Enhancing youth employability: a public private development partnership model to acquire industrial skills

Abstract

Current global changes in the manufacturing industry and their impact on jobs, call for innovative approaches to skills-development. In order to meet the goals of the 2030 sustainable development agenda, new ways of developing cooperation, such as partnering with the business sector are required. Our paper presents a public private development partnership model for the acquisition of industrial skills in the fields of heavy duty vehicle and forest industry with case studies from Ethiopia, Liberia and South Africa. We examine the impact of such a model in terms of inclusiveness, employability and increase in income. Our analysis suggests that the public private development partnership model impacts positively both on inclusiveness and employability. It is too premature to draw conclusions on the impact on income. Future research should expand the number of case studies and data and introduce control groups.