The regions of the Western Balkans and Eastern Europe are currently experiencing diverse and new dynamics, with all the challenges and risks that this implies, but and above all, with opportunities. This is particularly the case with regard to economic development and the impact this has on the labor market. While unemployment, especially among young people, remains high, companies often struggle to find employees with the right skills: so one of the key constraints to economic development and social welfare is the famous "skills gap".
During this workshop we will discuss this “skills gap" and how SDC’s vocational skills development projects address it, their limitations and what can be improved.

Day 1 will be dedicated to analyzing the situation in our different contexts, seen from different perspectives. We will question our realities in order to have a better understanding of the challenges and opportunities posed by the labor market, in particular with regard to issues such as the skills gap, decent work, migration, the green agenda or any other issue of concern to you.

To discuss this, we will set up in the training workshop of a wood processing company in Lipjan, near Pristina. This will give us the opportunity in the course of the day to exchange with the managers of this company and their employees. We will seek to invite other entrepreneurs, representatives of business organizations and chambers of commerce in the region to feed our debates.

Day 2 will take us to Prizren, to a vocational training center. In this environment, we will exchange on our experiences with the TVET programs we support in our different countries. We will confront our practices with the challenges and opportunities identified the day before. We will discuss what works well, what does not work so well, what can be improved. 

We will be accompanied in our efforts by professionals and students from the competence center, by public actors from the region and by representatives of research institutes.

Day 3 will lead us to think about what we can do to make change happen, exploring different routes towards our vision. We will consider the socio-economic values that we need to address in our VSD strategies, such as equality and inclusion, gender, modernization and digitalization, governance, etc.

We will meet in a BPO/IT company in Pristina to discuss this together with the managers of the company and people involved in developing training solutions in different sectors.

On Day 4, in the morning, we will stay at the hotel to pack. We will pay special attention to what we want to take with us to share with our partners back home.

We will ask TVET program managers to check our luggage and push us with their criticism to make it more relevant.