7 ways countries can boost competitiveness

For more than 30 years the World Economic Forum has studied and benchmarked competitiveness, widely accepted as the key driver for sustaining prosperity and improving the well-being of a nation’s citizens.

Against this backdrop, the Forum is taking the next step to inform the discussion on competitiveness by compiling information on initiatives that have aimed to, or are intended to, build competitiveness.

Here are seven examples from around the world.

1. United States: Automotive Manufacturing Technical Education Collaborative

The Automotive Manufacturing Technical Education Collaborative (AMTEC) is a joint programme by community colleges and major car manufacturers designed to respond to a severe shortage of skilled labour by equipping students with the high-end skills they need to work in the car industry. With increasing enrolment rates, driven by early recruitment in secondary schools, AMTEC has grown from a single vocational scheme (pioneered in Kentucky by Toyota in the mid-2000s) to an enormous programme encompassing 30 colleges and 34 plants across a dozen states. The fee-paying programme gives students two days a week in the classroom and three days of hands-on training. This is provided by Ford, General Motors, Toyota and BMW, all of which are involved in the design of the curriculum.

Read the full repository here. 

2. European Union: The European Innovation Partnerships

In Europe, many factors prevent innovation from being rapidly implemented in the market: unfavourable framework conditions such as poor availability of finance and expensive patenting, market fragmentation, slow standard-setting and skills shortage, as well as fragmentation of efforts, among others.

The European Innovation Partnerships (EIPs) is one of a series of European Commission initiatives launched in 2010 to improve conditions and finance for research and innovation, and ensure that innovative ideas can be turned into products and services that respond to major social challenges and create growth and jobs.

EIPs develop strategic plans, accelerate the process of innovation and bridge the gaps between breakthroughs, such as research-and-development results and prototypes, and their commercialization and use. So far, five have been launched, focusing on active and healthy ageing, agricultural sustainability and productivity, smart cities and communities, water and raw materials.

Private partners take part in governance and implementation. They contribute to the work of the partnership by employing their own resources, and benefit from the opportunity to influence future legislation, standards and procurements, and to gain access to larger markets.

Read the full repository here. 

3. India: Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd

Due to widespread migration and a youthful demographic profile, India will have 270 million more working-age people by 2030. More than 60% of its population is below the age of 40. India faces the important challenge of providing its young people with skills that will appeal to employers and who can contribute to India’s growth and a reduction of poverty.

The Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd (IL&FS Skills) was founded in 2007 by a major infrastructure company as a for-profit venture to address the national skills gap by training young people from rural areas in 16 strategic sectors. It uses a public-private partnership model to work closely with 1,000 partner companies and the state-funded National Skill Development Corporation.

IL&FS Skills operates institutes in 24 of India’s 28 states. These follow an industry-recognized curriculum to ensure trainees are ready for employment, which in many cases is pre-guaranteed by partner companies. To date, 100,000 students have been trained in 18 “hub” skill schools and 355 “spoke” skill centres, with 85% successfully employed.

Read the full repository here. 

4. Chile: Start-Up Chile

For a long time Chile has been dependent on its mining, salmon aquaculture and other traditional industries, but recently there has been political willingness to convert the nation into the innovation and entrepreneurship hub of Latin America. Start-Up Chile was founded in 2010, to attract the world’s best and brightest entrepreneurs to boost the number and quality of start-ups in the country.

With an average annual budget of $11 million, Start-Up Chile offers 100 spots in its programme each year. It receives more than 1,500 global applications each time. Selected start-ups each receive $40,000, one-year work visas and access to a community of more than 800 start-ups ready to work collaboratively. So far more than 750 companies and 1,500 entrepreneurs have come to the country under the scheme.

Read the full repository here. 

5. Morocco: Education for Employment

The Middle East and North Africa region (also known as MENA) suffers from the highest youth unemployment in the world, at 27.2% in the Middle East and more than 29% in North Africa.

Education for Employment (EFE) is a network of NGOs that creates economic opportunity for unemployed young people in the region by providing world-class professional and technical training that leads directly to jobs and entrepreneurship support.

EFE-Maroc has partnered with 200 businesses, providing them with skilled entry-level employees. By the end of 2013, 6,600 young people, half of them women, had graduated from EFE-Maroc’s job-placement schemes, nearly 5,000 students had been trained in job-search skills, and more than 860 young people had been placed in jobs.

Read the full repository here. 

6. Finland: The VIGO Venture Accelerator Programme

The Finnish paradox, as it has been called, refers to the situation in which Finland, despite strong innovation and institutional capacity, has been unsuccessful in introducing new high-growth start-ups to the global market.

Traditionally, the Finnish government has responded to the financing gap for innovative start-ups by providing its own capital to the market.

The government decided to launch a venture accelerator programme called Vigo in 2009, to coach start-ups to quickly enter the global market with the help of successful serial entrepreneurs, named accelerators. Since its launch, accelerator teams have attracted a total of €200 million in funding for their 60 target companies.

Read the full repository here. 

7. South Korea: Meister Schools

Korea faces an overqualified and underskilled labour market. Specifically, 42% of Koreans are overqualified for their jobs. At the same time, 20% of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) report skills shortages. In particular, there is a shortage of technical workers, traditionally supplied by the specialized high schools.

This combination of labour shortage and youth unemployment points to the existence of a skills mismatch between supply and demand in the labour market.

Established in 2010, the network of Meister Schools was specifically designed to prepare youths to work in high-skilled manufacturing jobs and other fields.

They also seek to encourage a higher sense of status for such positions. Students enjoy free tuition and are referred to as young “meister”, the German term for master craftsman.

They subsequently participate in internships and fieldwork, which can lead to a job offer as early as the end of their first year. They graduate with the equivalent of two years’ work and/or community college experience. The Meister Schools are still new and account for less than 2% of all South Korean high schools.

Read the full repository here. 

Read the Global Competitiveness Report 2015-2016