Employment-intensive investment

Around the world more than 1 billion people lack access to roads with nearly 1 billion without access to an all-weather road, 884 million do not have safe drinking water, 1.6 billion have no reliable sources of energy, 2.4 billion lack sanitation facilities and 4 billion are without modern communication services. Infrastructure is the biggest share of public investments and has in recent years become a growing part of development agencies’ portfolio. Such infrastructure investments have the potential to alleviate the poverty of many through the jobs they create. Unfortunately, this potential is often not realized, as many projects are equipment-intensive and frequently rely on foreign contractors. Studies have shown that making greater use of local labour and resources is usually 20% less costly and save as much as 50% of foreign currency requirements, in addition to creating three to five times more jobs. And there is a multiplier effect of indirect benefits of 1.6 to 2.0 more jobs.

In addition with the financial and economic crisis there is even a stronger call for this kind of intervention; it has increasingly been recognized that more needs to be done – the challenge is now to grab this great opportunity and help constituents realize the employment potential therein and thereby an inclusive social and economic development.

Thirty years of experience in over seventy countries, linking employment with infrastructure development, has endowed the Employment Intensive Investment Programme (EIIP) with a unique and vast portfolio of both productive employment creation for economic development and social safety nets, as well as environmental measures for natural resources restoration and management. The EIIP provides advice and tools facilitating policy making and standard setting in favour of employment generation, developing entrepreneurship and skills, and creating social dialogue and protection through infrastructure works. This is carried out in both urban and rural areas, during times of crisis and also as part of a longer-term strategy of local development, creating sustainable institutional and economic environments. The employment potential of infrastructure investments is vast but, as many projects traditionally have been equipment-intensive, the potential is often not realized.

The EIIP promotes the orientation of infrastructure investments towards the creation of higher levels of productive employment and improved access to basic goods and services for the poor - in rural and urban areas; as part of reconstruction and recovery in times of crisis seeking to bridge immediate crisis recovery to long-term development work; as well as contributing to longer-term national employment policies, in the following ways:

• At macro level by providing advice to requesting governments in the design and assessments of employment impact of infrastructure investments and on active labour market and employment policies. At national level it works on the creation of an enabling environment, through awareness raising, the promotion of appropriate policies and legislation, and capacity building.
• At meso level, the Programme works on institutional development and capacity building; and with the private sector and civil society, to guarantee the successful implementation of employment-intensive infrastructure programmes.
• At micro level, the Programme works at the municipal or community level through active local-level planning and community contracting to create a maximum number of productive jobs using labour-based technologies. At community level the EIIP works on improving the communities’ capacities for organization and negotiation to execute projects under Decent Working conditions.