Skills for Trade and Economic Diversification (STED) is the ILO’s development cooperation methodology to assist partner countries in meeting the skills needs of the tradable sectors that they expect to play an important role in leading economic and social development. Experience with STED-based development cooperation work has shown that the STED process should be adaptable to the circumstances in each country and sector, and to the needs of project partners. The existing STED diagnostic process that has been in use for a number of years places a strong emphasis on primary research, including an enterprise survey, a study on the supply of skills, and extensive consultation with experts as well as background desk research based on available statistics and on a review of publications and other documents. This has been shown to be well suited to many contexts, but evaluations and feedback from partners have demonstrated that there is also a need for a lighter, faster approach to STED analysis. The Rapid STED approach has been developed to respond to this need. It draws both on the full version of STED, and on experience from collaborating with Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO on a rapid foresight approach.
