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Africa works
ILO helps turn development into jobs
By the year 2015, half the population of the developing world may be living in urban areas, seriously exacerbating current living standards.
What solutions can be found to address this challenge - and improve living conditions, while creating jobs at the same time?
DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania - When floodwaters swept through the low-lying area of Hanna Nassif, four kilometres from here, rapid population growth and unplanned urbanization made the damage worse. As a result of over-population in this city of 3 million, the sprawling flood plain of Hanna Nassif had become an unhealthy and dangerous place to live.
"The first influx of dwellers came here over 20 years ago", says Alfred Mwenisongole representing the Community Development Association (CDA), as he surveys the Hanna Nassif community of 20,000 low-income inhabitants. "The flat plain continued to develop rapidly as an urban unplanned settlement. Since dwellings were constructed haphazardly, many caused an obstruction to the free flow of water."
Serious flooding swept through Hanna Nassif regularly in the 1980s and worsened in the 1990s. Following heavy rains which caused extensive flood damage to the settlement in 1991, emergency action was called for. The City Council networked with the ILO Area Office, ILO/ASIST and UN Habitat, and in consultation with them introduced a Hanna Nassif pilot project to potential donors.
The result was a plan to enable the free flow of water without demolishing dwellings, by adapting ILO experience in rural labour-based community programmes to an urban setting through the construction of water channels, drains, roads and culverts.
An ILO-managed regional project, Advisory Support, Information Services and Training (ASIST), was established in 1991 to support labour-based road construction and maintenance initiatives in Eastern and Southern Africa. This project has grown into a programme offering services to projects and programmes in 11 sub-Saharan countries in four distinct areas; namely labour-based road development, irrigation and environment, rural accessibility planning and urban works. ASIST Africa is now based in both Harare and Nairobi. The project provides a link between country-level activities, sub-regional backstopping and the Development Policies Department (POLDEV) at ILO headquarters. In 1998, a similar regional support programme for the Asia and Pacific Region was launched. Two other sub-regional/regional support programmes have also been initiated in west Africa and in Latin America.
More information from: ILO/ASIST, Nairobi, Kenya. Tel: +254-2/572555/572580. Fax: +254-2/566234. email: iloasist@arcc.or.ke
ILO/ASIST, Harare, Zimbabwe. Tel: +263-4/748344-7. Fax: +263-4/759427.
e-mail: asist@ilo.org. website: http://iloasist.csir.co.za
Not "just" development
Yet, the example of Hanna Nassif is not just development of "new infrastructure". What emerged from the project was the lesson that development can also create jobs, and in the process help alleviate the poverty and unprecedented rates of urbanization which provoke severe flooding, property damage, impassable roads, unhealthy living conditions and clogged drains.
Although emergency relief and assistance programmes provide temporary solutions to help poor populations, they do little to improve their situation in the longer term. Investments which provide jobs and basic services, such as in roads, water, drains, housing and schools would contribute more towards their well-being and promote economic development; half of public investment in most developing countries is channelled into infrastructure.
Infrastructure projects have a vast job-creation potential, often untapped. Many projects are equipment-intensive, frequently using foreign contractors. This may be necessary for airports, motorways or heavy bridges. But employment-intensive alternatives are available, and offer major advantages for local populations.
For some years now, through its Employment-Intensive Programme (EIP), the ILO has been helping member States to maximize the impact of infrastructure investments on employment and local economic development. It has done this through what is known as the "employment-intensive approach" which uses labour as the predominant resource while ensuring cost-effectiveness and safeguarding quality. Particular attention is being paid to introducing relevant labour standards and fair conditions of work, using ILO demonstration projects and contractual procedures. *
Priorities and principles
In Tanzania's Hanna Nassif, for example, community priorities were storm water drainage, solid waste management, road improvement, water supply and street lighting. Local inhabitants, both men and women, were mobilized. They started constructing drains under the supervision of an ILO-trained labour-based technology engineer. No heavy machinery or sophisticated implements were used.
