We
were slated to leave for Manila last Saturday en route to Vienna, Austria in order
to attend the 5th Annual Forum Meeting Building Strong Partnerships with the Private
Sector for Better Jobs and Inclusion which started last Monday and will end today.
The
activity is organized by the Centre for Social Innovation with the support of
the European Commission, DG Employment, Social Affairs and Equal ZOpportunities
and the Federal Ministry of Economics and Labour of Austria.
Our
participation in the forum is supposed to as a fellow of the Asian Institute of
Technology of Bangkok, Thailand. Our attendance had been confirmed by City Mayor
Dan Neri Lim.
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We were also granted the necessary
visa by the Austrian Embassy in the Philippines as per request from Di Jana Machacova
of the Center for Social Innovation.
Our Qatar Airways flight to Vienna
with stopover in Doha, Qarttar had been confirmed also not to mention our reservation
at the Austria Trend Hotel. The trip would have taken a total of 26 hours.
After
our scheduled billeting, we would be able to joint the opening session last Monday
afternoon chaired by Sylvain Giguère, Head of the LEED Division, OECD.
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Ingrid Nowotny, Deputy Director for Labour Market Policy,
Federal Ministry of Economics and Labour of Austria and Sergio Arzeni, Director
of the Centre for repreneurship, SMEs and Local Development, OECD were slated
to give their opening remarks.
The opening discussion with forum members
would be moderated by Michael Förschner, Chairman of the OECD LEED Forum
on Partnerships and Local Governance. Yesterday morning was slated for the topic
BUSINESS AND THE PUBLIC SECTOR: WHY DO WE NEED TO PARTNER would have the introduction
by Francesca Froy, Policy Analyst, Local Economic and Employment Development,
OECD. The speakers are Sally Sinclair, CEO of the National Employment Services
Association, Australia; Armistead Sapp, General Manager for SAS Education Practice
Deian Hopkin, Vice Chancellor and Chief Executive, London South Bank University,
Chair of the Universities, UK Skills Task Force, UK.
The discussion is to
be presided over by Robert Strauss, Head of Unit, Employment Strategy, CSR &
Local Development, DG Employment, Social Affairs & Equal Opportunities, European
Commission.
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Each workshop during the forum will
start with the presentation of a partnership initiative. A virtual partnership
composed of representatives from business, trade unions, government and community/non-government
organisation, will share their views using the initiative presented as a basis
for discussion.
The first workshop is on establishing a workforce development
strategy. This workshop will focus on ways to re-integrate the low-skilled workers
into the labour market and provide them with up-skilling opportunities. The presenting
partnership is the Local Partnership of Alexandroupolis, Greece.
But as
fate would have it, we decided to forego with the Austrian trip for reasons that
we already explained during the regular session of the city sanggunian last Friday.
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