Caitlin Katsiaficas

Skills mobility partnerships (SMPs) are emerging as an increasingly important policy tool for addressing labour shortages, skills mismatches, and demographic pressures, while expanding legal migration opportunities and promoting skills development. Drawing on desk research and comparative analysis of 39 governmental SMPs, this study examines partnership design in the Western Balkans, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia, highlighting takeaways for states wishing to launch or refine SMPs.

Labour migration is a tool to address growing skills and labour shortages, widening the talent pool from which employers can recruit and enabling them to access new skills and ideas. Skills mobility partnerships (SMPs) and related concepts, including Global Skill Partnerships and Talent Partnerships, have gained momentum as a strategy to combine skills development, mobility, and mutual benefit for destination and origin countries. To explore governmental initiatives at the intersection of mobility and skills, the Link4Skills project conducted a mapping of SMPs that have been operating in the past ten years, based on desk research. This working paper presents the resulting Partnership Inventory, including a brief comparative analysis. The inventory aims to provide an overview of existing SMPs to help policymakers, practitioners, researchers, and other stakeholders to better understand existing government approaches.