Training that is relevant to the labour market and labour market services result in people improving or maintaining their employability and competence needed to engage in community life. Such services enable companies to make rational decisions regarding personnel and to establish sustainable human resources management. Technical and vocational education and training as well as labour market policies form an important part of an employment policy. A coherent employment policy adds substantially to a country’s attractiveness as a business location and creates prerequisites for innovation, competitiveness and economic growth at both national and regional levels.
The concrete results of our work document the following:

• Since the end of apartheid in South Africa and after many years of support by GIZ (former GTZ), a national qualification framework for lifelong learning has been established. It enables people without formal education to start lifelong learning and permits new avenues of employment to open up when competencies already acquired are recognized in the new field or qualification in a person’s original area of training can be continued. With its modular structure and certification at all levels, it features the flexibility needed, especially by the poor, to enter and advance in working life. Using this as a frame of reference, promotional programmes were created for the formal and informal labour market, supplemented by technology transfer for small and medium-sized companies. The macroeconomic result is quite impressive: the South African economy is once again competing globally, and unemployment is down.

• The Chilean vocational training system has been transformed from its original state-dominated centralistic structure and now takes a decentralised approach. The state retains its regulatory and quality assurance functions and provides basic and continuing training courses accredited countrywide. Provinces and municipalities now play an important role in organising training in such a way that best brings people and business together. After the military dictatorship, this decentralisation intensified the dialogue between the state, private sector, and civil society groups, and by so doing encouraged the economic upturn. Our advisory services were an important factor in all of this.

• Technical and vocational education and training cooperation with India has a decades-old tradition. For a long time, the focus was on creating teaching and learning aids or on technology competency centres which offered counselling, needs-oriented training and technical services for small and medium-sized enterprises. This lead to a series of successful stages for labour market-oriented technical and vocational education and training. The Indian government is building on this and now intends to radically reform its entire technical and vocational education and training and labour market systems, with substantial private-sector participation. The emphasis is on sustainable support of the booming economy, widespread growth and favourable positioning in the international labour market in light of a long-term surplus in the workforce. The government has made substantial funds available for this purpose. Working at the highest politcal level, it has also requested the continuation of Indo-German cooperation whilst, at the same time, trying to enlist more German firms for technical and vocational education and training in India – a good example of how successful cooperation can be continued beyond the span of development cooperation.