The
International Labour Office (ILO) today urged that “employment-intensive”
jobs creation strategies be integrated into the humanitarian
and reconstruction response to the earthquake and tsunami
disaster in Asia that destroyed the livelihoods of an estimated
1 million persons in Indonesia and Sri Lanka alone.
The flooding of coastal areas, destruction of homes and buildings,
tourism infrastructure, roads and bridges, water and electricity
supplies, crops, irrigation and fishery infrastructure, productive
assets and small businesses, has had a severe impact on the
livelihoods of people in the most affected areas, the ILO
said. What’s more, the impact on the predominantly poor
communities where people mainly live off the sea and marginal
land has cost people not only their incomes, but also most
of their meagre possessions.
In Sri Lanka, the tsunami
has destroyed jobs numbering some 403,000 in the affected
coastal districts. Up to two thirds of these jobs are in the
informal economy (270,000). In addition to the 403,000 jobless
there are a further number of people, estimated to be at least
400,000 requiring income support as a result of the disaster,
having lost almost all sources of income either directly or
from their family breadwinner (and in many cases also their
shelter), making a total of about 800,000 men, women and children.
The victims urgently need
some income replacement transfers to keep them above the subsistence
level however most of the additional poverty is expected to
prove temporary. Nevertheless, some people (including widows
and orphans and the elderly) will require longer term or even
permanent support through income transfer; this group is estimated
to number as many as 55,000 people.
The ILO emphasized the importance
that the response programme be delivered without prejudice
or preference to any of the affected persons, and to reflect
the ILO’s concepts of Decent Work and collaboration
amongst workers and employers.
To achieve measurable income
security for the affected population the government has been
working with the ILO to formulate a strategy which enables
a mixture of income transfer mechanisms and rapid
job recovery mechanisms to be put in place,
which will comprise four components:
(1) Temporary conditional income
transfer schemes through social assistance for the informal
sector and unemployment benefits for the formal sector. This
would include short-term labour-intensive community works
schemes.
(2) Rapid job creation mechanisms
through the wider use of labour–based technology in
the infrastructure sectors achieved by selectively adjusting
the balance between labour and equipment in current work methods;
(3) Rebuilding livelihoods
in the micro, small and medium enterprises in the informal
sector through a combination of grants, access to credit and
training ;
(4) Long-term income replacement
schemes for longer-term dependants for orphans, widows, the
elderly and persons with disabilities.
Also important is the immediate
protection and support to the newly vulnerable children through
the ILO’s International Programme for the Elimination
of Child Labour (IPEC).
It is envisaged that this
four-pronged strategy would be closely monitored through regular
labour market and social protection field surveys in the affected
areas, and through an expansion of emergency employment centres
in the affected areas.
The ILO recognises in rebuilding
the framework for employment, the pattern and distribution
amongst different sectors of jobs in the future may differ
from that prevailing in the past, and offers to some extent
as an opportunity for modernization. T he need for training
or retraining in new skills may therefore well be important,
and an initial, broad assessment of this requirement is presently
being undertaken under the auspices of the MOLFE.
The ILO will work closely with
other UN agencies, the World Bank and the Asian Development
Bank on the country strategies for the recovery and development
phase.
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