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Impact and people

2022

  1. © Chalinee Thirasupa 2022

    Voices: We stand up for our labour rights

    08 February 2022

    Sai Sai is a migrant construction worker in Chiang Mai, a city in Northern Thailand. Under Thai legislation, migrant workers were not allowed to do skilled construction work. Sai Sai along with other migrant workers and local organizations worked together to get the law amended.

2020

  1. At Mbera refugee camp, in Mauritania, the ILO is training young people in building trades

    19 June 2020

    At the hands-on construction training site of the PECOBAT project, students are building an elementary school for the camp’s children, while learning skills that will make them more employable.

2018

  1. Working together in Lebanon

    12 December 2018

    Women and men, Syrian refugees and host communities work alongside each other building an irrigation channel as part of an ILO project in Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley.

  2. Stemming the brain drain: Improving skills for migrants and refugees

    07 December 2018

    An ILO initiative is helping migrants and refugees get recognition for their existing skills and learn new ones – creating a ‘brain gain’ for them and their host countries.

2017

  1. © GC Communication 2022

    How Kenya’s construction industry boosts green jobs and housing

    26 May 2017

    Innovative ILO project aims to reduce Kenya’s vulnerability to climate risks and improve livelihoods among traditional pastoralist communities.

  2. © Red Habitat 2022

    Women are building their own futures in Bolivia

    24 April 2017

    A group of 250 freelance women builders from La Paz and El Alto have improved their working conditions and are able to spend more time with their families by working directly with employers.

2016

  1. Better skills and more formal employment for Syrian refugees

    29 November 2016

    A new ILO project supporting the objectives of the London Syria conference aims to build skills and formalize employment status among Syrian refugees in Jordan’s construction and agricultural sectors, and improve job prospects for Jordanians in local communities hosting the refugees.

2012

  1. A green plumber for a greener economy

    21 June 2012

    The transition towards a greener economy is expected to affect about half of the global labour force or roughly 1.5 billion people. This means changes in terms of job types and workers’ skills – a topic that is high on the Rio+20 agenda.

2010

  1. Green jobs in construction: Small changes – big effect

    01 December 2010

    Construction was the first specific sector of the economy to be addressed in the ILO’s Green Jobs Initiative. The sector is responsible for 25-40 per cent of global energy use, and 30–40 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Andrew Bibby, a London-based journalist, reports from the suburb of Khayelitsha, Cape Town’s largest informal settlement, where the Kuyasa Initiative has targeted 2,000 homes for basic energy-saving measures, creating jobs at the same time.

2009

  1. The crisis in the construction industry

    01 August 2009

    The construction industry has been severely hit by the economic crisis. The ILO calculates that at least 5 million construction workers lost their jobs during 2008.