About the EIIP

To achieve a sustainable improvement in their situation, poor people in developing countries, and particularly in the least developed countries, require access to remunerated employment and basic goods and services such as healthcare, education, markets, water and sanitation, and housing. A large contribution can be made to the improvement of their livelihoods through appropriate investments in infrastructure that provide these jobs and basic services.

The Employment Intensive Investment Programme (EIIP) of the ILO works with governments, employers' and workers' organizations, the private sector and community associations in orienting infrastructure investments towards the creation of higher levels of productive employment and towards the improvement of access to basic goods and services for the poor. This combined use of local participation in planning with the utilization of locally available skills, technology, materials, and appropriate work methods has proven to be an effective and economically viable approach to infrastructure works in developing countries.

The importance of infrastructure in providing access to basic services and promoting development is widely understood. Half of public investments in most developing countries is in infrastructure, and in many cases, over 50 per cent of this investment (rising to as much as 80 or 90 per cent in the least developed countries) is funded by external donors. The impact of these investments in infrastructure can be greatly increased, however, through a local level planning process that identifies appropriate interventions based on the needs of local communities.

Likewise, the employment potential of these infrastructure investments is vast, but is often not realized, as many projects are equipment-intensive, frequently using foreign contractors. This may be necessary for airports, motorways or heavy bridges, but employment-intensive alternatives using labour-based technologies are available for more basic infrastructure, offering major advantages in terms of using infrastructure investments to create local employment and incomes, as well as skills and capacities. 

The EIIP uses the infrastructure project cycle as a means of realising its objectives of employment creation, local participation and resource use, and the promotion of good governance: starting with local level planning, through implementation using labour-based technologies and small scale contracting, and ending with appropriate maintenance. All these stages of the project cycle form suitable entry points for promoting the employment intensive investment approach.

Further reading

• A global programme: Investing in employment for poverty reduction and local economic growth - A Programme document of the Employment-Intensive Investment Branch 2003-2007 - PDF 1,525 Kb
  ILO, 2003