As stated in the title, the purpose of the seminar was to review current practice by gathering together the experts and practitioners in the field. All participants were engaged in working on labour-based roads projects in east and Southern Africa. The aim was therefore to have an active exchange of ideas and information based on the participants ' experience in the region and also to draw on their previous experiences in other areas. A list of participants is given in Annex 2 of this report.
The increased emphasis on the use of local resources for infrastructure programmes in developing countries has resulted in a substantial increase in the number of projects adopting labour-based technology. There is now a pressing need to review and disseminate information on the various techniques which have been adopted to ensure that new and existing projects have the opportunity to modify or update their procedures to make optimum use of the labour-based approach.
Each programme should be able to learn from the problems, successes and failures of other programmes which will assist in the choice of methods of construction,management, planning etc. Also by discussing common problems, solutions or suggestions for further study could be made.
The seminar was organised and chaired by the ILO Regional Adviser for Labour-Based Road
Technology, Mr David Stiedl, on behlaf of all practitioners in the technology in Eastern Southern Africa.
