Transnational Skills Partnerships between Ghana and Germany: "A "triple-win" solution?

In 2015, the Valletta summit action plan recommended to “develop networks between European and African vocational training institutions, with a view to ensuring that vocational training matches labour market needs”. The EU’s New Pact on Migration and Asylum, moreover, proposes “talent partnerships” as a solution to match labour and skills needs in EU Member States with the relevant institutions in key countries of origin to eventually support mobility and migration schemes for labour and training purposes. However, these high aspirations have not resulted in many concrete projects, much less larger scale approaches. The focus of the few existing partnerships so far have been mostly on nurse training and employment. What is still missing, though, are firstly, a broadening of programmes to include further sectors of Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) and employment; and secondly, an implementation of programmes that benefit all sides. To push this discussion forward, we have conducted two exploratory studies proposing a project which works towards a partnership that could support the migration of construction workers between Ghana and the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), as a joint development of skilled workers taking the benefit of all sides into consideration.