Page Content 2016-07 eiNewsletter  joint Newsletter of the Networks e+i and A&FS 
Dear members of the e+i and the A&FS network, We are very happy to present you with this year's first edition of our joint newsletter and wish you good reading.
Peter Beez Felix Fellmann
Focal Point e+i Focal Point A+FS
e+i Reminder: Support by external experts SDC e+i network members can use various experts up to one day of work (no bureaucracy, just inform the FP e+i) for thematic support such as commenting on documents like TORs, webinar on approaches and methodologies, brief literature overview on a certain topic, etc. If you need more time, ask ahead, maybe it is of general interest for the network:
Support PSD / FSD
Support VSD
Roman TroxlerThematic Junior Project Officer SDC working with the e+i focal point
 What do you love about your work, what is special about it?After almost five years working at headquarters (first for GIZ, then SDC) I really like being posted to one of these places where our projects actually happen. Sitting in the Kigali office and designing interventions, discussing these plans with colleagues, meeting partners, going to the field, starting implementation, failing, going back to the office, adapting plans, implementing differently, failing better… and hopefully seeing some changes before leaving Rwanda in March 2017. Which is / are your favorite instrument(s)?
Since my current task at Swisscontact is to develop a small Private Sector Development component that is complementary to the existing and much larger Skills Development programme, I try as much as possible to adopt a Market Systems Development (M4P) approach. Working with existing market actors, enabling them to work together in a more effective way and thus facilitating systemic change is sometimes quite challenging in the Rwandan context – but I am sure it’s going to be worth it. Your message for your colleagues:
Working in development is really a privilege – especially if you have the opportunity to just walk out of the office, take a car (even better: a mountain bike) and ride to the place where your project really happens. Because it’s not just about Logframes and Credit Proposals…  30 Jun 2016 
The Rural Livelihood Development Programme (RLDP) came to an end in December 2015 after ten years of implementation. In 2015, it engaged in an extensive process of Capitalization of Experience to derive lessons learned focussing on three topics: Programme Management applying the Market Systems Development (MSD) approach, Contract Farming and Gender Mainstreaming. All three topics are available as short and long versions (here). Hands on experience in a challenging context like central Tanzania – a must read for MSD practioners! 30 Jun 2016  "On July 1st 2016, SDC's Promoting off-farm employment and income in the Great Lakes Region through climate responsive construction material production (PROECCO) project will enter its second phase. The first phase was dedicated to technological transfer and adaptation to provide context specific business solutions in the construction material production sector. These business solutions will be tested and refined in the second phase to boost scaling up environmental and labor friendly production methods applying a MSD approach. The project will improve production techniques in Rwanda, Burundi as well as South Kivu and serve a demand for construction materials fueled by the regions rapid urbanization.
>>more information on the fact sheet (French only) 28 Jun 2016 
The Swiss Capacity Building Facility (SCBF) is a public-private development partnership dedicated to improving the lives and livelihoods of low-income people and micro-entrepreneurs in developing and emerging economies. It is a grant-making organisation with the objective to promote financial inclusion as a strategy for alleviating poverty. SCBF currently unites 18 Switzerland-based member organisations, including SDC as the public partner and core funder. The members greatly contribute through their expertise, ensuring SCBF stays focused and selects high-impact projects for capacity building support. This creates a unique partnership working to help partner financial institutions to enhance their outreach to financially excluded populations, as part of social and economic development work.  On June 28, SCBF had its general assembly meeting, welcoming two new Swiss members: Venture South and responsAbility. Both joined in the first half of 2016 and reinforce SCBF's expertise in inclusive financial services. Furthermore, the annual report 2015 was presented. With this publication SCBF marks its first step towards reporting consolidated outreach figures. You can expect more on this very soon.
