Human resources development improves the quality of people's life through enhancement of the human capital, achievement of high employment levels, improvement of the productivity, access to high-quality education and lifelong learning and strengthening the social inclusion. This means: to invest in people so that they acquire new knowledge and skills, strengthen the practice for lifelong learning aimed at professional realization during the whole active life; to guarantee to all adequate participation in the society and the right to decent work and as a result of all purpose-oriented actions – to achieve economic and social cohesion.

EEO has a rich track record on thematic studies and surveys focused on human resources development. Its work includes restructuring of continuous vocational training in Greece, studies for the introduction and building of occupational profiles, evaluation of HRD activities and technical assistance to Human Development Authorities in Greece and Cyprus.

Examples of EEO projects

• Development of a Multiannual Evaluation Plan for the Impact of the Human Resources Development Authority of Cyprus (HRDA) on the Cypriot Economy: The project was implemented in two phases. The first phase included the development strategy for the design of the Multiannual Evaluation Plan covering the period 2000-2015, in line with international practice and relevant guidelines of the European Union (EU), properly adapted to the situation and needs of the HRDA and the second phase incorporated the full design of the components of the Multiannual Evaluation Plan, which indicatively included detailed Terms of Reference for the evaluations, a database of the monitoring and evaluation Indicators, the design of an Information System supporting the implementation of the evaluations, etc.

• Vocational Training of Assessors for the accreditation of occupational profiles, programmes and skills. In the framework of this project, EEO carried out a training needs analysis and delivered a series of training classes for two distinct groups of occupational profile assessors: a. the ones working on accreditation of occupational profiles (occupational profile assessors) and b. the ones working on accreditation of training programmes which are designed based on the accredited occupational profiles (training programme assessors)

• Technical Assistance for Policy making to the Human Resources Sector in Greece, in view of developing the National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF) for 2007-2013: EEO provided all necessary expertise and technical assistance for the Ministry of Economy to develop the national strategy for human resources development for the NSRF 2007-2013 in. The type of services provided included concrete policy documents in the field of human resources Development, timely and effective planning of the Ministry’s interventions and elaboration of the NSRF document.

• Technical Assistance to the Managing Authority of the OP Human Resources Development 2007-2013: EEO prepared a Specialized Programming Document which was used as a management tool by the Managing Authority and supported the integration of various actions into the planning process, recording and systematisation of data gathered during the consultation period for the new HR Operational Programme, specialisation of strategies and objectives of the OP to specific actions, finance flows and risk analysis etc.