Idea of renewable energy skills council to go before Cabinet

Minister of Labour, Social Security and Third Sector Colin Jordan has unveiled plans for the establishment of a Renewable Energy Skills Council to bridge the skills gap and foster collaboration across sectors.

He said on Friday that some stakeholders have already been engaged.

“Skills councils are used all over the world as a mechanism to bring all the sectors together – public, private, and third sector – so that we can work collaboratively in order to make sure that, as a country, we are positioned to take advantage of the opportunities that lie ahead of us,” he said as he delivered the closing remarks at the three-day National Symposium on Just Transition and Job Creation in the Green and Blue Economy at the Hilton Barbados Resort.

The next step, according to the labour minister, is to present the idea to Cabinet for approval to set up the council.

Jordan said the way to the country’s sustainability and workforce development is through data-driven policy-making. He noted the significance of aligning policy-making with actionable data in order to achieve the principle of just transition.

“Those of us at the policy-making level have to impress on all stakeholders the importance of policy that is driven by real information as opposed to anecdotal information or information you pick up along the way,” he told the audience of officials, private sector actors, academics and civil society representatives. “The intention is that all organisations that are in receipt of concessions from the State will be required, as part of the partnership, to participate in all the statistical surveys that involve them. We are starting to make a move in that direction, because we realise if policy-making is not information-driven,  we can end up wasting a lot of taxpayers’ money.”

Highlighting the equal importance of inclusivity, Jordan added: “Governments across the world grapple with uneven impacts on various sectors… youth, women, persons with disabilities…. We have to bear all of these various groups in mind as we craft our policy and as we put into action the idea of just transition, a movement that has at its core, justice for everybody.”

(SM)