The STRENGTHEN2 and EIIP teams reinforce capacities in Rwanda

From April 22nd – 26th 2024, the STRENGTHEN2 project along with the ILO’s Employment Intensive Investment Program (EIIP) team and the Ministry of Labour and Public Services (MIFOTRA) held a training on employment impact assessment (EmpIA) and EIIP in Rwanda. The training raised awareness on leveraging EmpIA to promote the creation of more and better jobs and linking infrastructure development with employment creation through employment-intensive practises.

The training was held in Musanze and aimed at further institutionalizing EmpIA and EIIP at the national level. Participants included representatives from more than 20 Ministries and institutions working on employment, mainly MIFOTRA, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MINECOFIN), the Development Bank of Rwanda, the Rwanda TVET board and the National Institute of Statistics Rwanda (NISR).

The first half of the week focused on EmpIA, highlighting the importance of measuring employment outcomes of investments, programs and policies, and the main methods applied to conducting ex-ante and ex-post assessments. Emphasis was placed on the Input-Output table and methods to measure indirect and induced employment effects. The rest of the week covered EIIP and social procurement as major interventions to address socio economic challenges, and the conditions necessary for rolling out employment intensive programmes were discussed. Throughout the week, MIFOTRA and NISR provided interventions on the existing labour market situation in-country, including an in-depth look at the Labour Force Survey and how employment is currently mainstreamed and measured at the national level.

The training therefore provided an introduction to key themes and methods related to employment impact assessments and employment intensive investments. It set the stage for further in-depth trainings on specific methodologies to enable stakeholders to conduct EmpIA of their own programmes. The event also provided an opportunity to further strengthen the collaboration with MIFOTRA and other institutions working on EmpIA.