‘Every sector must embrace skills development agenda’

MINISTER of Skills Audit and Development Professor Paul Mavima has said every sector in the economy should participate in the skills development agenda saying that the country needs skills for it to achieve economic transformation.

He said this during the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC) business agenda on skills gap analysis meeting on Thursday.
The meeting was meant to clarify issues on skills gap and development under the Ministry.

Prof Mavima said everyone has to participate in skills development to promote economic transformation and rural development.

He said the country is endowed with natural resources and skills are needed to fully utilise the resources for the benefit of the nation.

“Establishing what skills we lack and what skills we need is not a mean task, it is not a task that the Government or the Ministry can do on its own.

“It has to be a broad-based undertaking with the participation of all the sectors of our economy and institutions of higher learning, but I think the participation of the entire Zimbabwean society, because we are not just looking at skills that are necessary in the flourishing of our industry and commerce but we are also looking at skills that go down even at ward level and can enhance the transformation that we want to see at that level.

“The transformation of our rural communities and the proper utilisation of the resource endowments that we have across the country so that we can create value for our people,” he said.

“We have to understand the environment and say what are the skills that are going to be needed in order to sustain Zimbabwe’s transformation.”

Last year President Mnangagwa, assigned Prof Mavima to be the Skills Audit and Development Minister, a move analysts applauded as necessary for better public service delivery.

The analysts saluted the President for his “fresh approach” to making his Government address long standing, worsening skills shortages that have been threatening the delivery of its goals.

The last skills report of 2018 showed only 4 percent of civil servants are digital professionals, compared to an average of between 8 percent and 12 percent in other sectors, and that a major skills shortage was affecting the whole of Zimbabwe with departments ill-placed to compete.

The audit revealed training needs for senior managers in areas that include financial management, strategic capability and leadership, risk management, change management, policy development and monitoring and evaluation from councils to the central Government.

Prof Mavima said commerce will need skills in terms of customer experience, and skills in various management operations and he said there are cross cutting skills which are going to be needed for economic transformation.

He said Zimbabwe need to be a nation that addresses issues of innovation, having an innovative and critical thinking approach and a problem-solving approach with broad based leadership capabilities in all sectors, so that the nation will propel itself into a trajectory of transformation that will make Zimbabwe achieve not just Vision 2030, but way beyond Vision 2030 into the realisation of the Zimbabwean dream.

“We are a country blessed with natural resources but I don’t think we are getting enough value from those resources. We have seen the development of the lithium sector, and as a nation we need to collectively think in terms of how we develop skills in that sector so that we can maximize value from the sector and in that process, we can aid the economic development of the country,” said Prof Mavima.

The Minister said the delivery of different skills needs improved infrastructure and human capital in a bid to promote high level research and skills which will match that of the world. –chronicle