Following an extensive collaboration with the community in identifying and designing the interventions, it took some two years to build a total of 600 metres of main storm-water channel, 1,500 metres of side drain and 1,000 metres of road, plus two outlets, improved footpaths and10 vehicular culverts. All work was implemented through community contracts.
"There was almost total eradication of flooding," says Dinah Nkuya of the CDA. "People could keep their shoes on, merchants could transport merchandise easily, children could walk to school and business picked up because access to the community improved," she adds. Malaria, cholera and diarrhoea decreased, the spread of fungal diseases dropped. New ideas on how to keep the drains free of garbage and safeguard the environment started to take shape.
The small stipend paid to the labourers on the project enabled them to channel savings into opening small businesses. A credit scheme was set up to encourage business. There was a boom in renovation and construction which in itself generated employment and helped in poverty alleviation. A road toll at the entrance to the community generated enough money for upkeep of the constructed infrastructure. Other jobs were created in roads and drains maintenance by the City Commission. A second phase of the project is now underway to build additional drains and roads.
How is this approach being applied in other countries of the region? The ILO has been active in Africa and has created thousands of jobs with its labour-based approach. Here are some examples of projects combining development and work.
A small contractor development project in Ghana provided comprehensive business and management training to the staff of 93 companies working on labour-based road rehabilitation projects. In addition, Government engineers and foremen were trained in labour-based works and contract management. A nation-wide expansion of the project resulted in the rehabilitation of over 1,500 km of roads and 3,500 culverts in the period August 1989 to December 1996. About 2,500 workdays of employment were created per km for 11,000 km. During the first 8.5 years of its implementation, the programme created some 4.4 million workdays (or 20,000 work years) of temporary employment, implying also, at an average wage rate of approximately $1 per day, that some $4.4 million was injected into the rural economies as direct cash wages. Substantial indirect spin-offs in terms of employment creation were obtained through investments in housing improvements, local production of hand tools, farm rehabilitation and social expenditure.
The 86 km Nyala - Id El Fursan road in the South Darfur State is to provide access to the regional centre, Nyala. These people are cut off during the wet season by impassable roads and flooded wadis. A major function of the project is to develop a viable local labour-based road contracting capacity and achieve capacity-building by training local contractors and consultants to effectively use local labour employed under decent working conditions.
SOUTH AFRICA
Technical cooperation - In the field of labour-based methods in construction, ILO/ASIST has been active in South Africa since the early 1990s. South Africa wants to learn from international experience, aiming to achieve 'best practice' with labour-based methods, optimizing employment without paying a premium price for infrastructure outputs. The ILO/ASIST team is providing full-time advisory services.
MOZAMBIQUE
In 1997, the employment-intensive Feeder Roads Programme employed some 6,500 workers, of which 20 per cent were women. Since 1989, the programme has rehabilitated about 2,500 km of feeder roads and created additional employment for maintenance. The work is carried out through 29 labour-based "brigades" established in all provinces of the country. Each brigade employs 150 to 250 workers, is managed at the local level and works with a set of essential light equipment to safeguard quality.
MADAGASCAR
Using a macroeconomic model to measure the impact of labour-intensive investment projects on the economy of Madagascar, a study estimated the differential effects of employment versus equipment-intensive approaches on the principal economic variables; i.e., production, consumption, employment, public finance, foreign trade. The analysis clearly shows the superiority of the employment-based approach, which is 30 to 80 per cent less costly depending on the type of infrastructure, creates 2.5 times more jobs, increases national income and household consumption 2.5 times and saves 30 per cent of foreign currency requirements. In 1995, the employment-based sector actually created 12,000 direct and 23,000 indirect (equivalent full-time) jobs. These figures should be compared with the 17,000 jobs which exist in the free trade zone in Madagascar, or with the total of 77,000 jobs in the formal sector in the country.
