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Simply put, green skills are the knowledge, abilities, values and attitudes needed to live in, develop and support a sustainable and resource-efficient society.

The need to transition towards more environmentally sustainable modes of production and consumption has become imperative, for developed as well as for developing countries.

• Sustainable Development Goal 9 includes the target of upgrading infrastructure and retrofitting industries to make them sustainable, with increased resource-use efficiency and greater adoption of clean and environmentally sound technologies and industrial processes by 2030.
• Sustainable Development Goal 12 includes the target of achieving the sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources by 2030.

The transition to a low-carbon, resource-efficient economy requires systemic changes that will result not only in new products and services but also in changes in production processes and business models.

This greening of the economy will inevitably change the skills required and the tasks involved in many of the existing occupations.

There are three main ways in which the transition to a green economy affects needed skills:

• structural changes lead to increased demand for some tasks and a decrease for others;
• new economic activity will create new occupations and there will be a need for new skills profiles, qualifications and training frameworks;
• many existing occupations and industries will experience greening changes to tasks within their jobs, and this will require adjustments to the current training and qualification frameworks for these occupations.

The Green General Skill index identifies four groups of work tasks that are especially important for green occupations:

• Engineering and technical skills: hard skills encompassing competences involved with the design, construction and assessment of technology usually mastered by engineers and technicians. This know-how is needed for eco-buildings, renewable energy design and energy-saving research and development (R&D) projects.
• Science skills: competences stemming from bodies of knowledge broad in scope and essential to innovation activities, for example physics and biology. These skills are especially in high demand in each stage of value chains and in the utility sector, which provides basic amenities such as water, sewage services and electricity.
• Operation management skills: know-how related to change in organizational structure required to support green activities and an integrated view of the firm through life-cycle management, lean production and cooperation with external actors, including customers. Such skills are important, for example, for sales engineers, climate change analysts, sustainability specialists, chief sustainability officers and transportation planners.
• Monitoring skills: technical and legal aspects of business activities that are fundamentally different way from the remit of engineering or of science. They refer to skills required to assess the observance of technical criteria and legal standards. Examples are environmental compliance inspectors, nuclear monitoring technicians, emergency management directors and legal assistants.

In addition to these skills, a range of soft skills are also considered to be increasingly important, not only for green skills, but generally for “skills of the future”, including also those necessary for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. In particular, skills related to design thinking, creativity, adaptability, resilience, and even empathy, are regarded as critical.

The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) is promoting industrial skills development in developing and emerging economies, and can play a critical role in catalyzing the transition to a green economy.

UNIDO’s Learning and Knowledge Development Facility (LKDF) is based on Public Private Development Partnerships (PPDP) in which public and private sectors make a joint investment in a project implemented by a third party. The LKDF has implemented a variety of PPDPs across countries and sectors to establish and upgrade local industrial training institutions.

One example is the H2O Maghreb project, implemented by UNIDO and supported by the Government of Morocco, FESTO Didactic SE, EON Reality, the Moroccan National Office for Drinking Water and Electricity, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

With the aim of improving water management practices in Morocco, the project has established a high-level training hub to provide market-oriented training in wastewater treatment and water management, and has developed curricula for existing water professionals that combines different professions and specializations related to water and wastewater for municipal and industrial applications.

UNIDO's LKDF Forum 2021 in September 2021 brought together dozens of experts from various backgrounds. By extending the platform for action-oriented debates, the Forum sought to provide solutions to reduce the job-skill mismatch, propose solutions to bridge the digital skills gap, and promote dialogue for future partnerships, leaving no one behind.

At the closing ceremony, Andrea De Remes, co-founder of Erandi Aprende, and Anurag Saha Roy, co-founder of Wikilimo, reiterated the importance of making digital skills learning available and accessible, and brought forward the question of how the international community should assist. In reply, UNIDO's Bernardo Calzadilla-Sarmiento said, "Youth are the future and they should be the ones saying what is needed. We need to involve young people in the decision-making in order to develop the training and the upskilling that they need. Strong involvement of all stakeholders is key if we want to make education and skills accessible to all.” 

UNIDO's LKDF Forum 2022 will convene virtually on 19 and 20 October 2022 with the theme, Skills for Resilience: Are We Ready for a Skills Revolution? The Forum will bring together partners, experts, training professionals and stakeholders from the skills development system to examine why resilience in skills has become even more crucial in these uncertain times. Register here.

Further reading:

A Snapshot of the Green Skills Paper Presented at the LKDF Forum 2020

Green Skills for a Sustainable Future

Green skills

Responding to Morocco’s water challenge

By JIA Jiexi

Did you know that almost 85% of the global population was covered by a 4G network at the end of 2020?  According to a survey analyzed in ITU’s report Measuring Digital Development: Facts and Figures 2020, 93% of the world’s population has access to a mobile broadband network. Major digital transformations enabled by the increasing Internet accessibility are impacting capacity building and skills development for the 21st century digital economy.

However, while the COVID-19 pandemic has led to another leap in the digitalization of learning, working, and skill development, it has also exacerbated the digital divide that reinforces social and economic disparities.

To seize opportunities presented by digitalization and to keep up with new jobs requirements, equipping oneself with digital skills has become essential. Research carried out by the World Economic Forum predicts that 54 percent of the population will need strong reskilling by 2022 – and this need is even more pressing for developing countries.

