30 years, 30+ stories: ETF in the rest of the world, from Africa to Southeast Asia

Since 1994, the ETF has worked in over 40 countries on three continents to support human capital and development through education. So far we have collected stories from 39 countries, but over the decades the ETF's support has spanned the whole of Eurasia, from Iceland to Mongolia.  

The ETF worked with Russia from the 1990s, but all relations were severed following the war of aggression against Ukraine, where the ETF's solidarity and support has been strong from day one. For the same reasons, and due to a deteriorating human rights situation, cooperation with Belarus has been suspended in 2022.  

Following the escalation of violence and the unacceptable human rights situation, relations with Syria have been suspended since 2011. The country has recently experienced some unexpected developments following several extremely challenging years. They give hope that change is around the corner, and that any uncertainty is better than a stark reality.   

Despite these difficulties and challenging situations in some countries, the ETF stands for EU values and supports the development of human capital as the key to democracy, prosperity and competitiveness. 

In fulfilling its mandate as an international knowledge hub on skills development, the ETF has supported the work of EU delegations and governments outside its formalised partner countries through technical assistance, knowledge sharing and policy advice. One continent of clear preeminence is Africa, a key priority for the EU. 

The major project in Africa with a visible ETF involvement is the ACQF-II. In partnership with the African Union (AU) Commission, the AU Member States and Regional Economic Communities, the ETF has been entrusted with the management of the EU-supported project “Support to implementation of the African Continental Qualifications Framework (ACQF)” project (2023-2026). 

“The ACQF is more than a project: it is a dynamic community of countries and regions engaged in building a sustainable common area of trusted qualifications and credentials, supporting the achievement of the African demographic dividend, lifelong learning for inclusive and fair green and digital transformation, and mobility of learners and workers," said Eduarda Castel-Branco, ETF expert and ACQF-II coordinator. 

The objectives and outputs of the ACQF-II are fully aligned with the seven areas of activity defined in the ACQF Policy Document, validated by the AU Member States in July 2023 at the ACQF Conference hosted at headquarters of the African Union in Addis Ababa. This fundamental linkage with key AU strategies and policies, and the political support of the AU Commission, is a key success factor for ACQF-II. In addition, all project activities are based on strong ownership and leadership by the participating countries and regions, on vibrant networking and peer learning, on knowledge generation contextualised to African conditions, on innovation to explore new commonly agreed policy solutions, and on the overarching objectives of the lifelong learning ecosystem of skills, qualifications and credentials. 

The 11 multi-country Forums of African National Qualifications Frameworks (NQF) Institutions held between May 2023 and November 2024 in 8 different African capitals (Addis, Johannesburg, Nairobi, Accra, Maputo, Kinshasa, Luanda, Victoria) gathered ACQF stakeholders from 33 countries to learn “about NQF, as well as digitalisation and quality assurance mechanisms, Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL), Credit Accumulation and Transfer Systems (CATS), green skills, micro-credentials for better opportunities, big data for occupational and skills analysis, referencing to ACQF and the new flagship component of ACQF – the “Qualifications and Credentials Platform” (QCP),” Castel-Branco explained. “The Conclusions of the 4 Forums in 2024 are action-oriented and forward looking”. 

The current 14 priority countries working with ACQF-II experts’ team are developing their comprehensive NQFs, RPL and CATS policies and guidelines, micro-credentials, governance systems to support effective implementation of the NQFs. Countries successfully working with ACQF-II on national policies include: Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eswatini, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia and Zambia. Another fundamental group of countries works closely with ACQF-II supporting all capacity development, research and networking actions conducted for the ACQF community: Cabo Verde, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Mauritius, South Africa, Tunisia and Zimbabwe. 

Building on the ETF's Network for Excellence (ENE) - an international initiative linking centres of excellence in vocational education and training (VET) - the focus is also on understanding the challenges and opportunities for delivering quality VET in sub-Saharan Africa. The network is already working with several centres of vocational excellence in the region.  

