Sylvain Giguère

What role do local governments and local stakeholders have in an inclusive job-rich recovery?

Chapter 3, “What role do local government and local stakeholders have in an inclusive job-rich recovery?”, discusses the key issues for the recovery and highlights local initiatives that are driving the recovery in the Asian region. The chapter examines three sets of critical elements that are within the reach of public policy: (1) Fostering the dynamics between skills and employment focusing on demographic change, migration and mobility of workers in Asia, enhancing skills development and utilisation, building labour market intelligence for more strategic services, and greening jobs, skills and firms; (2) Creating jobs through enterprise and infrastructure development, focusing on recovery and post-recovery measures to promote investment in infrastructure using local resource-based approaches; and (3) Developing social protection schemes highlighting key features of two types of programmes, viz. conditional cash transfers and employment guarantee scheme. The chapter concludes with policy concerns and recommendations.

The Governance of Workforce Development

The experience of seven OECD countries illustrates the issues that emerge when a narrow implementation approach is taken that is not adapted to local strategic needs. It shows that there is now a more accurate appraisal of the difference in impact between short-term top-down employment measures and more flexible policies supporting economic and social development in a longer time frame. The lessons from this experience suggest that a balance of efforts is necessary at both the national and local levels in order to maintain the efficiency and accountability of the policy framework. The implementation of programmes should be allowed to receive strategic orientations locally, in a process that ensures greater local differentiation while at the same time ensuring that aggregate national policy goals continue to be met.