One in four people on earth live in extreme poverty, with poor access to basic infrastructure, services and employment opportunities. A major part of Governments revenue and external aid in developing countries is directed to public investment for the provision of basic infrastructure and services to meet the needs of the poor.

ASIST promotes an employment-intensive or labour-based approach which maximises benefits from investments in infrastructure by creating both sustainable assets and employment. 

The Employment-Intensive Approach

ASIST promotes the "employment-intensive approach" developed by the EIIP over the years. The approach optimizes the use of labour as the predominant resource in infrastructure construction and maintenance, while ensuring cost-effectiveness and quality. The benefits of this approach are many: 
• sound and appropriate infrastructure is produced, which facilitates local economic and social development;
• jobs are created locally during the construction of the infrastructure and later during the maintenance;
• because of a local resource based approach, additional jobs are created in the support and related industries to the infrastructure (e.g. in the manufacture and servicing of appropriate technology);
• the skills acquired during the construction remain in the local community that can be available for maintenance works and applied elsewhere;
• income generated is ploughed back into the local economy which thrives;
• access to other productive resources and social amenities is improved.

The approach has successfully been applied in the construction and maintenance of roads, bridges, irrigation canals, water supply, drainage and soil and water conservation structures. 

ASIST Objectives 

ASIST's overall objectives are to contribute towards the:
• creation of decent work with fair working conditions for men and women 
• building of local capacity and skills in government, the private sector and communities to provide appropriate and sustainable rural and urban public infrastructure 
• creation and maintenance of appropriate and sustainable rural and urban public infrastructure in a cost-effective and efficient manner using local resource based methods 

ASIST History

ASIST was first established in East and Southern Africa in 1991 with funding from the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD), the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). The Danish International Development Assistance (Danida) and the UK Department for International Development (DFID) agencies joined the programme funding later. An ASIST office covering Asia and the Pacific was opened in 1998. 

ASIST Regional Programmes

The ASIST Programme currently comprises of two Regional Programmes:
• ASIST Africa , with offices in Harare, Zimbabwe and Nairobi, Kenya
• ASIST Asia-Pacific, with offices in Bangkok, Thailand

ASIST provides Advisory Support, Information Services and Training to policy makers, planners, practitioners, consultants, communities, training institutions, universities, funding and development agencies and, others involved in accessibility planning and the provision rural and urban infrastructure. 

Advisory Support

ASIST provides technical advice on rural and urban infrastructure development, as well as on rural accessibility planning. This advice focuses on the following areas:

Policy issues 

The ultimate goal of the programme is to contribute to the development of a policy environment, which promotes employment-intensive investment approaches and places these approaches in the mainstream of infrastructure development in the countries where the programme is active. ASIST influences governments and policy-makers by demonstrating the viability of labour-based technology in well-managed labour-based programmes, by creating awareness through meetings and dissemination of literature, and by facilitating study tours to project sites or other countries. ASIST advises governments on the development of policies that incorporate employment-intensive, local resource based strategies in infrastructure provision.

Project Planning, Implementation, Monitoring and Review

ASIST provides technical input in the planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of employment-intensive infrastructure projects and programmes to ensure that appropriate and quality infrastructure is produced and good labour management practices are employment.

Working with its partners, ASIST also develops tools and techniques to facilitate employment-intensive approaches, maximise local resource utilisation and promote local level planning and contracting.

Contracting and Funding Mechanisms 

Governments are increasing challenged in providing infrastructure and services to meet the needs of growing populations. Contracting out is one way of involving the private sector to meet these needs. Partnerships with communities and the private sector have to be established, which bring with them new roles and responsibilities for all involved. An enabling environment has to be created to ensure these new partnerships flourish and that sound and appropriate infrastructure is produced.

Partnerships can be created through the adoption of appropriate policies and pro-employment procurement, contracting and funding mechanisms. These build upon local capacity and resources and enable effective and efficient service delivery coupled with social and economic benefits. Appropriate institutional frameworks and capacity building at all levels (clients, consultants, contactors) are key to the success of these partnerships. ASIST provides support in developing appropriate policies, pro-employment procurement and funding mechanisms, which are necessary to ensure that these strategies are mainstreamed.

You can read more about the activities in individual countries by looking up countries in different regions at the left menu.