In June 2024, a conference entitled The Role of Centres of Vocational Excellence (CoVEs) in VET in Africa was held in Casablanca in partnership with Enabel, the Belgian cooperation agency. 'The event brought together representatives from around a dozen sub-Saharan African countries to explore the role of CoVEs, share successful practices, promote transnational cooperation and identify areas where further guidance is needed,' said Stefan Thomas, ETF Senior human capital development expert and member of the Africa team. 

'Cooperation in Africa was strengthened when we provided training and capacity building on human capital development, skills and lifelong learning systems to EU Delegations from 10 countries in 2022,' recalls the ETF's Ummuhan Bardak. This was followed by a request from the Kigali delegation to the ETF in 2023. 'We were asked to conduct three background analyses ahead of the launch of the major EU-funded programme on TVET,' says Bardak, who led the recently published analysis on employment and skills needs in Rwanda's agricultural sector – a natural focus for the country – along with an analysis of the sector's gender dimension. These studies informed the final design and implementation of the EU-funded TVET programme.  

"Following the use of agriculture sector analysis, I was then asked to conduct one-week training in Kigali in May 2024 to present methodologies on how to conduct labour market analysis in economic sectors to 25 officials from ministries and government agencies - they were extremely motivated and keen to continue learning from EU practices,” she says. 

Stefan Thomas was instead responsible for conducting an analysis of Rwanda's TVET Centres of Excellence as the country prepares to develop 30 TVET CoVEs as part of the National TVET Strategy (2024-2029) through a major project funded by many international donors, including the EU. 

"The Rwandan government has transformational plans in the new national strategy to make TVET an engine for growth among other strategic sectors of the economy," says Paul Umukunzi, Director General of the Rwanda TVET Board. "The ETF has helped us to develop a common understanding of the concept of vocational excellence, allowing us to have a strategic vision for further development, which will ultimately have a cascade effect on technical education and jobs creation in Rwanda”. 

Bardak also recalls the ETF’s VET training provided to the EU Delegations in another part of the world, which is also highly relevant for the future of skills: Southeast Asia. This has led to widespread interest in the ETF's expertise, including a request to support the preparation of a twinning programme in TVET with focus on gender equality and green skills in Cambodia, which was provided online by ETF experts.   

Through the ETF's long-standing partnership with Unicef, Thailand instead became a pioneer in adapting the EU's Youth Guarantee approach to tackling youth unemployment and inactivity to the Asian context. 'For this study, UNICEF country office, national stakeholders and the ETF took a completely innovative approach by dividing the Not in Employment, Education and Training (NEETs) into four groups,' explains Cristina Mereuta, ETF's Active Labour Market Policies coordinator. 'Deconstructing and clustering the NEET concept, we found that almost 70% of Thai NEETs belonged to the most problematic group: they were both not ready to work and not ready to develop skills'. 

That's why the Thai authorities, especially the National Economic and Social Development Council and the Ministry of Labour, were very interested in exploring the potential of the EU's Youth Guarantee scheme: during a visit by a Thai delegation in the summer of 2023, they also had the opportunity to explore Italy's approach in Piemonte, where the ETF is based, and Veneto. 'They moved very quickly. Since the end of last year, pilot projects have started in six provinces, reaching thousands of Thai NEETs in less than a year, also using different approaches from region to region,' notes Mereuta. One proud achievement was in the northern region of Udon Thai, where the NEET pilot in Na Phu sub-district won the Thai Prime Minister's Good Governance Award. 

'This is an outstanding achievement given the timing: it also makes us very proud of the impact as the Thai authorities move to mainstream the policy approaches to young people not in employment, education or training. That's the beauty of it: to quickly achieve a concrete result so far away from our usual geographical remit, proving that the ETF's expertise can be relevant in any context, and international cooperation can boost impact at global level' concludes Mereuta.