Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) was established on May 28 1975 via the treaty of Lagos in recognition of the common historical, socio-cultural, economic and political experiences and ties of the people of the community. The treaty aimed at strengthening economic integration through the free movement of goods, persons and services; and to consolidate Member States’ efforts to maintain peace, stability, and security.

The Community is made up of fifteen Member States comprising 8 Francophone Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d’ Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo: 5 Anglophone the Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone; and 2 Luxophone countries: Cape Verde and Guinea Bissau.

​

The region has a land area of 5,110,914 km2 and a   population of over 320 million (2015), about 60% of whom are youths (15 – 35 years). Unemployment among young men and women in West Africa has reached alarming levels. The ever-growing number of jobless youths, and the desperation that accompanies this joblessness, undermines progress in all countries especially those countries coming out of conflicts.

 According to ILO (2016) and AfDB (2013) in the recent PASET Forum in Nairobi (2017), Africa has a younger population than other continents as half of the region’s population is under 25 years of age and the Sub-Saharan Africa hosts the world’s poorest employed population as stated in the following data:

​

1. Nearly 37% of the world’s extreme working poor reside in sub-Saharan Africa

2. 34.3% of the region’s employed population live below the poverty threshold of US$1.90 per day

3. 64% of the employed earn less than US$3.10 a day.

4. Vulnerable employment is at 70% of total employed against the global average of 46.3 per cent.

5. The informal sector contributes about 55% of Sub-Saharan Africa’s GDP and 80% of the labour force

The aims of ECOWAS are to:

​

1. Promote co-operation and integration;

2. Maintain and enhance economic stability;

3. Foster relations among Member States and

4. Contribute to the progress and development of the African Continent.

In order to achieve these aims and in accordance with the relevant provisions of the ECOWAS Treaty, the Community has over the years ventured into different areas of human endeavour that are considered relevant to the overall emancipation and development of the Community. It is within this framework that ECOWAS has renewed its commitment to the revitalization and modernization of Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) among other priorities. Furthermore Adult literacy.

​

The Community operates on the fundamental principles of: Inter-state cooperation; Solidarity and subsidiarity; Harmonization of policies and integration programmes; Non –aggression; Regional peace, Stability and Security; Peaceful settlement of disputes; Respect, Promotion and Protection of human rights; Promotion and Consolidation of Democracy and Good Governance; Accountability, Economic and Social justice.

ECOWAS TVET / STEM SECTOR ACHIEVEMENT

The growing problem of unemployment of the citizens, especially the youth/adult, has been a major developmental concern for governments of member states. Without job-related skills, youth and adults do not fully benefit from the employment opportunities that abound in the region.

A major implication is that, unemployment have been a major factor in fuelling social crisis and conflicts, restiveness and rebellion, terrorism and criminality, and the general political instability in the countries of the region. It is therefore expedient to promote the type of human capital that can put ECOWAS on the map of the global knowledge economy.

​

The ECOWAS Commission, has concluded countries surveys on Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) in the region from 2013 to 2015, and recognise that this sub-sector holds the key to the provision of market relevant and demand driven skills that can spur entrepreneurial activities and socio-economic development in the region. TVET is therefore found to be the main element of the development strategy to support young people to acquire professional and employment-related skills and become self-reliant and a sure means of integrating adults to the world of work.

The outcome of the surveys formed the basis for the ECOWAS TVET Strategy for Skills Improvement and Employability (ETSSIE) which sets out the policy directions that the member states could adopt to provide a way out of the current crisis onto the path of industrial productivity, knowledge economy and political stability.

The Strategy document also provides the mechanisms for laying the foundations for higher integration by establishing the milestones that will form the basis for facilitating the mobility of labour, goods and services within the ECOWAS region and beyond.

It is expected that each member state would draw inspiration from the ECOWAS Strategy to articulate its own national policy and vision for TVET whose objective is to establish an adequate labour force, with appropriate skills, that will support national economic development which is viable, environmentally sustainable and contribute to mobility, social and cultural advancement.

​

It is projected that the ETSSIE will guide the Member States alongside other stakeholders to develop a National structure of TVET and show the inter-relation of the various providers, employers and the Government.

THE ECOWAS TVET STRATEGIC ISSUES/POLICIES

The ECOWAS TVET Strategy takes inspiration from the African Union Continental Strategy for TVET, AU Agenda 2063, the Continental Education Strategy for Africa 2016 – 2025 (CESA16-25), the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2030, the ECOWAS Vision 2020, the ECOWAS Strategic Framework 2016 – 2020, the ECOWAS Protocol on Education and Training and other major policy documents of Member States, as well as the UNESCO TVET Strategy 2016 – 2021, and the ILO Recommendations on decent employment.

The Strategy is based on the following ten fundamental pillars:

​

1. Governance and Management;

2. Curriculum Relevance and Employability;

3. Coordination, Standardization and Certification of Skills under Qualifications       Frameworks;

4. Use of ICT and ODeL;

5. Quality Provisions and relevance to the society needs;

6. Monitoring and Evaluation;

7. Human Resource Development;

8. Easy access and Participation;

9. Resource Mobilization and sustainable funding mechanism; and

10. Cross-Cutting Issues. ((Environment and Climate Change, Democracy and Good Governance, Cultural and Ethical Values, Regional Integration.)

11. Adult literacy Skills programme and entrepreneurship.

12. Training and capacity building programme on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)

     VISION

     To improve efficiency in TVET delivery and to produce relevant skills for employability.