30 Jun 2016 On 16-17 March 2016 a technical workshop on vocational skills development (VSD) in the context of violent extremism took place in Geneva. It gathered high-level practitioners, policy-makers and researchers, who discussed the potential contribution of VSD to the prevention of violent extremism (PVE). The workshop focused on targeting youth 'at risk' and on finding the most promising approach and design of vocational skills programmes. It also tackled the question of transition from training to employment in order to assure stable social and labour market integration of young people 'at risk'. The workshop's results served as input to the international policy conference on the implementation of the UN Action Plan to Prevent Violent Extremism held on 7/8 April 2016 in Geneva. Please find more information here. 30 Jun 2016 The 49th annual conference's theme was „Cooperating for Sustainability" and attracted over 4.000 participants from government, international and multilateral institutions, academia, business and civil society and media. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, German Development Minister Gerd Müller, ECB President MarioDraghi, Former Federal President Horst Köhler were among the participants. Please find more information here. To watch the conference video click here. 30 Jun 2016 The second edition of the International VPETCongress took place from June 20-22 2016. The theme to be explored by thisedition was «From Skills to Prosperity – Sharing Elements of Success». TheCongress offered the opportunity to share and learn from the experiences madein different education systems and development projects all over the world.Among others, the insights of two VSD projects in Bulgaria and Serbia supported by the SDC have been presented. Findall the presentations here. 30 Jun 2016 On June 20, prior to the 2nd international congresson Vocational and Professional Education and Training, SDC invited guests andpartners to get acquainted with the particularities of the 'dual system' ofSwiss Vocational Education and Training. In this setting, the SDC introducedits approach to Vocational Skills Development world-wide based on five guidingprinciples: embeddedness, access, relevance, quality and permeability. Pleasefind more information and all the presentations here. 30 Jun 2016 30 Jun 2016  With the start to the first phase, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) has launched a 12-year Skills Development Programme (2016-2028) in Cambodia with a total budget of CHF 25 million. The overall objective of the programme is to increase the income and employment opportunities of disadvantaged young women and men in the northern provinces of Cambodia and to contribute to creating an inclusive, relevant and well-coordinated technical, vocational education and training (TVET) system nationwide. Starting on 01 July 2016, the first phase of the programme will run until 30 June 2020. Read more here. ![]() This course – exclusively for PSD program managers of implementing agencies – will introduce you to the key principles, practices and tips that will enable you to lead effective results measurement for management, learning and reporting in your program. The course will draw on the Donor Committee for Enterprise Development Standard for ResultsMeasurement, (DCED), a practical framework, based on proven good practice, to improve program performance and enable you to communicate credibleresults.
For more information and registration to the course plesase click here. ![]() The conference will be focusing on
four learning tracks: Enhancing food security for
communities and households living in poverty; Integrating marginalized
populations into financial markets; Enabling market development in fragile and
conflict affected environments; and examining the role of research and evidence
in advancing learning and scaling impact. >> more information ![]() The
5-days training course builds on the ILO’s experience in Value Chain
Development to provide an overview of fundamental frameworks and principles,
and focuses on practical skills for the design and implementation of Value
Chain Development initiatives using a facilitative approach. >> more information ![]() This five-days training coursecovers
all aspects of setting up a practical results measurement system for internal
learning and communicating credible results. It will draw on the Donor Committee
for Enterprise Development (DCED) Standard for Results Measurement and will be
conducted by Hans Posthumus and Phitcha Wanitphon. The course is almost fully
booked. >> more information ![]() The annual Summer Academy of Mesopartner has become an important
capacity-building event for economic development practitioners around the
world. This year the theme of the Summer Academy will be Territorial Economic
Development, with a specific emphasis on green economic development and climate
change implications in territories. >> more information Our next Savings and Credit Forum will take place on Wednesday, 21st September 2016 in Bern. Please save the date! Click here for more information and registration. [Only in FRENCH] La rénovation des dispositifs nationaux de FAR est bien engagée dans un nombre croissant de pays, leurs stratégies d’intervention étant pour la plupart d’entre eux clairement posées, en ligne avec les stratégies nationales de développement agricole et rural. Une des questions majeures reste toutefois posée : comment faciliter l’ancrage de ces dispositifs de formation et leur contextualisation dans leurs territoires de manière durable. Objectifs : - Développer un langage commun sur la territorialisation des dispositifs de la FAR à partir du partage d’expériences sur la réalité et les enjeux de la décentralisation ;
Expliciter les niveaux différents auxquels l’ancrage de la FAR peut se faire en fonction des situations nationales ;
Définir, dans une logique de partenariat et du point de vue des collectivités, les différentes formes d’organisation et de financement envisageables pour cet ancrage ;
Définir une grille d’analyse aidant à guider la construction et la pérennisation d’une offre régionale de formation adaptée à la demande locale et procurant des services appropriés aux différentes catégories de bénéficiaires.
Read more.
