Trade liberalisation, technological progress, and falling transportation and communication costs are channelling investments into countries offering technological know-how at competitive levels.  In many developing, emerging and transforming countries, a gradual modernisation of traditional production and trade structures is no longer enough to achieve international competitiveness. Technological leaps must be accomplished – and training is an important prerequisite for this.

If cooperation countries in the South can show innovative potential and competence in areas in which they could be of interest as business partners to industrialised countries, they will be viable in international markets and increase their attractiveness for foreign direct investment. Small and medium-sized enterprises in the formal and informal economy often have potential to become suppliers or service-providers for national and international corporations.

Technical ande vocational education and training as well as services in the labour market must be designed to make our cooperation countries more attractive as sites for modern technologies. This is not primarily a matter of promoting an elite. We regard it as a challenge to develop concepts for encouraging innovation and training in modern technology in a manner that opens up prospects for the poor and other disadvantaged people.

We support the establishment of modern technology competence centres. They offer comprehensive services for technology-intensive, small and medium-sized enterprises. This includes customised, practice-oriented training courses for employees as well as initial and on-the-job training. Furthermore, the centres provide support in technology transfer and advice on the introduction of new technology, the development of human resources and organisations, on information and contact management, as well as quality assurance and business startups. The diversity of services offered makes these centres important intermediaries in the labour market, and they create networks linking highly qualified staff and companies.

Technical and vocational education and training projects onsite cooperate closely with projects promoting private sector development. We advise technology competence centres on their organisational and management development, on setting up local and regional innovation systems, on developing financing concepts and on offering further training courses. We support the creation of international networks between technology competence centres in addition to the generation of networks between them and the private sector. Together with small and medium-sized enterprises, promotional ideas are put into action for selected business sectors or locations. Information, knowledge and quality management systems ensure sustainability.

Further Information:

• Centres for Advanced Technology Training and Services
  Factsheet for our advisory service
  gtz2009-en-centres-for-advanced-technology-training-and-services.pdf, 0.17 MB (English)