Methodology

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Putting skills on the regional development agenda: a governance issue

The following 10 points summarise the experience the partner countries of ETF have acquired through the cooperation on Territorial Governance. Although not exhaustive, the following 10 messages are designed to pave the way for policy dialogue related to regionalisation/decentralisation at the country level by pointing out important elements for consideration and national multi-stakeholder discussion.

• Subsidiarity should be seen in context; some tasks always require a regional approach.

• Political will is important and policy choices should precede and steer governance choices.

• A political discussion, involving all the key stakeholders, needs to take place to agree on a decentralisation or subsidiarity model, and possibly translate it into state-region agreements.

• Decentralisation does not mean loss of power for the state but the redefinition of roles.

• Regionalisation creates the opportunity for a new differentiated vision for development.

• Conditions for the success of regional VET governance include the introduction of public-private partnerships based on negotiation with stakeholders, communication for transparency, accountability and trust, capacity building for awareness raising and new technical expertise, as well as new mechanisms for resourcing and financing.

• Financing is the main way to activate result-oriented management, and the state has a role to play in compensating for the fact that regions have unequal fiscal capacity.

• VET can contribute to innovation, especially if networked with enterprises, through promoting entrepreneurship and continuous learning, and by reinforcing the link between skills, productivity and innovation as an engine for employment and growth at the regional and local level.

• New tools are required to support new decentralised modes of governance.

• There is a need to sequence the introduction of reforms based on participatory governance.