The progress of the Joint Project, September 2022
Background
The primary objective of WAPES is to provide a platform for exchanges of information and knowledge between member countries and global partners in the field of labor market policies and employment services. Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare and the WAPES Executive Secretariat launched the JAPAN-WAPES Joint Project in 2019 with the aim of building learning partnerships among WAPES members to promote continuous improvement in PES, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. Working in cooperation with the Korea Employment Information Service (Vice President of the Asia-Pacific region), Cambodia was chosen as the first country to be supported by the project with a focus on the development of an effective Performance Assessment Framework (PAF) and a Customer Survey Methodology to drive better service delivery. The WAPES Executive Secretariat published the recommendation report as one of the accomplishments of the 1st term (2019-2021) of the JAPAN-WAPES Joint Project.
The Joint Project provides an action research cycle with five steps: Fact finding (Step 1); Planning (Step 2); Acting (Step 3); Observing (Step 4); and Reflecting (Step 5). Overall, the first phase focused on running Step 1 and Step 2 by accomplishing four key achievements: (1) Kick-Off Meeting, (2) Study Visit, (3) Online Meetings, and (4) Planning of the Consultation Conference. The project achieved a relatively good level of efficiency with appropriate scope and time management, while the NEA faced unexpected challenges as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Re-Launch of face-to-face activities, 2022
Even during the difficult period of Covid-19 pandemic, the NEA and the WAPES Executive Secretariat have had several online meetings and activities in order to go forward to the next step. NEA has had a good level of advancements to respond to the recommendation report, such as technological improvement of online conferences and 4 employees’ participation of ITCILO training “Employment services and labour market policies for a human centred recovery”, which should have improved not only technical knowledges and experiences, but also should have promoted employees’ international-wide view and more active responses.
On September 1st, the president of the WAPES, the Director General of the National Employment Agency of Cambodia, as well as the Director of International Relations in Ingeus, the Research fellow of the Korean Employment Information Service and Japanese regional director general have attended an online Meeting, in order to confirm our recommencement of the face-to-face activities for the Joint Project. The attendees have expressed their expectation towards the activities of the second phase, particularly the first-after Covid face-to-face workshop being held in Takamatsu, 22-24 November.
An update of the workshop results will be given in the next newsletter.
Fumie HIGASHIRA, Joint Project Coordinator, WAPES