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2012/SOM1/HRDWG/062rev1

Agenda Item: Plenary 15

CBN Meeting Summary Report

Purpose: Consideration

Submitted by: CBN Coordinator

/ 34thHuman Resources Development Working Group Meeting Moscow, Russia
5-10February 2012

Capacity Building Network (CBN) Meeting

Feb 8 – 9, 2012

Moscow, Russia

Preliminary Summary Report

The Capacity Building Network (CBN) meeting was led by the CBN Coordinator, Mr. Hiroyuki Yoshiya. In the meeting, there were 11 economies, namely: Australia, Brunei Darussalam;People’s Republic of China; Indonesia; Japan; Republic of Korea; Philippines; Russia; Chinese Taipei; Thailand; and Viet Nam. The Program Director from the APEC Secretariat, Mr. Lu Zhiwei, was also present to give assistance to the CBN coordinator team. (Thailand participated in the meeting by its written contribution to the discussion on the role and mandate of CBN.)

Welcome

  1. The Coordinator sincerely apologized for his absence on the first day of the meeting due to his duties in Japan, and welcomed the delegates. In addition, he expressed his gratitude to the Lead Shepherd of HRDWG, Dr. YoungHwan Kim and Mr. Koichiro Akatsu, Japanese representative, who played as acting Coordinator on Feb 8.

Expectation for CBN

  1. The HRDWG Lead Shepherdexpressed his expectation that the CBN could deal with human resources development issues untouched by LSPN and EDNET such as education in companies’ training centers and collaboration between school and industry. He stressed the importance of encouraging private sector’s participation in CBN’s activities, as instructed in HRDWG’s TOR on CBN objectives: to promote human resource development by building organizational capacity in government/public, private and not-for-profit sector in strengthening markets.

Reports and Reviews of CBN Projects and Economy Policies

  1. Four economies reported the accomplishments and the progress of their following on-going projects:

1)Capacity Building of Mining Stakeholders in APEC Economies on Corporate Social Responsibility (Philippines)

The Philippines reported the successful completion of the first phase of the project. The second phase of the project has been put forward via Mining Taskforce, which will conduct the training in various economies, using the program and cases developed in the first phase of the project.

2)APEC Vocational Training program (Korea)

Korea reported on the self-funded vocational training project, which Korea has been implementing successfully for many years.

3)The APEC Skills Development Promotion Project(China)

China briefed on recent activities of the APEC Skills Development Promotion Project which was adopted at the 5th HRDMM. China introduced Youth Skill Camp which China is organizing to promote importance of skills in manufacturing technologies. China will extend invitation at a later date, which was welcomed by the CBN members.

4)Strengthening Human Resource Management System of SMEs for Facilitation Successful Trade and Investment in APEC (Japan)

Japan reported on the new project which has just started the process of inviting experts’ nominations for an April workshop. All the CBN members were encouraged to send their nominations for the project.

Chinese Taipei introduced successful implementation of its capacity-building related policies which addressed new needs for youth employment as an example of good practices:

5)Labor Policy and its Development in Chinese Taipei with the Reorganization

6)Youth Employment Policy in Chinese Taipei

The Way Forward of CBN

  1. The Coordinator briefly reviewed the APEC core mission, namely: trade and investment liberalization and regional economic integration. He emphasized, based on the discussion paper on CBN role and mandate(2012/SOM1/HRDWG/053), the importance of CBN’s future direction to be in line with the APEC core mission in terms of contributing to APEC as a forum under HRDWG working together with other fora. Economies agreed to focus CBN’s efforts on the areas of trade and investment liberalization and facilitation and regional economic integration from the aspect of capacity building to follow APEC Economic Leaders’ instructions.
  1. The members presented priority issues on capacity building for their own economies as well as the focus of CBN activities.

1)Australia: Trade and investment liberalization is a commonality in the whole APEC. It is important to bring business managers in CBN’s activities, which would also be an attractive education forum for them. There needs to be a strategic approach and the CBN needs to forge its own vision. Also a business/management discipline approach would be a very useful focus as those disciplines cut across all areas of an organization and that way we can engage all sectors.

