Accra, July 8, GNA - An international recruitment fair and human resource management conference, on Thursday opened in Accra to allow exhibitors to showcase their job vacancies and career opportunities. The fair also focussed on training programmes, recruitment services and products to job seekers, graduates and mid-career executives. Dubbed: "Brighter Futures 2010" and on the theme: "Developing a Skil led Work Force for Africa," the fair is bringing together leading recruiting organisations, top career and talent management professionals and a pool of highly qualified job seekers from Ghana, South Africa, Nigeria and the United Kingdom.

Mr Paul Asinor, Conference Director said the three-day fair is the first in the series of high profile events to be rolled out in Africa, ai med at modernising recruitment practices and sharpening African human resourc es as a tool for development. The exhibition, which would also involve a two-day conference is bei ng organised by Occupational Management Limited in association with Golden Stool Promotions. It would comprise practical workshops, lectures and a forum which wo uld be addressed by various speakers, career experts, legislators, educationi sts and top consultants from Ghana and abroad. Mr Asinor said participants are expected to receive tailored advice

and innovative solutions on how to recruit and resource cost-effectively,

retain skills for maximum performance, learn modern strategies in recruitment, talent management and development skills as well as equip themselves with latest technologies and money-saving applications in recruitment. He said with the recent oil find in Ghana, coupled with good governa nce among other factors, the need for skilled work force could not be over emphasised and the ability to identify the right skills in recruitment ev en more crucial if the nation's dream of being an emerging market was to be realised.

Mr Enoch Teye Mensah, Minister of Employment and Social Welfare in a

speech read on his behalf lauded the exhibition initiative, saying it fel l in line with the Better Ghana Agenda. He indicated that Ghana's national training institutions are faced w ith several institutional and human resource constraints, making them impossi ble to provide the necessary skills in their sufficient quantities and qualit y to support various sectors of the economy. "The enormity of these challenges requires that we develop, manage a nd utilise our human resource, the most valued asserts more effectively and efficiently to enable us attain our goals of becoming a middle income country," he noted. Consequently, the Minister said several initiatives are underway to connect human resource requirement of the economy to policies and program mes of national education and training institutions. He said programmes that might help address the human resource development policy in assisting Ghana achieve a sustainable growth of the

economy included increasing the number of highly skilled technical workfo rce to feed industry, matching education and training with industry requirements, instituting mentorship programmes to sustain leadership development in organisations as well as enhancing the competence and innovativeness of the citizenry to overcome the uncertainties of the increasingly global environment in the world of work. Mr Mensah said there was the need to intensify research and developm ent and promote innovative activities as well as increase the utilisation of technology and ICT in all sectors of the economy. He called for the establishment of a human resource development or skill development fund to be jointly administered by his sector ministry,

organised labour and employers.

Mr Mensah announced that his ministry with support from the United Nations Development Programme is in the process of finalising the nationa l human resource development policy that aims at total mobilisation of the workforce, enhancing job creation, job diversification and foster strong collaboration between public and private sector operators, to ensure a structured and integrated approach to human resource development in Ghana ..