Document Centres

ASIST maintains resources centres in Harare, Nairobi and Bangkok. A resource centre is being initiated in Lima. The core collection located in Harare comprises over 10,000 documents. A bibliographic database, ASISTDOC, is maintained to facilitate access and retrieval. The geographical coverage focuses primarily on sub-Saharan Africa and the Asia-Pacific region and is now being expanded to cover the Latin American region. Documents from the rest of the world are also collected. The scope of the collections cover the following subject areas:
• Community participation and community contracting
• Construction management and contracting
• Contract documents
• Economic and social issues
• Education and training
• Employment and investments
• Labour policies and practices
• Poverty alleviation and sustainable development
• Project planning, monitoring and evaluation
• Road construction and maintenance
• Rural accessibility planning
• Rural travel and transport
• Small-scale contractor development
• Technology choice
• Tools and equipment
• Urban infrastructure development - low income settlement upgrading i.e. drainage, roads, solid waste management, water and sanitation interventions

The collection includes various forms of publications including technical manuals and reports, technical drawings and specifications, periodicals and audio-visuals, in both print and digital format.

Technical Enquiry Service (TES)

TES forms an integral part of the Information Services, responding to enquiries for technical information on labour-based technology. This is done on a cost recovery basis. If we are unable to provide the information you are seeking, we pass your enquiry to another organisation, or alternatively, we advice you on whom you may contact.

Publishing

ASIST synthesises, publishes and proactively disseminates technical publications in print and digital format in the form of technical brief, reports, guidelines, manuals and proceedings. 

Networking

Contacts Database

ASIST maintains a database of people and organisations involved in, or connected with, the employment-intensive strategies and local resource utilisation in the provision of sustainable infrastructure. The database is used for targeted dissemination of information and as a reference source for expertise, information or other resources that are relevant to the work of ASIST, it’s partners and clients.  If you would like to be registered on this database, please complete this online registration form and send it to us. Please remember to keep us informed of changes to your contact details.

Bulletin

ASIST published a bi-annual technical bulletin containing articles on specific themes, project news, forthcoming events, book reviews and news. The Bulletin is distributed free of charge to over 2000 readers world-wide. If you would like to subscribe, just write to us and we will place you on our mailing list.

Regional Seminar for Labour-Based Practitioners

The Seminar brings together practitioners in labour-based technology and related fields. Held bi-annually, the seminar is co-hosted by ASIST and a host government from within the region. The previous seminars have been held in the following countries: Tanzania (1990), Lesotho (1992), Zimbabwe (1993), South Africa (1995), Ghana (1996), Uganda (1997), Zambia (1999), Egypt (2000) and Mozambique (2002). Proceedings of previous seminars are available online.

The next Regional Seminar will be held in October 2003 in Arusha, Tanzania. Click here for details on the upcoming seminar in Arusha.

Other Seminars

ASIST networks through participation in national, regional and international workshops, seminars, conferences and meetings.

Training

The ASIST Training and Seminar Calendar has an overview of scheduled seminars, workshops and training courses.

Research & Development

ASIST collaborates with other organisations carrying out research in local level investment planning, labour-based technology and local resource utilisation; and actively disseminates the results.

ASIST provides support to national training institutions and universities in the development and provision of training in employment-intensive infrastructure provision and accessibility planning. This involves support in the development of curricula, training programmes, training material, as well as training techniques and methodology.

Support to National Institutions

ASIST has been involved in the development of the international training courses for road works for engineers and managers, senior technicians and contract supervisors held by the Kisii Training Centre (KTC) of the Kenya Institute of Highways and Building Technology (KIHABT), Ministry of Roads and Public Works, Kenya. Building upon the success of these international courses, ASIST in collaboration with KTC developed and piloted courses for urban site supervisors. ASIST continues to support these and other courses of national training institutions within Africa and Asia.

Support to Universities

ASIST has established a network of universities in Asia and Africa to facilitate and stimulate the introduction of labour-based technology into civil engineering curricula at graduate and postgraduate level. Course material has been developed by the ILO and its collaborators and is in use in a number of universities. This material is available from ASIST to other interested universities and tertiary training institutions upon request. Modules on accessibility planning have been introduced into regional and urban planning curricula at a number of universities.

Country Training Programmes and Projects

ASIST is involved in the development of training programmes and projects for labour-based roadwork programmes for engineers, technicians, supervisors, foremen, small-scale contractors and consultants in a number of countries. This involves carrying out training needs assessments, curriculum development, training material development, and training programme evaluations. Training material in various format and media is available upon request.