Why partnerships are the key to the jobs challenge

At this month’s Spring Meetings, the Jobs Group hosted a number of events focusing on the jobs challenge. Our overall objective was to bring together a diverse group from within and outside the Bank to take stock and consider the early insights of our work and what this means for our country work.  We wanted to draw on this collective experience and expertise to advance our substantive thinking from what we are learning in practice.

Colleagues, donors, other development agencies, government ministries and representatives of the private sector all came and spoke about the valuable work they are doing in their respective areas. I was struck by how much is happening to try and tackle the global jobs crisis. In particular, I noted how many of the most successful projects and interventions were the result of collaboration and partnership.

One of the members of our Jobs Council said it best when he noted that “the jobs agenda is much, much bigger than just the labour market”. He is right. It involves a broad spectrum. Why is this? Why do we need to work together to help create more, better and inclusive jobs? We also need responses that address all the constraints to each country’s jobs market. However excellent the investment climate, if you don’t address a skills shortage or a lack of access to finance, or whatever else is preventing firms from growing, then other reforms will not result in more jobs.

The challenge is great. Around the world, over a billion people of working age are not participating in the labor force at all. 200 million are unemployed. And 600 million additional jobs need to be created over the next 15 years.

In addition, we have the major challenge of informality. Just having a job is not enough. At least half of the world’s working population are farmers or self-employed, mostly in low productivity activities like working a small plot of land; selling vegetables or sewing clothes on the street; or offering a range of services you see in urban areas that offer low earnings and little security.

Those billion people not participating in the labor force? Most are women. Those 200 million unemployed? 75 million are under the age of 25. Those informal jobs with lousy conditions? Many are held by young people, giving them no hope for a better future.

We’ve been living with an assumption that economic growth is sufficient, and that jobs will follow. But the evidence is showing us that this assumption from history is incorrect. Even if it is not, then the time lag for growth to translate into jobs is politically and morally unacceptable. We then need to understand the composition of that growth and who it is leaving behind by age, gender and location.

So what can we do? And how do we work together? Below are a few examples of projects that we discussed that show how solutions can be found when we work in partnership.

• The Let’s Work Partnership was established last year by 30 multilateral and bilateral development agencies to work collaboratively to create more and better jobs and to learn from each other. One year in and four country pilots have been launched, with another 4 set to be decided soon. For instance, we are working with the private sector in Zambia to see where we can improve the linkages along the value chain.
• The Better Work Program is a partnership between the ILO, IFC and the international garment industry to improve the working conditions of some of the 60 million people around the world whose livelihoods depend on making clothes. So far the working conditions of more than a million workers have been improved.
• The Kazakhstan Skills and Jobs Project has seen unmatched levels of collaboration between different parts of the World Bank and with the Government of Kazakhstan. Although many graduates enter the Kazakhstan labor market every year, the skills mix does not match the needs of a diversifying and modernizing economy. This project will help change that.
• We have recently issued a Call for Proposals under the Umbrella Trust Fund for jobs. This Fund is a joint initiative with a number of donor countries to find better ways of understanding and tackling the jobs challenge. I will write a further blog updating you of this exciting project. But already it is pleasing to see that 78% of the proposals that we have received involved partners that are external to the World Bank Group.
• In Sri Lanka, a partnership between one of the county’s mobile telephone companies and IFC resulted in the development of an SME Toolkit, aimed at helping local retailers. The results were powerful: 90% of those retailers taking part expanded their business; revenues increased by an average of 40%; and 3520 jobs were directly created.
• Our friends in other development agencies are also doing exciting work. SECO, theSwiss Secretariat for Economic Affairs, has developed entrepreneurship programs in a number of countries, which support angel groups, provide mentoring systems, increase the number of women entrepreneurs and support new companies. FMO, the Dutch development agency is doing groundbreaking work on development impact, in which measuring jobs is a key part. EBRD has done some fascinating studies on inclusion gaps.
• The Jobs Group in the World Bank has developed a Jobs Diagnostic which looks at the specific reasons that jobs are not being created in our client countries. To roll this out, we are working very closely with the governments of our client countries as well as with our country colleagues. There is a huge demand for take up of this diagnostic: to date 6 such jobs diagnostics are already underway and a further 23 are being discussed.

So how will partnerships such as these help us meet the jobs challenge? They will allow us to focus on four key areas:  (i) better diagnostics of the jobs challenge in each country; (ii) more integrated operations across sectors; (iii) better connections between the supply of jobs and the demand for jobs; and (iv) improved understanding of key themes – such as urbanization, fragile states and technology – that are preventing us from creating more, better and inclusive jobs. These partnerships will let us learn from each other in order to achieve a lot more, faster.

This article is published in collaboration with The World Bank. Publication does not imply endorsement of views by the World Economic Forum.

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Author: Nigel Twose is the Senior Director responsible for the World Bank Group’s work, together with its development partners, to tackle the global jobs challenge. 

Image: 2 men shake hands. REUTERS/Pascal Lauener.