Labor Competence Certification

closed

This Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF) initiative lays the institutional and methodological groundwork for developing a national system of job competencies certification by way of a pilot certification and training initiative. The pilot operation focuses on the construction, mining and tourism sectors. The three components are: (a) institutional coordination; (b) technical design of the competency certification system; and (c) validation of the system. The activities to be funded include the hiring of short- and medium-term technical support services, seminars, communication and dissemination materials, and basic equipment for the project unit. The project also funds technical visits to countries with certification systems similar to the one proposed. For the first component, the project coordinates efforts in the public sector, the private sector, and labor representatives from participating productive sectors to establish the project's mechanisms and working procedures. The second component funds: (a) studies to pinpoint critical competency areas in each productive sector, thus identifying relevant and useful job functions for which nationally valid standards and certification mechanisms can be established; (b) defining and validating job competencies for each sector, including their respective units, elements, performance criteria, fields of application, and assessment guidelines; (c) design of competency assessment and certification systems, a regulatory framework, and procedures and instruments for evaluating and certifying job competencies; and (d) design of a training-quality certification system. The third component includes: (a) tests of viability, effectiveness and relevance, by applying the procedures and instruments devised for competency assessment and certification to a set of workers from the participating productive sectors; (b) position and dissemination of products and services with the aim of raising the profile of the job competencies approach among participating sectors; and (c) design of an institutional and financial proposal for the system in steady-state operation, in which the principles, regulatory framework, organization, actors/roles, and financing mechanisms will be defined so as to give institutional and financial sustainability to the national system for certification of competencies and training quality.