By Alan Hammond

The presidency has released the latest annual report for the Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition, or Jipsa. The initiative was launched on the back of the Asgisa strategy for raising the annual growth rate to 6%. Skill shortages were seen as the major impediment - or binding constraint - to achieving this goal.

Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka was upbeat about the success of the project, but also identified that even more work was needed in the future. "Since we started (jipsa) the world has changed dramatically. The scale of problem become bigger so we need to up our game. We must mobilise even stronger," she said.

Mlambo-Ngcuka was however confident that the foundations were sold. "We have a framework in place that we can use to deal with new problems. A lot of work has been done, but now even more work is necessary".

We must look at the challenges the world is facing - food crisis, fuel and power shortages, skills shortages. We must take into account SADC and the leakage of skills. This all means that the work of Jipsa becomes even more complicated - there aren't enough hands on the deck yet - we need to mobilise more hands on the deck.

The Cabinet has decided that Jipsa would be extended for another 18 months. However Gwede Mantashe, former union leader and now ANC secretary-general, will no longer serve as head of the Technical Working Group.

Alan Hirsch, Deputy Directory General and economist for the Presidency, re-iterated that the goal of Jipsa was not to make changes to long-term policy, but rather to focus on short to medium term interventions.

The initiative works to encourage and support government departments in delivering their skills-related projecs. Hirsch refers to this as voluntary self-binding

In the early phases this has focused on artisan training, engineers and town planners as a speciality.

The secretariat that co-ordinates the work of Jipsa is provided by the National Business Initiative and funded by the Business Trust.

Hirsch explained that Jipsa's initiatives were not always focused on training specifically. In the area of town planning for example it was found that planners are not encouraged to stay in the profession. "There was insufficient recognition for planners - so we looked at how we can improve the careers paths for planners.