Publications

ASIST Bulletin no. 10, January 2000

An EIIP branch is created in ILO Geneva headquarters

Dear Friends of the ASIST
bulletin,

As the world embarks on the 21st Century, all those seriously concerned with the future of our societies — and we know you are among them — would expect that the still unresolved, and indeed often worsened problems of poverty, underemployment, inequality and economic and socio-political instability and insecurity, would figure high on the agenda of both national governments and the international community.

The new Director General of the ILO, Mr. Juan Somavia, has refocused the Office's work for the decade to come around four policy priorities: (i) the promotion of standards and fundamental principles and rights at work; (ii) decent employment and income for men and women; (iii) social protection; and (iv) social dialogue.

The combined effect of these programme directions should contribute to reconciling economic and social development policies, and help member states to reach more substantive results, with regard to growth and equity, solidarity, strengthening of democratic processes, and peace.

Employment-based options make substantive contributions to the promotion of employment-intensive approaches in infrastructure policies.

The ILO has re-created an ‘Employment-Intensive Investment Branch', the task of which will be to pursue and intensify the work aimed at influencing mainstream investment policy, and to participate in the rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts of the Office in various post-crisis situations. The Branch is located within the Recovery and Reconstruction Department of the ILO's Employment Sector, where it will closely cooperate with the ‘InFocus Programme on Crisis Response and Reconstruction'.

Clearly, the policy objectives outlined above will remain the Branch's priorities for the years to come. The ILO's specific value added in the infrastructure and construction sectors, indeed its comparative advantage as recognised by an increasing number of member states and workers' and employers' organisations, consists of the comprehensive policy tool which it has developed, on the basis of experience gained in demand-driven programmes, and which effectively links policy to action. In future this will consist of efforts to:

• explicitly link employment creation and poverty reduction, with a view to achieving greater social equity
• combine private sector development with social progress, through the application of relevant labour standards, with particular attention to the small and medium contractors and to the often casual labour force
• promote the principles of organisation and collective negotiation in both the formal and informal sectors, and,
• as the field programmes have demonstrated that they can make concrete advances on women's concerns and interests, ensure equal access to job opportunities and training, as well as equal pay for work of equal value, and develop criteria for the selection of productive and social infrastructure investment schemes which correspond to priority needs of women.

Much of this work will require close collaboration with workers' and employers' organisations, and the ministries of Labour and Employment, Planning and Local Government.

Difficult and sensitive issues at the upstream policy level will need to be tackled, such as the decision-making process of the Public Investment Programme (PIP), and the related need for consultations with the social partners and civil society at large; the tendering and bidding process and the contract system and procedures to ensure small labour-based contractors a fair access to public markets; the re-introduction of relevant labour standards into contract documentation; the de-centralisation of payment systems etc.

While the labour-based choice of technology is key to employment-intensive investment policy, the demonstration that it can be, in many programme areas, both technically appropriate and economically cost-effective, has already been made in many countries. The issue now is to apply labour-based technology options at a large enough scale to have a structural impact.

Capacity-building will, therefore, have to remain a major component of our work, both for the private sector, labour-based contractors, engineering consultants, workers, the associative sector, community-based and other grass roots organisations, and the public sector — engineers, planners, specialists of contracting and labour-related issues.

Finally, the knowledge base of the employment-intensive approach has to be expanded at two levels: first, through comparative studies on employment-based versus equipment-based investment policies — the macro-economic potential and advantages must be documented and demonstrated at the country level; and second, the impact on poverty must be more extensively measured and monitored.

This is a huge agenda for all of us, but I am convinced that with the commitment and energy of all those who have been involved during the last year, in the promotion of these policy principles, concrete progress in the employment and social fields is in our reach

May I take this opportunity to wish you, both the readers of the Bulletin and its publishers, a good start in this very special New Year 2000!

Jean Majeres
Chief, Employment-Intensive Investement Branch
(EMP/INVEST) ILO Geneva