WAPES Asia-Pacific Regional Workshop 2026 (APRW 2026)

Labour Market Information Systems as the Foundation of PES Governance and Service Delivery: Challenges and Opportunities

WAPES invites its members and partners from the Asia-Pacific region to the Asia-Pacific Regional Workshop 2026 (APRW 2026), which, due to unforeseen administrative challenges in the envisaged hosting country will now take place online on the 21st April 2026 between 16:30 and 18:00 JST /09:30 and 11:00 CET.

The workshop is jointly organised by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan (MHLW) and WAPES.

This webinar will provide several viewpoints and discussion on how Public Employment Services (PES) can strengthen their role as key actors in labour market governance through the effective use of data, evidence and digital tools.

📍Venue: Online
🗓 Dates: 21 April 2026 – 9.30 am to 11.00 am CET / 4.30 pm to 6.00 pm JST
🗣 Working language: English

Workshop focus

Across the Asia-Pacific region, labour markets are undergoing profound transformations driven by demographic change, technological innovation and evolving employment patterns. In this context, Public Employment Services are increasingly expected to contribute to evidence-based policy making and coordinated employment governance as a base for the design and delivery of their services.

This APRW webinar will share the views of the International Labour Organisation in the Asia-Pacific region as well as the Employment and Labour Public Authorities from India, Japan and Malaysia. It will focus on data-driven employment governance as a cornerstone for building responsive, inclusive and future-oriented PES. Particular attention will be given to the role of labour market information systems (LMIS), integrated data infrastructures and advanced digital tools in supporting policy decisions and service delivery.

Key themes of the workshop include:

• Building and integrating labour market information systems as a foundation for effective employment governance
• Using labour market data for evidence-based employment services
• Leveraging advanced digital technologies to increase, manage and govern data use in PES

Audience

The webinar live session as well as its recorded online version for posterior screening is primarily intended for Public Employment Services and labour authorities from the Asia-Pacific region and globally The examples, discussions and conclusions shared on data-driven employment governance are intended to open a wider conversation on how labour market intelligence can be improved, used in more effective ways and benefit from policy and practice learnings. The speakers and participants are invited to engage in further exchanges in the future.

Programme

-Leading Speech (20’)

Ms. Makiko MATSUMOTO, Employment Specialist, ILO Regional Office Asia-Pacific

– Deep Dive Session (30’)

• Malaysia (10’): Mr. Muhamad Faizal bin Abdul Basir, Social Security Officer, Social Security Organisation (PERKESO)
• India (10’): Ms. Neha Prakash, Director of Employment, Indian Administrative Service
• Japan (10’): Ms. Minako TAKASAKI, Deputy Director, Employment Policy Division, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW)

– Open Forum (Q&A) (30’)

Biographies

Ms Amandine Moignard – Executive Secretary of WAPES (World Association of Public Employment Services)

Amandine Moignard is a specialist in international cooperation and public policy development, with a strong focus on public employment services. She holds a Master’s degree in International Cooperation and Project Management from Madrid, following her studies in International Relations in Paris. Her career has been shaped by a deep commitment to effective and inclusive public action across diverse international contexts.

She began her career in development project management within a consultancy firm and FIAP, a Spanish public foundation promoting peer-to-peer technical cooperation among public administrations. She then spent two years in Bamako, Mali, working with an NGO focused on family planning.

Upon returning to Europe, Amandine joined France Médias Monde in Paris and later moved to Brussels to work with the EU-funded SOCIEUX+ programme, which fosters institutional peer cooperation. It was through this experience that she developed a keen interest in public employment services, leading her to join WAPES in June 2023 as Project Director.

Since November 2024, she has been serving as Executive Secretary of WAPES, where she contributes to strengthening global cooperation among public employment services and advancing inclusive employment and decent work policies.

Mr Miguel PERROMINGO – Employment and Wellbeing Consultant

Miguel has been working with public employment services for more than 20 years in front-line and managerial positions and now as a freelance consultant advising employment service networks and labour market stakeholders.

His recent projects include capacity building of labour market information systems in emerging countries, human-AI interaction in employment service delivery and skills mobility across borders and professions. Miguel has worked with WAPES, the Asian Development Bank and Governments and academia of Asia-Pacific on several occasions.

Makiko Matsumoto worked in a private sector market survey company in Japan before joining the ILO in Geneva in 1998 as an associate research economist. In Geneva, she worked as a research economist in diverse employment-related areas, including trade, macroeconomic policy and youth employment, and contributed to policy advisory work at the country levels.

Since 2013, she has been working as an employment specialist in the Decent Work Technical Support Team for East and South-East Asia and the Pacific in ILO Bangkok. She has been supporting research activities, labour market data collection and analysis, policy dialogues and capacity building to support employment policy formulation and implementation and strengthening of labour market institutions, including public employment services.

Mr Muhamad Faizal bin Abdul Basir – Social Security Officer – Social Security Organisation (PERKESO)

Muhamad Faizal bin Abdul Basir is an IT professional with over 15 years of experience in system development, data processing, and digital platform optimisation. He currently serves at PERKESO, where he leads the development of APIs, automates data pipelines, and delivers labour market insights through tools such as Python, Talend, and Tableau. He also manages and enhances web platforms using WordPress, PHP, and MySQL.

Prior to this, he held technology roles at Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia and Ministry of Health Malaysia, contributing to enterprise system development, mobile applications, and operational digitalisation. His early career included software engineering and HR systems development in the private sector.

Mr. Faizal holds a Master of Computer Science from Universiti Putra Malaysia and a Bachelor of Computer Science from Universiti Sains Malaysia. His core competencies include backend development, data engineering, and analytics, with a strong track record in delivering scalable, business-driven technology solutions.

Ms. Neha Prakash – Director of Employment, Indian Administrative Service, India

Neha Prakash is a distinguished Indian Administrative Service officer of 2012 batch currently serving as Director Employment in the most populous state of India, Uttar Pradesh having a population of 250 million. The Directorate has facilitated employment for 379000 people in the last year through 3000 Job Fairs across 75 employment exchanges. Recently, she organised a Rozgaar Mahakumbh providing employment opportunities to 16000 people over 3 days.

She has served as the District Magistrate of Shravasti and Auraiya districts. Her academic foundation includes a Bachelor of Computer Science Engineering from Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra and Post Graduate Diploma in Management from Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow. She worked in Tata Consultancy Services as Assistant Systems Engineer and in Deloitte US India as a Strategy Consultant. She also serves as an honorary advisor to BRICS Chamber of Commerce and Industry, India. She recently completed a training at ITC ILO.

Ms Minako TAKASAKI – Joint Project Coordinator, seconded to WAPES by the MHLW

Ms Minako Takasaki is a project coordinator for WAPES, seconded from the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) since October 2024. She leads the joint WAPES-Japan project, which focuses on self-assessment and peer learning in the Philippines and Cambodia. She has over 20 years’ professional experience at the MHLW, where she began her career as a careers adviser at PESO (Hello Work).

Before her current role, she was the first-ever female Head of the Employment Service Department at the Okinawa Regional Labour Bureau. She also served as First Secretary at the Japanese Embassy in Korea. She holds a Bachelor of Education and a Master of Public Studies.