Publications

Regional Seminar Proceedings 1992

SESSION 1: INTRODUCTION TO THE CONSULTATION

I INTRODUCTION

This consultation was conducted in the Maluti Hotel, Mohales Hoek, Lesotho, and took place over three days from 3-6 March 1997.

The consultation is the second in a series of reviews of current practice in labour-based technology. These have been organised and conducted by the ILO project ASIST which is responsible for the promotion of this technology in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The primary purpose of the review was to look for ways of improving the application of labour-based methods in road construction and maintenance in the region, by bringing together experts and practitioners to discuss common problems and solution.

Representations were invited from all the major programmes in the region, and a list of the 36 participants is given in Annex 6. Of the above, 14 were ILO experts but the majority were goverment personnel, technical assistance staff from other agencies and interested consultants. It is hoped that this trend of increasing expertise from outside the ILO will continue.

The proceedings closely followed those successfully used for the first review which was to call for short paers on key topics, which were then extensively discussed and written up in the proceedings.

Topics covered by the first review were:

• Low cost structures
• Control of alignment
• Haulage of materials
• Self help
• Training materials
• Maintenance
• Worker motivation
• Monitoring and control

The second review concentrates on fewer topics, grouping all the papers into five sessions with more emphasis on services to be provided to the region by ASIST. The contents of these sessions are summarised below.

Maintenance:

This session draws on three papers from Kenya and emphasises the difficulties of introducing sustainable maintenance procedures, which has proved much more difficult than in the field of construction.

Contractors:

The move away from government direct labour implementation is becoming increasingly important and the three papers in Session 4 and Annex 4 illustrate the key issues in tow successful programmes in the region to date, under the direction of the Department of the Feeder Roads in Ghana and the Ministére de Travaux Publics in Madagascar.

Compaction:

The most effective method of compaction to compliment the labour-based approach has still bot been fully resolved. In this session experiences are presented from Ghana and Kenya, together with a research proposal from the University of Dar es Salaam.

International Labour Standards:

Although one of the major benefits of the labour-based approach is the creation of employment, it is essential to ensure that working conditions are in line with agreed conventions and that fundamental human rights are not violated. Experts for the ILO explain the relevant ILO standards and discuss how they can be applied in labour-based programmes.

Technical Enquiry Services:

The ILO project ASIST is mandated to provide advisory support, information services and training to the region. One of the primary activities is collecting, collating, researching and distributing relevant information. This review provides the first forum to try to focus this major task into something manageaboe and useful for the recipients. This session presents the background to the service proposals and the priorities and action agreed in the discussions.

Plan of Action:

Throughout the sessions a record was kept on actions to be taken. These points were further discussed at the end of the review and prioritised for ASIST follow up. Readers with queries or contributions on these subjects are encouraged to contact ASIST.

Site Visit:

The participants had the opportunity to visit come of the activities of the Labour Construction Unit Project (LCU). This project is one of the earlier labour-based projects starting in 1977, and operates in one of the most difficult terrains, with steep gradients, large quantities or rock work, highly erodible soils and poor quality gravels. The project has evolved its own unique methods to cope with theese problems and demonstrates the feasibility of cost effective and high quality labour-based work in this difficult environment.

II. STRUCTURE OF THIS REPORT

This report follows the order of the sessions as they took place during the meeting. Each session is introduced by a summary of the papers presented. Subsequently the ensuing discussions are summarised. The summaries of the discussions are presented in italics type fonts.

The Annexes of this report contain topic papers prepared for the consultation but which were not presented during the consultation. Nevertheless, they have been included in theis report since they are highly relevant to the various topics covered.

III. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The ILO/ASIST secretariat to this consultation appreciate the crucial assistance they received from the LCU-Lesotho Project Staff in organisation and support of the 3 day event.

THE Labour Construction Unit who hosed the consultation would like to thank the participants for their effort to travel and contribution to this consultation, and their employers for allowing for their absence and travel costs.