Development Finance Network (DeFiNe)

DeFiNe is a global network of think tanks and academic establishments. Institutions belonging to DeFiNe come both from developing and OECD countries. They provide perspectives on the ongoing work themes at the OECD and help establish dialogue on development issues between OECD and non-OECD members. DeFiNe’s work feeds into the content of various OECD development fora.

Following the economic crisis and the reduction of many jobs worldwide, it is difficult to address the question of labour shortage in such a context. In Switzerland, the shortage of skilled and semi-skilled work force has been an important issue for its economic dynamism prior to the global economic crisis and will continue to be important in the decades to come due to its demographic "time bomb" caused by an aging population. At all skills levels, this greying effect will increasingly exasperate the already evident labour shortages in several key sectors of the economy such as tourism, construction and agriculture. In the next decades, the demographic impact of an aging society will be felt in all sectors if no effective mitigation measures are undertaken now.

This chapter provides an overview of the non-formal management education and in-service training and identifies various assessment tools used in Western Europe and Northern America. The chapter ends with an examination of options of safeguarding the value of non-formal management education and management development programmes in the spirit and context of life-long learning. Published in June 2009 in The Sage Handbook of Management Learning, Education and Development by Steven J Armstrong and Cynthia V Fukami.

Dr. Falou Samb has been invited by the IQsensato, a Geneva based research and communications organisation whose Goal is to shape international policy-making on development to contribute to its coming "Seminar on Copyright and Access to Knowledge in Africa: Evidence from an Eight Country Study Project", 20 May 2009, Geneva. Dr. Samb will be speaking on the Panel 1 on issues of translating research into policy.