​

     MISSION

     The mission of the strategy are to:

​

1. Create a regional platform to raise awareness to the public and private actors on the importance of strengthening TVET

2. Coordinate Public, Private and Development Partners actions for the enhancement of coherence, synergies, and complementarities;

3. Improve the conventional secondary school with TVET approach in order to enhance the number for youth enrolment in TVET from 6% to 30% in the next 10 years

4. Create Regional TVET Centers to train the trainers on practical tools and entrepreneurial skills.

5. to set up Pilot Specialized Resource Centre for the first 5 years.

      OBJECTIVES

      The objectives of the strategy are to:

1. Mobilize all stakeholders from Public, Private, and Development Partners for an improvement of TVET training Centres;

2. Improving the number of TVET training centres and the quality of delivery;

3. Reform curriculums and use modern training tools (ICT)

4. Accompany youths for job creation, self-employment and entrepreneurship skills.

5. Establishment and upgrading of vocational resource centres and technical colleges respectively and training of technical teachers

It is the expectation of the ECOWAS Commission that the TVET Strategy document will be properly harnessed by Member States, TVET teachers, administrators, policy makers and other stakeholders to achieve the objectives of equipping the youths/Adults with creative and employable skills for sustainable livelihoods.

      CONSTRAINTS /CHALLENGES

Judging from the outcome of the ECOWAS TVET survey in Member States, the key challenges           confronting the sector in the region include:

1. Obsolete and inadequate facilities, equipment and training materials, leading to poor learning outcomes;

2. Inadequate curriculum provisions – rapid technological advancement, which is hard to keep up with, resulting in irrelevance of the curricula used for TVET programmes leading to mismatch between what is taught and the needs of the labour market; a recent World Bank enterprise report on firms surveyed in Ghana (2013) and Senegal (2014) identified poorly educated workers as one of the key obstacles to their operations[1].  Another World Bank Report for Nigeria identify, as the most serious challenge confronting formal TVET, to be the poor labour market relevance as indicated by the gap between acquired competences and available employment opportunities.  In turn, this is the result of quality constraints and institutional deficiencies[2]; 

3. Poor collaboration with industries and the private sector, leading to low private sector participation in the design and implementation of TVET programmes; a revealing example of skills mismatch is the report of the survey conducted by the Ghana Employers Association which showed that more than 40% of Ghanaian enterprises surveyed identified computer literacy, team work, problem-solving, management, and practical technical skills as lacking in their employees;[3]

4. Dearth of qualified and competent teachers; more than 80% of TVET teachers lack industry or workplace experience;[4]

5. Lack of appropriate coordination, standardization and development of non-formal TVET.

      JUSTIFICATION:

The need to revamp and establish specialised resource centres in collaboration with partners Judging from the challenges it is obvious that there are needs for catalyst for the revitalisation of the sector in a holistic way.  The need to revamp and establish specialised Resource Centres as the avenues for imparting young people and adults with the skills required by the labour market is of strategic importance.

ECOWAS, as the largest, multilingual regional political and economic block in African has a responsibility to lead the process of improving/providing employable skills to its citizens, especially the youth, as well as facilitating regional integration through the portability of skills and the mobility of labour.

The specialised resource centres will help to overcome the prevalent diploma mismatch between the skills acquired and labour demand in most ECOWAS member states. Furthermore the centres will serve as hubs for Training of trainers to boost Human capital in the Member states.

       EXPECTED RESULT/OUTCOME

The Specialised Resource centres as part of Technical Vocational training will in some specific areas promote value addition processes for innovation, competiveness and entrepreneurial skills development in Agriculture and marketing, ICT and Business, Renewable Energy, Construction and Tourism, Mechanic and Artisans, Scientific Research, Business and Commodity Education. It will also address Adult Literacy Skills Training among the unemployed and uneducated.

Some obvious benefits of the proposed project include:

1. Job creation: Graduates of the TVET can easily be self-employed rather than hunting for jobs after graduation.

2. Wealth Creation: Graduates of TVET will be empowered to set up businesses through the vocations and business management/entrepreneurial skills they would be taught, giving them guarantee to be self-reliant, generate wealth and contribute to the nation’s economic development.

3. The workshops can be used for Adult Evening Courses for those who are employed somewhere but desire to learn a trade; we can design a program separately for this purpose.

4. Youth empowerment in terms of capacity building/Training   in vocational and entrepreneurship education: The vocational Trade training given at these colleges will mould youths into entrepreneurs, wealth creators and employers of labor.

5. The project will bridge the demand and supply gap between graduates of the TVET Centres, prospective employers and agencies for small scale businesses, thus creating a link between graduates and labor market.

6. The project will equip and provide skills for Adults as major solution to Adult Literacy Program of the member States.

7. The project will assist in creating a middle class which will help to move the country forward.

METHODOLOGY

The Pilot phase will have 2 stages Viz:

Stage I

Establishment of 30 within 15 member States of ECOWAS Specialized Resource Centre depending on the member State (Country) population as Pilots.

It will include the following components:

1. 1- Refurbishing & Designing/Redesigning, Renovation & Furnishing of the Resource Centre.

2. 2- Equipping of Science, Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) equipment  to each centre.

3. 3- Equip and install of Technical & Vocational Equipment to the Centres.            

4. 4- Training and Capacity Building in various Courses/Trades and on Entrepreneurship.  

(For more insight on the methodology, please download the document.)