Skills for work?: From skills development to decent livelihoods in Ghana's rural informal economy

Abstract

In developing countries, skills development has been neglected. Skills development does not appear in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) or in many poverty reduction strategies and has been side-lined in favour of investment in primary education. However, it is hoped that discussion of skills development in the 2005 Global Monitoring Report and the forthcoming World Summit in September 2005, will refocus attention on skills training. In Ghana, skills development has received too little actual emphasis, despite the rhetoric of the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper and more than one hundred and fifty years of preoccupation with making education more relevant to the world of work. This paper argues that the current state of, and recent trends in, skills development opportunities in rural Ghana fail to adequately address the multiple occupational pathways of the youth, and especially the poor, as they attempt to become fully and productively engaged in decent livelihoods in the rural informal economy. Skills development interventions follow a top-down strategy, with programmes having little labour market relevance, and post-training support that is either absent or weak. Support for skills development in the informal economy, which is by far the largest destination for school leavers, is virtually non-existent. This paper will analyse and critique skills development in relation to Ghana's rural informal economy. This paper argues that the underlying assumption of the Ghanaian skills development agenda, that skills training solves un/under-employment and leads to economic growth and poverty reduction, will not be realised unless an effective and innovative pro-poor informal economy strategy is developed in order for skills development to result in livelihood outcomes that are both decent and productive. 1 The author gratefully acknowledges the Economic and Social Research Council for covering fieldwork and research costs for this paper (grant number PTA-030-2002-00044). This paper also draws in part on a longer study of education and training policy in Ghana, part of a multi-country study on post-basic education and training funded by DFID. The full study, Palmer, R. (2005) Beyond the Basics: Post-basic Education and Training and Poverty Reduction in Ghana, and more information on the full project, is available in electronic format from http://www.cas.ed.ac.uk/pbet.html. The author gratefully acknowledges comments from Professor Kenneth King, Rachel Hayman and Ruth Wedgwood all from the Centre for African Studies. Some of you might be asking yourself this question: What next after this graduation?... You will need to start working immediately… but your parents and guardians perhaps do not have means to set you up in business. The government is mindful of this situation and efforts are being put in place to offer you some assistance. In view of the problems which were associated with a similar scheme organised a few years ago where the majority of people who were given free tools and kits after their training...

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