By Manuel Mutimucuio, Senior Inclusive Business and Innovation Advisor, SNV World Mozambique
Construction group Stefanutti Stocks and ADPP (Mozambican NGO) have signed a MoU to address skills development and employment in the construction sector in Mozambique. The Mozambique Business in Development Facility (LINK) brought the parties together and believes that this is an important step as massive job opportunities will be created if the skills of the local workers is improving. LINK is part of the Inclusive Business Accelerator network and through their office they deliver inclusive business support to entrepreneurs.
With Mozambique’s current and future capital infrastructure growth, the construction industry is expected to continue to expand rapidly. This is providing employment opportunities for thousands of locals throughout the country. At present, there is a large (and widening) gap between qualified, skilled labor force and the requirements of major construction companies. Additionally with Mozambique’s overall very low capacity, there is a critical need for basic soft skills and employment training prior to ever receiving the next level of technical skills.
Up until now, in order to meet their own internal capacity requirements, most construction companies have developed, managed and funded their own training centers and unofficial certification programs. Besides each company making the same types of investments without any coordination or plan for long-term sustainability among themselves, trained staff is then poached by other companies who can offer a slightly higher salary as they have not incurred the overhead to train that individual.
LINK believes that by addressing this challenge, massive job opportunities can be created in this rapidly growing and labour intensive industry. LINK brought together a number of major construction companies along with providers of professional skills training programs. Together they explored a potential partnership to combine resources and invest in a long-term sustainable model ensuring a qualified labor force in the right location, at the right time.
Stefanutti Stocks (SS Moçambique) is a leading construction group with major operations in Mozambique. ADPP is a Mozambican NGO with focus on vocational education have agreed to partner to establish a sustainable training network throughout Mozambique to educate and certify local labourers for the construction industry.
The Mozambique Business in Development Facility (LINK) aims to systematically catalyse, support and scale cross-sector partnerships and inclusive businesses in order to leverage the skills, reach and resources of business to achieve development outcomes and business objectives. LINK is part of the Business Partnership Action Initiative (BPA), supported by TPI, and is part of the Inclusive Business Accelerator network.
This was first posted on the IBA ventures blog.
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