2)Brunei: Issues such as scientific technology, environment issues, financing, knowledge information and TVET for skill development are important in Brunei for enhancing economic growth and productivity. Private sector participation is required for better work and cooperation with public sector.

3)China: CBN’s priority should be developing vocational skills. CBN can contribute to this area by acting as a platform to exchange cooperation with vocational training centers, and a cross-cutting fora to promote information and practice with member economies.

4)Indonesia: Priority issues in Indonesia include training for emergency preparedness, development of entrepreneurship education, and promoting green growth. These are common issues in APEC and can be dealt with cross-cutting cooperation.

5)Japan: Challenges in Japan for REI are strengthening the sectors which will be affected by REI through innovation and non-traditional approaches, and establishing effective collaborative linkages with industries in APEC using each other’s’ competitive advantages.

6)Korea: CBN should focus on the original mission of organizational capacity building. New approach will be enhancing cooperation with other fora, particularly SMEWG. It is suggested to establish an industry-academic-governmentconsortium to effectively address trade and investment and REI issues.

7)Philippines: For the purpose of strengthening the whole industries in APEC and further integrating the economy, CBN needs to timely respond to the demand of each economy’s industry, which develops every day.

8)Chinese Taipei: Education for good human resources is essential to provide better services and goods in the region. CBN needs to attend to other areas than regular education. Structure for competency development and effective training assessment should be prepared by training providers.

9)Thailand: CBN can deal with issues such as “promoting utilization of co-operative education to create the desirable human resources for REI. Apart from trade and investment and REI issues, business
environment issues and green managerial capacity building in SMEs would be areas to focus.

10)Viet Nam: CBN should remain focused on its original objective in order to avoid the duplication of other fora. Therefore it is important to make sure the strength of CBN in APEC and how to differentiate other fora in relation with other stakeholders.

  1. The members had an intensive discussion on CBN mission and focus areas, including collaboration with other APEC fora, demarcation between LSPN/EDNET and СBN, strengths of CBN and stakeholders engagement. The consensus was reached as follows:

1) Missions of CBN are:

-Continuously responding to the needs of industry/enterprise by providing appropriate organizational and managerialcapacity building activities,

-Utilizing new opportunities created by trade and investment liberalization, and

-Contributing to innovation and productivity growth through human capacity building

2) Structures/Modalities to take are:

- Sharing best practices.

- Promoting public and private partnership in the implementation and development of projects

3) Focus areas of CBN for 2012-2013 are trade and investment liberalization and facilitation and regional economic integration. Based on the focus areas, CBN will look into the themes below of particular importance in the APEC region:

-Promoting innovation required in the globalcompetition,

-Improvement of business practices,

-Environmental goods and services,

-SMEs’ participation in global supply chains,

-Entrepreneurship development, and

-Narrowing the gaps between labor supply and business needs.

Concept for New Project

  1. The Coordinator urged economies to produce new projects based on the six themes above 6-3) in order to make clear its future activities and keep contributing to HRDWG and APEC. The participants recognized the need to work together toward new projects that address the themes by utilizing their expertise. The Coordinator requested each economy to submit a concept note for a new CBN project by the end of March, 2012.

Appointment of New Coordinator and Deputy Coordinator

  1. The Coordinator indicated that his term of CBN Coordinator is to expire at the end of this year, and that CBN members need to select a new coordinator. He, however, pointed out that it is rather essential to specify the mission and role of CBNand its core activities at least in the short term than to identify a candidate(s) for a new coordinator in this meeting. Thus the Coordinator requested economies to nominate/apply for his successor by the end of July, 2012, and economies are to agree on new projects beforehand.
  1. The Coordinator commented that CBN needs to make its upmost efforts to attract more participants to continue its activities under the APEC rule which requests all the APEC forato hold their formal meeting with more than two thirds of the member economies (14 economies out of 21 members). In this sense, he explained his efforts to invite CTI members to this CBN meeting, and thanked for Viet Nam representative from CTI.

Closing

  1. The Coordinator closed the meeting, thanking Economies for their active participation, kind contribution and wisdom. And the participants together with the Coordinator, expressed appreciation to the generous hospitality of the host economy, Russia.