent trends.

4.1 The potential for training interventions: The demand for training - Click To Read Article
As is well known, the supply of training does not usually create its own demand. Clearly, therefore, training provision for the poor has been powerfully shaped by the nature of the demand for training among targeted groups, in particular in the informal sector. Lack of effective demand is a key reason for both the limited training provision for the poor (and hence outputs and impacts) in most countries as well as the overall failure of national training systems to reorient their activities in support of the poor.

4.1.1 Survival enterprises: The demand for training - Click To Read Article
In simple numerical terms, 'survival' enterprises predominate in most informal sectors. The general view is that the skill requirements for most tasks undertaken in this type of enterprise are minimal and/or are relatively easily acquired on the job.

4.1.2 Enterprises with growth potential: The demand for training - Click To Read Article
Most training strategies in the informal sector have targeted manufacturing microenterprises that are considered to have some growth potential. However, even within this relatively better-off segment of the informal sector, the effective demand for training has frequently been found to be quite limited.

4.2.1 The gendered nature of poverty - Click To Read Article
Over two thirds of those living in absolute poverty are women (UNDP, 1998). As noted earlier, women are very heavily concentrated in the most marginal survival enterprises (often working at home) and in wage employment in secondary labour markets that are characterised by low skills and high turnover. In Sub-Saharan Africa, they also undertake the bulk of agricultural production. The 'training crisis' is, therefore, overwhelmingly linked to the economic and social vulnerability of women and particularly the multiple constraints that prevent them from exploiting training opportunities.

4.2.2 Training provision for women - Click To Read Article
The identification of women's training needs has often been flawed because "women are rarely treated as knowing what they need" (ibid: 30). The available evidence tends to show that poor women in most developing countries are usually most interested in skills training that meets their own immediate 'practical gender needs' as opposed to longer term, "strategic gender needs" that directly tackle the basic underlying causes of female subordination (see Moser, 1989).

4.3 The impact of economic liberalisation - Click To Read Article
The potential impacts of economic liberalisation on VET are twofold: change in incentives to invest in training and the availability of public funding for VET.


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