To raise awareness about the importance of youth skills development, UNESCO-UNEVOC will join the world in celebrating United Nations World Youth Skills Day on 15 July 2016! Join the celebrations and get active by: Sharing articles about your institution’s celebrations. Email us your stories at info.tvet@unesco.org and get featured on our website or social media. Find more information here. We would like to invite you to the anniversary celebration of FoBBIZ. We would like to celebrate the achievements of FoBBIZ in the five past years. The celebration is accompanied by the muscian and pedagogue Bruno Bieri. At the same time, we would like to use this event to receive your ideas and suggestions for the next five years of FoBBIZ. We appreciate your registration on the following link. Update: A summary of the event is available here (german only). The discussion on the dispatch on international cooperation of Switzerland 2017-2020 has been postponed to the 30th August 2016 at the Kulturlokal ONO in Berne. Please save the date and register here. Update: All presentation slides are avaiblabe here (german only). This years annual meeting will focus on the use of new media in the field of vocational education. In addition to the workshops and speeches, the book "Exportartikel Berufsbildung? Internationale Bildungszusammenarbeit zwischen Armutsreduktion und Wirtschaftsförderung“ will be launched at the event. Please click here to register for the event. To read the full invitation click here.
The global, cross-sector conference on technology supported learning and training Berlin. For more information click here. Update: Read a summary of the event here. A regional SDC workshop will take place from 29 August to 2 September 2016 in Prishtina, Kosovo. It targets SDC staff and invitees from the Western Balkan Region and will be dealing with Vocational Skills Development. A detailed agenda is currently under development. Participation only upon invitation. Results will be shared within the network. 30 Jun 2016 Have you ever wondered, how the business environment can have a positive impact on promoting inclusive business, or what can be done to improve the framework conditions for local economic development? Did you ask yourself whether women economic empowerment is being limited by regulations and legislation and how such limitations can be overcome? Are you interested to know which... >>more22 Jun 2016 The 2016 BEAM Conference brought nearly 200 people to Lusaka, Zambia, sparking critical debate and reflection about the experience of market systems development approaches, and the future of our field. The conference agenda was broad, but a clear focus grew around three crucial issues: 1. the paucity of rigorous evidence about impact: What do we know about the scale, sustainability of poverty- ... >> more 30 Jun 2016 We are very happy to inform or remind you that SDC together with the Austrian Development Agency (ADA), the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the Liechtenstein Development Service (LED) has recently launched the Donor Committee for dual Vocational Education and Training (DC dVET). SDC as well as the three other members.... >> more BEAM Exchange [1.1 MB] These guidelines set out the key steps and considerations for designing, planning and undertaking the evaluation of a programme or intervention that applies a market systems approach. EPS PEAKS/ODI [872 kB] This paper introduces the readers to the relationship between urbanization and economic development and then the relationship of these concepts to the private sector and discusses the two key questions what the role of the private sector is in promoting inclusive and sustainable economic development against the backdrop of rapid urbanisation and what it means in practice for policy-makers. Hans Posthumus and other-SDC [951 kB] The objective of this paper is to provide guidance on good Monitoring and Measuring Results practice with respect to the process and the roles and responsibilities of SDC program managers managing PSD programs and to enable implementing partners to design, apply, and benefit from a monitoring and results measurement system that enables learning and reporting credible results and that complies with the DCED Standard for Results Measurement. [2.8 MB] We are happy to share the 10 years report on Index-Based Livestock insurance project (IBLIP). Sonja Hofstetter and Bettina Jenny-SDC [345 kB] This guidance sheet is one of a series written to support SDC staff in ensuring that gender issues are taken into account transversally in different thematic domains – in this case, vocational skills development (VSD). It outlines key gender issues regarding VSD and how these can be integrated in the design, implementation,
monitoring and evaluation of cooperation strategies and project interventions. Clara Arnaud-AFD [1.6 MB] L’insertion des jeunes, leur contribution à un développement économique et sociale durable, est une priorité de premier ordre pour les gouvernements des pays concernés. Elle est aussi devenue un enjeu de sécurité majeur pour ces Etats et leurs partenaires techniques et financiers, confrontés à l’internationalisation des activités des groupes terroristes transnationaux, qui ont fait du Sahel une de leur région d’implantation, et de la jeunesse un vivier de recrutement. Cette publication dresse un état des lieux de la recherche sur la situation de la jeunesse au Sahel, ou plutôt « des jeunesses », et explore les réponses opérationnelles développés par les Etats, ainsi que leurs partenaires techniques et financiers, dans une perspective opérationnelle. |
