Throughout these 90 years the ILO has been working constantly in the area of training and the development of labour skills, and this is certainly the basic objective of ILO/Cinterfor. The fundamental importance of employment and training is underlined at the ninetieth anniversary of the ILO in instruments such as ILO Recommendation 195 concerning human resources development: education, training and lifelong learning(1), in which people are placed firmly at the very centre of economic and social development. This Recommendation emphasises that education, training and lifelong learning make a significant contribution to promoting the interests of people, enterprises, the economy and society as a whole; that lifelong learning fosters personal development, access to culture and active citizenship; and that the social partners have a role to play and a commitment to support lifelong learning. In the Recommendation there is a call for the Member States to formulate and implement education, training and lifelong learning policies that will promote people's employability throughout their lives, and it is asserted that the best way to formulate these policies is through a process of social dialogue.

The ILO has always been concerned with placing full and productive employment and decent work at the very core of economic and social policies, and this reflects its main strategic objectives. The ILO insists that the development of labour skills is crucially important for the growth of productivity, and productivity in turn is an important factor for raising levels of life and promoting growth. In addition, other factors that exert a decisive influence in these areas have been identified, such as macro-economic policies that allow the employment offer to be maximised so as to benefit low income, contexts that favour the sustainable development of enterprises, social dialogue and crucial investment in areas like basic education, health and physical infrastructure(2).

The report shows how important it is to have effective systems to develop labour skills - systems that link education with technical training, technical training with incorporation into the labour market, and incorporation into the labour market with the workplace and lifelong learning - to help countries to attain sustainable growth in productivity and to convert this growth into more and better jobs.

In fact, the slogan for this 90th anniversary is "90 years of work for social justice", and it is in the context of a globalised world that the ILO has proposed promoting employment through creating a sustainable institutional and economic environment as a framework in which people can acquire and update the skills and competencies they need to be able to work productively in pursuit of their own personal self-realization and of the common good(3).

In this edition of its electronic bulletin, ILO/Cinterfor is highlighting the ninetieth anniversary of the ILO against the background of its role in the promotion and development of vocational training, and emphasising how important this is at the present time when, yet again, the question of employment has become one of the most worrying aspects of modern society in these times of crisis.