Supporting Local Skills and Enterprise Development – Lessons Learnt from a Public-Private Partnership in Eastern Africa

Abstract

Abstract Developers and operators of large-scale industrial projects are often faced with the challenge that host governments and communities expect such projects to transform and diversify the local economy and provide jobs and training opportunities for the local population. To support local employment and local sourcing of goods and services into and around the supply chain, the E4D/SOGA – Employment and Skills for Africa partnership program has brought together stakeholders from the energy and the development sector to deliver skills, supplier and enterprise development projects in East Africa. This paper reflects on this collaborative partnership. First, it introduces the program's objective, its point of departure and its achievements to date. Second, it explains the program's overall approach focused on promoting employment in collaboration with industry, and it sketches out the partnership options that it has offered to different types of companies. Third, it discusses three main lessons learnt focusing on the value of the program's multi-partnership approach, its delivery of short and longer courses improving beneficiaries’ employability and transferable skills, and the balance it has struck between supporting local companies to become suppliers and stimulating entrepreneurship to support more diversified local economies. The paper concludes with the overarching message that this partnership has struck a new balance: it has moved beyond conventional technical and vocational education and training (TVET) programs to focus on the shared interest that local communities and international companies have in promoting local employment.