The ICQN-TVSD Inter-country Seminar on the Financing of Vocational Training

The seminar was organised with funding from the French Development Agency (AFD) and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). Its main aim was to follow up the study on the financing of vocational training carried out in 2014 by ADEA on behalf of the AFD.

The seminar’s specific aims were to:

• disseminate the results of the ADEA/AFD study on the French-, Portuguese- and English-speaking continent;
• add to the information already gathered from the funds;
• clarify the strategy for supporting the funds and improve the effectiveness and relevance of their action, to enable them to participate more actively in the delivery of training and skills development policies in their countries;
• strengthen inter-fund cooperation activities, in particular in the framework of RAFPRO.

The Seminar brought together some 40 participants – fund and training agency manag-ers, donors, experts, representatives of the private sector and vocational training man-agers – from the 15 French- and English-speaking countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritius: Niger, Senegal, Chad and Togo).

It bought together chief executives and/or experts from RAFPRO’s founding members: Benin’s FODEFCA, Burkina Faso’s FAFPA, the ACPFE in Central African Republic, Chad’s FONAP, Côte d’Ivoire’s the FDFP, Mali’s FAFPA, Niger’s FAFPCA, Senegal’s FFFTP and ONFP and Togo’s FNAFPP.

There were also representatives from Mauritania’s FAPFTP, from the MITD of Mauritius, from Ghana’s COTVET and Kenya’s NITA.

The seminar also played host to a delegation from Madagascar (the Madagascar Enterprise Board (GEM), its Directorate General for Employment, the Antananarivo Chamber of Commerce and Industry/CCIA, UNESCO), which reflected the country’s commitment to setting up a vocational training fund further to its adoption of its national employment and vocational training policy (PNEFP) in 2015, and its consequent interest in finding out about how to create and organise the sort of fund.

Also attending the seminar were the President and Permanent Secretary of RAFPRO, repre-sentatives of the AFD, the SDC, the Vocational Training Platform (PEFOP), and vocational training managers from Cote d’Ivoire.

Two types of preparatory work preceded the Abidjan seminar:

• a preliminary survey, to which 13 participating funds replied. This aimed to provide quali-tative and quantitative information on the funds in order to find out more about their target groups, understand the main difficulties encountered in accomplishing their missions, and identify good practices in the field of continuing training and apprenticeship;
• an in-depth survey, sent to nine specifically selected funds (chosen because they are members of RAFPRO and representative of one of the three types of funding identified by ADEA in 2014). The in-depth survey questionnaire was sent to FAFPA in Burkina Faso, FAFPA in Mali, FAFPCA in Niger, the ONFPP in Guinea, the FNAFPP in Togo, the FDFP in Côte d’Ivoire, au FFFTP in Senegal, the FNAFPP in Togo, FODEFCA in Benin and FONAP in Chad. It aims to identify, through cross-analysis of the documents received, changes un-derway from the point of view of the recommendations made in the 2014 ADEA/AFD study.

The results of these surveys were submitted for debate and added to during the summer. By alternating between plenary sessions and group work, it was possible expand upon some of these results.