Employment-Intensive Investments

This introductory course is an interactive e-learning opportunity to explore how to create more and better jobs through sustainable and inclusive infrastructure investments. By undertaking a review of different approaches and best practices, participants learned about the EIIP thematic areas that boost job creation, at the same time addressing economic, social and environmental challenges. The course provided a specific focus on the development of local infrastructure using a local resource-based approach, i.e. combining the use of local participation in planning with the use of locally available skills, technology, and materials. OBJECTIVES Participants have acquired comprehensive knowledge in the following areas • The rationale for promoting employment-intensive approaches in delivering public investments; • The thematic areas of work and related product lines of the Employment-Intensive Investment Programme (EIIP) • The ILO core values that cut across and strengthen all EIIP interventions; • The EIIP implementation challenges at the national, local, and community level; and feasible approaches to the optimization of employment opportunities that can help meet local infrastructure needs CONTENT The course covered the following six topics: 1. Learning Block 1: Local resource-based (LRB) approaches and community infrastructure Learning Block 1 provided a general overview of ILO's Employment-Intensive Investment Programme (EIIP) and then started to dig into LBR approaches and community infrastructure. More specifically, it covered the following topics: • Overview of the ILO’s EIIP approach and strategy; • The infrastructure-employment nexus • The rationale for local resource-based approaches • How to plan and implement community infrastructure works • How to encourage participation of vulnerable groups 2. Learning Block 2: Public employment programmes The second module introduced participants to Public Employment Programmes (PEPs), illustrating how these can improve labour and income prospects of key segments of society, particularly the poor underemployed and informal and rural workers. Specific topics include: • Rationale behind promoting PEPs • What are public employment programmes? • ILO’s EIIP approach to PEPs • PEPs as a complement to social protection • How to design and implement PEPs successfully? 3. Learning Block 3: Green works The third module introduced participants to green works and explore how they contribute to environmental rehabilitation and improvement, nature conservation and adaptation to climate change. It covered the following topics: • ILO’s green objectives • The rationale for supporting green works • Infrastructure investments and climate change • EIIP’s approach to environmental restoration and conservation, climate change adaptation, climate proofing infrastructure, and building back better by restoring and protecting the productive capacity of ecosystems. • Examples of local resource-based climate resilient infrastructures 4. Learning Block 4: Small-scale contractors development The fourth module focused on the development of public entities and private sector stakeholders (particularly small- and medium-sized enterprises, SMEs) in the construction sector, recognizing their increasingly central role in the completion of sustainable and inclusive infrastructure works through local resource-based approaches. Specifically, the module covered: • Rationale behind ILO support of small-scale contractors in labour-based works; • Overview of the four pillars of the ILO’s approach to developing SMEs for the national construction industry: (i) Enabling environment and policy, (ii) Administrative procedures and contractual management, (iii) Capacity building for labour-based methods of work, and (iv) Labour policy and practices. • 5. Learning Block 5: Employment impact assessments (EmpIAs) The fifth module introduced participants to key concepts for the assessment of the employment potential of sectoral policies and investments, with a particular focus on infrastructure investments and policies. The EmpIA helps policy makers and development partners understand how many and how decent jobs are created along the construction value chain, which supports the development of long-term employment and investment policies appropriate to the contexts of local or national economies. These employment creation impacts can be categorized into direct, indirect, and induced (multiplier) effects of infrastructure investments. Since the use of the EmpIA tools requires a substantial amount of expertise, this module covered the basic concept and what the tool can offer. Specific topics include: • What are EmpIAs? • ILO’s EIIP approach to EmpIAs • What kind of jobs are created along the construction value chain? • How to use the EmpIAs to formulate employment/investment policies? 6. Learning Block 6: Emergency employment The EIIP often operates in fragile contexts in the midst or aftermath of humanitarian crises such as conflicts and natural disasters. Guided by the ILO’s Recommendation 205 on Jobs for Peace and Resilience, the EIIP approach can be leveraged to achieve the humanitarian-development-peace nexus, linking the humanitarian/immediate needs to longer-term developmental objectives. This final module introduced the EIIP’s emergence response schemes, which distance itself from “cash for work” due to their particular focus on decent work principles. Specific topics include: • R205 on Jobs for Peace and Resilience • Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus • Short-term emergency employment • Sustainability of emergency employment The course also covered the following cross-cutting issues which are integrated in all five modules: • Gender equality • Reaching vulnerable groups • Working conditions • Environmental considerations • Social dialogue NUMBER OF WEEKS: 4 weeks, 60 hours