Digital skills are not mere a necessity for decent employment for individuals, but also a driver of social inclusion. Some initiatives and businesses are working to empower communities with necessary digital skills and assist them to be employed and included, regardless of their genders, background, and physical conditions.

Below are the few examples of how digital skills are being applied to the push for social inclusion:

• Ajude o Pequeno: an initiative supported by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) assists small companies in Brazil during the pandemic by offering institutional support and resources for its digitalization process. By linking demand and supply for small businesses and offering online lessons, the platform created by Ajude o Pequeno helps include small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and their employees;
• Generation Connect: an initiative by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to engage and include global youth for equal participation in today’s digital change, and to empower young people with skills and opportunities. By assisting youth to further their digital skills and creating a community of young leaders, Generation Connect seeks to include youth in the digital world;
• Enablecode: a social enterprise that employs computing experts with disabilities, with the goal of transforming society’s perceptions of this group and giving them the opportunity to become high-skilled professionals.
• HeHe Academy: a programme dedicated to providing youth with digital skills and assisting businesses through digital transformation. With 69% female enrolment, it is contributing to a more gender-inclusive development and employment. By providing digital assistance and vocational training to farmers, HeHe strives to include women and minorities.

Leveraging digital technologies for social inclusion published by UNDESA looks at  investment in digital skills and enabling affordable access to the Internet as crucial ways to increase social inclusion. It pinpoints four key dimensions for a framework for closing the digital divide and support efforts towards inclusion by governments and stakeholders: access, affordability, skills, and awareness/relevance of online content. These four dimensions of the digital divide need to be tackled together.

Initiatives by UNIDO, ITU, Enablecode, and HeHe set out to tackle the digital divide and facilitate social inclusion through digital skills enhancement, and representatives of each of these entities will participate in the LKDF Forum 2021.

Hosted by the Learning and Knowledge Development Facility (LKDF) – a UNIDO platform – in collaboration with the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA), the LKDF Forum 2021 will take place on 22 September. Under the theme “Digital Skills for an Inclusive Future”, the LKDF Forum 2021 will provide a connecting platform for experts, partners, and interested audiences to discuss the job-skill mismatch, propose solutions to bridge the digital skills gap, and promote economic and social inclusion.

UNIDO Director General, LI Yong, and SIDA Director General, Carin Jämtin, will be joined by high-level dignitaries in the opening ceremony, followed by a discussion on the links between digital skills and social inclusion. A further six sessions will gather experts from private and public sectors, international organizations, and academia to discuss topics spanning from re- and up-skilling investment to inclusive business innovation.

Registrations for the LKDF Forum 2021 can be done by clicking here.

Full coverage of the event will be published on Impakter.

Stay tuned!

The town of Bourj Hammoud, located north-east of Lebanon’s capital, Beirut, is a mixed residential, industrial and commercial area and is one of the most densely populated districts in the Middle East. It is known as “Little Armenia” because it became a haven for Armenians following the mass killings of Armenians under Ottoman rule that began in 1915. Today, the area is one of the most diverse neighbourhoods in all of Lebanon, and is considered a “hip” place by the country’s young and creative.

Armenians, known for their craftsmanship since ancient times, brought the skills of jewelry-making to Lebanon. It is due to their influence that Bourj Hammoud has become a leader in the design and production of unique jewelry.

The effects of migration

When sick and exhausted Armenians arrived in Beirut after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, they were given the right to erect the houses and buildings which stand to this day on the eastern banks of the Beirut River, now the municipality of Bourj Hammoud. Lebanon’s welcoming attitude towards refugees hasn’t changed.

Today refugees from the war in Syria make up around one third of the country’s population. Lebanon has the highest number of refugees per capita in the world.

The sudden influx from Syria has produced a number of problems in Lebanon, unemployment being one of the biggest. One in three young people are unable to find work, even for very low wages.

This problem is not exclusive to Lebanon. Several neighbouring countries in the Southern Mediterranean region face similar challenges and need quick solutions.

Creativity can be the solution

To address this issue, UNIDO initiated the project, “Creative Mediterranean”, funded by the European Union and the Government of Italy. It operates in seven countries in the Mediterranean: Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine and Tunisia.

The project harnesses the creativity of artisans. By bringing them together to work in a cluster, the it helps the craftsmen modernize their processes and increase the quality of their products. The ultimate objective is to increase the artisans’ access to international markets.  “Creative Mediterranean” provides technical support to a total of 13 clusters in the region.

The combination of modern design with traditional crafts results in unique products. With improved marketing and design skills, the artisans are able to become successful entrepreneurs, increasing their income and improving their living conditions.

A result of Asdarjian’s collaboration with another artisan, Roger Yessayan, Bookrah is a collection of 22 high-end pieces produced in gold, quartz and diamonds. They symbolize the Lebanese people common efforts to create a future together despite their differences.

The designer Nadja Zerunian partnered with UNIDO in order to help modernize Bookrah’s designs. “Heritage and creativity are powerful tools against unemployment. At the same time, they reinforce the feeling of belonging to a community. Their creativity and heritage become the tools which give them the opportunity to improve their lives,” she said.

The main goal of the project is expressed in the slogan “resilience through creativity”: developing people’s creativity to provide them with the means to transform their daily struggles into opportunities and to adapt to changes.