Saturday, January 26, 2008 Poverty alleviation forum set
REPRESENTATIVES from 20 countries will convene to discuss the best practices in poverty mitigation in the International Forum on Skills Development for Poverty Alleviation on January 25 to 26, 2008 at the Department of Education (DepEd) Central Office in Pasig City.
Spearheaded by Colombo Plan Staff College for Technician Education (CPSC), the forum is in collaboration with the DepEd, Government of the Philippines and with the cooperation of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco), Asian Development Bank (ADB), European Training Foundation, UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), ILO Sub-Regional Centre, Southeast Asian Minister Organization (Seameo), and other development partners and institutions.
Speakers and delegates are expected to come from member countries of CPSC regional program like Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Fiji, India, Korea, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Philippines and Sri Lanka as well as other participating countries.
"We thank the CPSC in opening avenues such as this forum where international and regional development organizations can have a chance to come up with a collective response to poverty issues through skills development," says Education Secretary Jesli Lapus.
The event will allow delegates to learn lessons from experiences, to develop curriculum framework for capacity building and to examine issues and challenges for those seeking gainful employment.
The resource speakers are from development partners such as Unesco, ADB Regional and Sustainable Development Department (RSDD), UN FAO, European Training Foundation, Seameo Regional Centers.
Topics to be discussed include modular employable skills, entrepreneurship skills, job skills, youth employment, retraining of adult workers, e-community services, empowerment of women, life skills and technical and vocational skills for poverty alleviation.
The symposium will be inaugurated by Rajat Nag, managing director of the ADB.
Shyamal Majumdar, director of CPSC said: "The symposium will give the impetus for rethinking ways to develop and come up with strategies that can take advantage of the cooperation and synergy of organizations with common goals. Eradicating poverty has proven to be a big challenge for all of us. More than 1.7 billion people in Asia are estimated to still be living below US$2 per day and some are way beyond overcoming poverty crisis."
He added that "As an ultimate goal, we want to know what necessary agenda we should focus on to address the crisis of skills that besets rural poor, ageing society, women and indigenous communities. Another level of skills crisis is also experienced by those who have graduated, but whose skills become easily obsolete or totally irrelevant to satisfy gainful work opportunities."
CPSC is an inter-governmental organization hosted by the Philippines and based in Manila. It is mandated to improve technical and vocational education and training (TVET) in the region.
For the symposium, it aims to provide venue for discussion and sharing of knowledge and experience of the various development agencies in the region and outside the region, in dealing with the dimensions, issues and approaches for effective skill development intervention.
Majumdar said: "Life-long skills empower the grassroots and eliminate the idea of isolation just because they don't have the skills relevant to join gainful work opportunities. The principal route out of poverty is generating employment and/or promoting self-employment. For that, we need to develop technical and other relevant skills to begin with."
CPSC facilitates the collective response to poverty issues in Asia Pacific region through sharing of scopes, solutions and strategies in the context of skill development programs and initiatives. (Press release)
