Skills Development for Sustainable Livelihoods in Asia

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Session Description

The Asia-Pacific region has made great strides in improving access to education, where primary school enrollment rates have shown differing yet generally rising trend. However ILO research shows that there persists a skills mismatch between young people finishing school and employers’ needs. Labour force appears to be less than optimally tapped yet industries are visibly struggling to find suitable human capital. Youth unemployment and underemployment in ASEAN is at 13.6%, higher than that of South Asia (9.9%). These are conditions that affect livelihoods and security of this region. How can skills development better lead to sustainable livelihoods in the future? How will our solutions and challenges/opportunities differ between each country’s desired development outcomes and target communities? What can corporates, capacity builders, funders, do differently to create better outcomes in this space?

Key Takeaways:

• Examples of cross-sector collaborative efforts to skill up the Asian workforce
• Funding/Supporting challenges and opportunities in skills development in Asian markets and their relative similarities and differences among markets
• Innovative ideas and upcoming trends in Skills Development in Asia