The Team Europe Initiative (TEI) intends to complement Vocational Education and Training (VET) programmes financed by the European Commission or Member States at the country level by helping these to orient towards concrete employment opportunities created by (EU) investments, trade, (regional) value chain development and other market dynamics in partner countries under the Global Gateway. It thus seeks to support a paradigm shift where the VET offer is reverse-engineered from concrete job opportunities.
Political context
The initiative is a key element under the EU-Africa Global Gateway Investment Package announced at the 2022 EUAfrica-Summit, supporting skills needed in sectors that are part of the package. The African Union Continental Strategy for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) to Foster Youth Employment also stresses the importance of a paradigm shift from focusing on supply-driven formal VET to a demand-driven more holistic VET policy approach.
Global Gateway Priorities
Digital
Climate and Energy
Health
Transport
Education and research
How do we want to achieve it?
The identification of employment opportunities and related skills profiles;
Advisory services for VET provision responsive to identified opportunities and profiles;
Fully engaging the private sector in this process and stimulation of opportunity-driven Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) for VET including mobilization of forthcoming Erasmus+ partnerships.
What do we intend to achieve?
What is the difference we want to make? The overall objective of the action is to ensure that VET provisions in Sub-Saharan Africa are responsive to concrete and decent job opportunities created by investment, trade and other market dynamics in selected sectors and value chains (VC).
Which countries can receive support?
The initiative will come in support of more than 40 countries in Sub-Sahara Africa that have identified VET and skills development as significant activities under the priority areas addressing the green and digital transitions, sustainable growth and decent job creation, strengthening of health systems or as dedicated priority areas in their EU MIPs or as envisaged by MS implementation in national TEIs.
Participating EU Member States
France
Germany
Belgium
Finland
TEI support at regional level The initiative consists of three building blocks:
Technical Assistance (TA) facility providing support based on requests from EU Delegations, EU Member States or private sector organizations to identify employment opportunities and required skills needs around flagship initiatives and translate findings in targeted recommendations for VET system support responsive to identified employment opportunities;
Regional exchange on Public-Private-Partnerships (PPP) to promote opportunity-driven VET and skills development in SSA, and to create a space to allow for practical exchange between public and private stakeholders on active partnerships. This includes a linkage to relevant Erasmus+ financed actions on capacity building for PPP in VET to strengthen EU-Africa engagement on skills;
Competitive Funding mechanism to finance regional and multi-country VET initiatives in support of (regional) value chains that complement country MIPs, as well as actions that more generally support this paradigm shift of reverse engineering VET in function of employment opportunities market dynamics create.
In practice Where a specific investment (e.g., pharma, hydrogen, etc.) is envisaged under EU initiatives, the TEI would help to identify the required skills profiles in the context of this investment and translate this in recommendations for the VET system to be able to deliver. The implementation for these recommendations would be done using country envelopes and managed by EUD or local TEI group. |
Partners
The TEI will interact with multiple stakeholders at regional/international level:
Private sector/business networks in Africa and the EU – in selected value chains and sectors (e.g. engage in the EU-AU Business Forum);
Authorities with a continental or regional mandate although the focus will be on business networks. At country level there will be direct interaction with public and private sector partners in the context of the Commission’s and MS country programmes.
Synergies with other initiatives
The TEI will seek to cooperate with other regional and national TEIs providing support services in relevant areas, such as:
TEIs providing support to the ecosystem for entrepreneurial development;
Sector specific TEIs which have identified skills as a relevant support service.
What happened so far?
A mapping of potentially relevant business networks in Africa that need to be engaged in an opportunity-driven VET approach is being initiated.
First case studies have been initiated at country level for the textile & apparel sector in Ghana, the agri-food sector in Senegal, and at regional level the pharma industry with MAV+.
On-going: An assessment of the employment and skills dimension of the green hydrogen value chain in selected countries in SSA.
