Employment Promotion
Strategies for employment promotion in Zimbabwe
A half day Dialogue on Employment Promotion Strategies was held on 4 April 2018 with officials from relevant line Ministries. The event was hosted by the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare with technical and financial support from the ILO.
16 April 2018
HARARE, (ILO News) The Dialogue on Employment Promotion Strategies sought to evaluate the employment creation potential across different economic sectors and analyse the nature of the structural transformation that is needed for the labour market to perform. In addition, the meeting aimed to improve decision makers’ knowledge of different tools and strategies for expanding employment opportunities.
Officially opening the meeting, Minister Petronella Kagonye said: “As heads of Government departments, our role is to be extremely critical in the realisation of the country’s economic and employment policies. The Constitution calls upon all state actors to engage in employment creation for improved standards of living.” She alluded to how the National Employment Policy guided all government Ministries in the quest for employment creation.
She further said that the government and its social partners (the employers and worker organisations), had adopted a Zimbabwe Decent Work Country Programme, the framework within which multifaceted initiatives for job creation were under implementation across sectors.
Sharing remarks at the same meeting, Ms Hopolang Phororo, the Director of the ILO Country-Office for Zimbabwe and Namibia noted the high percentage of people in the informal economy, which has characteristics of underemployment and was also rife with decent work deficits such as “long working hours and poor working conditions”, among others.
The meeting widely agreed that Government plays a facilitation role of creating an enabling and stimulating environment for job creation. It was considered of importance to bring on board all stakeholders so as to highlight and harness the embedded multiple job opportunities in different economic sectors.
Dr Godfrey Kanyenze gave a snapshot of the current employment situation in the country and citing agriculture as the largest employer at “67.2% of total employment…. (it) means that 83% of the employed are vulnerable. The majority of people in this ‘sector’ are at the very bottom of the economic and social ladder, working under precarious conditions. They typically suffer from a deficit of decent work, with its defining characteristics that they are ‘unprotected,’ ‘excluded,’ ‘unregistered,’ or ‘unrepresented.’ ….The majority of the workers are youth and women,” adding that poverty therefore has a woman’s and youth face.
He decried the absence of creative thinking in the country where opportunities that could create employment were going to waste. Comparing the tourism industry to the South African set-ups, he highlighted the many opportunities lying untapped just at the Victoria Falls resort alone.
Other contributions came from ILO Specialists from the Decent Work Team in Pretoria who shared the ILO’s regional and global experiences and what could work for Zimbabwe. These were the Enterprise – Jens Dyring Christensen, Employment Intensive Investment Programme - Gamalihle Sibanda and Employment Specialists – Bernd Mueller, each demonstrating the employment creation potential from his area of expertise.
ILO Enterprise Specialist, Jens Dyring Christensen explaining EESE (Enabling Environment for Sustainable Enterprises) to a participant
The Enterprise Specialist emphasized the need to create an enabling environment that renders support to entrepreneurship and business development which called for a holistic and systemic approach by government. He opined that SIYB programmes could be resuscitated to support existing and emerging entrepreneurs.
EIIP Specialist, Gamelihle Sibanda giving insights on how the programme could create employment
Sharing experiences from the Limpopo where the South African government has an Expanded Works Programme focussing on accredited training, enterprise development, targeting youth (55%), women (55%), persons with disability (2%) for 6 million work opportunities over 5 years; Mr Sibanda pointed that there are many jobs in the EIIP value chain. These could be in: road infrastructure including the non- motorized transport facilities; housing, low income housing, social infrastructure, drainage upgrading; agricultural infrastructure and water works such as dams, irrigation schemes, bio-digesters, water harvesting and in environmental programmes such as climate change adaption works in slopes and flood protection, afforestation, waste collection and disposal. South Africa was deriving employment results from this programme because its Treasury insists on knowing job percentages for every disbursement.
Focussing on employment policy, Bernd Mueller demonstrated how the symbiotic relationship between decent work and employment automatically reduce poverty. He underlined the need to mainstream employment in national development plans such as the ZimAsset, macroeconomic policy making, sectoral policies, national investment strategies and budget allocations (national, provincial, district, sectors) – to ensure that the pro-employment approach creates jobs.
Informative discussions ensued with comments and questions touching on a variety of topics raised, and among them were: whether existing value chains could be grouped into special economic zones, how the absence of statistics hampered measuring the contribution of artisanal mining to the economy and government’s contribution to enterprise performance.
The ILO Director, with some representatives from the World Bank
Among other proposals from the floor were that there need to adjust the Macroeconomic Policy Framework and Budget to facilitate pro-poor, job-rich growth; development of employment indicators and targets in all sectors of the economy and leveraging on flagship projects and interventions to enable job-rich economic growth.