The ILO has provided technical assistance in rehabilitating the feeder road network of about 200 km in the Mozamba district using domestic small-scale contractors; in equipping road rehabilitation brigades and in providing employment and training opportunities to a large labour force which would then be able to continue road rehabilitation and maintenance. The government expanded its labour-based programme into the Kambia, Port Loko and Tonkolili districts to rehabilitate several hundred km of feeder roads by local contractors, with financial support by the World Bank and technical assistance from the ILO. Due to political instability in the country, the programme had to move towards emergency operations in 1998 and had to freeze activities altogether in early 1999.
About 250 km of communal feeder roads have been constructed/improved using labour-based light-equipment supported methods. A study showed that labour-based public works in the case of communal roads cost 30 per cent less than equipment-intensive works; they create two to three times as much employment, reduce import needs by one third, increase expenditures on local goods and services by 50 per cent, and benefit mostly workers from the poorest households.
Kalerwe is a low-lying, unplanned settlement in Kampala, Uganda, where the inadequate drainage network resulted in severe flooding in the rainy seasons. In addition to the damage to property, living conditions became very unhygienic, the drains provided a breeding ground for mosquitoes and diseases flourished. Labour-based methods and community contracts created jobs in this densely-populated area to build a main drain and improve living conditions.
Other labour-based projects in several African and Asian countries have been carried out. The ILO is extending this concept to the Latin American region.
COMMUNITY WASTE MANAGEMENT
CREATES INCOME
An enterprising group of women watched solid waste and garbage starting to clog the new drains for which they had worked so hard. Something radical had to be done. So these women of Hanna Nassif decided to tackle the job. They decided to collect garbage from house-to-house, a couple of days a week and transport it to a nearby dump site.
They had no tools or implements. They needed robust reusable plastic bags to distribute to the chosen households, spades to collect garbage and push-carts to wheel the garbage to the dump area. The CDA which was responsible for the drainage project lent them some tools. They met with voluntary groups in Dar es Salaam trying to undertake similar sustainability projects to study options.
An awareness-raising and sensitization workshop was undertaken within the community, with the ILO's help, and some households were convinced to pay a small fee for the removal of garbage on a trial basis. "We have registered ourselves as an NGO, Kimwoda, under the Ministry of Home Affairs", says Leocadia Rugambwa, Chairperson. The ILO provided technical support (through its Entrepreneurship and Management Development Branch) to mobilize the whole community for solid waste management, and as the idea "took shape" more houses were added to the "collection" list.
As a result of their efforts, there are fewer diseases and better health and sanitation in the community. They are continuously mobilizing people. They involve local leaders to help convince people to pay for these services.
"This has been a real community effort by the women of Hanna Nassif", says Saskia Bakker of the ILO. "They have carried it on their shoulders."
As the news spreads, other communities are also showing interest, such as Kijitonyama which is currently replicating this project. The village leaders here, together with the authorities, have proclaimed it illegal for people to throw their garbage in makeshift dumps. Random burying of garbage caused constant seepage from harmful materials and terrible environmental damage. Says Fatima Hassan, a resident of Kijitonyama: "I prefer to pay a small sum for my garbage to be picked up. That way I don't have 'to sneak out' to get rid of it illegally."
NON-DISCRIMINATION:
TARGETING GENDER ISSUES
Women are often over-represented among the poorest of the poor. They are also in many cases the sole provider for their children. Nevertheless, women are seldom offered remunerative employment. Therefore, the EIP has given great attention to the inclusion of women in employment-intensive infrastructure works, where in the past men have tended to predominate. For example, women's participation has reached 37 per cent in programmes in Botswana, 25 per cent in Madagascar and up to 60 per cent in Lesotho.
Kiran Mehra-Kerpelman
* A guide on this subject was recently published entitled Employment-intensive Infrastructure Programmes: Labour Policies and Practices.