He also recommended targeting of employment-intensive sectors and the participation of the poor in high growth sectors; promoting product and value chains and channels as well as clustering SMEs to widen the employment impact of initiatives; facilitating transition to decent work and formality; and management of migration and diaspora skills and remittances.
The meeting has come at an opportune time as the country transitions with the new government. The results of this discussion will feed into the National Employment Policy which is under revision as well as inform the development of the new cycle of the Decent Work Country Programme.
More dialogues are anticipated as there were calls for intensive sector specific discussions to highlight and unpack inherent value chains that hold the promise of many jobs.
She further said that the government and its social partners (the employers and worker organisations), had adopted a Zimbabwe Decent Work Country Programme, the framework within which multifaceted initiatives for job creation were under implementation across sectors.
Sharing remarks at the same meeting, Ms Hopolang Phororo, the Director of the ILO Country-Office for Zimbabwe and Namibia noted the high percentage of people in the informal economy, which has characteristics of underemployment and was also rife with decent work deficits such as “long working hours and poor working conditions”, among others.
The meeting widely agreed that Government plays a facilitation role of creating an enabling and stimulating environment for job creation. It was considered of importance to bring on board all stakeholders so as to highlight and harness the embedded multiple job opportunities in different economic sectors.
Dr Godfrey Kanyenze gave a snapshot of the current employment situation in the country and citing agriculture as the largest employer at “67.2% of total employment…. (it) means that 83% of the employed are vulnerable. The majority of people in this ‘sector’ are at the very bottom of the economic and social ladder, working under precarious conditions. They typically suffer from a deficit of decent work, with its defining characteristics that they are ‘unprotected,’ ‘excluded,’ ‘unregistered,’ or ‘unrepresented.’ ….The majority of the workers are youth and women,” adding that poverty therefore has a woman’s and youth face.
He decried the absence of creative thinking in the country where opportunities that could create employment were going to waste. Comparing the tourism industry to the South African set-ups, he highlighted the many opportunities lying untapped just at the Victoria Falls resort alone.
Other contributions came from ILO Specialists from the Decent Work Team in Pretoria who shared the ILO’s regional and global experiences and what could work for Zimbabwe. These were the Enterprise – Jens Dyring Christensen, Employment Intensive Investment Programme - Gamalihle Sibanda and Employment Specialists – Bernd Mueller, each demonstrating the employment creation potential from his area of expertise.
The Enterprise Specialist emphasized the need to create an enabling environment that renders support to entrepreneurship and business development which called for a holistic and systemic approach by government. He opined that SIYB programmes could be resuscitated to support existing and emerging entrepreneurs.
Sharing experiences from the Limpopo where the South African government has an Expanded Works Programme focussing on accredited training, enterprise development, targeting youth (55%), women (55%), persons with disability (2%) for 6 million work opportunities over 5 years; Mr Sibanda pointed that there are many jobs in the EIIP value chain. These could be in: road infrastructure including the non- motorized transport facilities; housing, low income housing, social infrastructure, drainage upgrading; agricultural infrastructure and water works such as dams, irrigation schemes, bio-digesters, water harvesting and in environmental programmes such as climate change adaption works in slopes and flood protection, afforestation, waste collection and disposal. South Africa was deriving employment results from this programme because its Treasury insists on knowing job percentages for every disbursement.
Focussing on employment policy, Bernd Mueller demonstrated how the symbiotic relationship between decent work and employment automatically reduce poverty. He underlined the need to mainstream employment in national development plans such as the ZimAsset, macroeconomic policy making, sectoral policies, national investment strategies and budget allocations (national, provincial, district, sectors) – to ensure that the pro-employment approach creates jobs.
Informative discussions ensued with comments and questions touching on a variety of topics raised, and among them were: whether existing value chains could be grouped into special economic zones, how the absence of statistics hampered measuring the contribution of artisanal mining to the economy and government’s contribution to enterprise performance.
Among other proposals from the floor were that there need to adjust the Macroeconomic Policy Framework and Budget to facilitate pro-poor, job-rich growth; development of employment indicators and targets in all sectors of the economy and leveraging on flagship projects and interventions to enable job-rich economic growth.
He also recommended targeting of employment-intensive sectors and the participation of the poor in high growth sectors; promoting product and value chains and channels as well as clustering SMEs to widen the employment impact of initiatives; facilitating transition to decent work and formality; and management of migration and diaspora skills and remittances.
The meeting has come at an opportune time as the country transitions with the new government. The results of this discussion will feed into the National Employment Policy which is under revision as well as inform the development of the new cycle of the Decent Work Country Programme.
More dialogues are anticipated as there were calls for intensive sector specific discussions to highlight and unpack inherent value chains that hold the promise of many jobs.