Employment-Intensive Investment in

the Central African Republic

Activities of the Employment Intensive Investment Programme in the Central African Republic

Current EIIP Involvement

Like the other countries of the Central Africa sub region, the Central African Republic (CAR) aspires to promote stability and social cohesion, as a way of promoting its enormous natural potential, in order to draw all the dividends of peace and sustainable development.

In this regard, the country has developed an emergency plan for socio-economic recovery to lay the foundations of a new era of management of economic policy and the post-crisis situation and to forge a human and institutional resilience. In this context, the Central African Government through the Ministry of Economy, Planning and Cooperation has adopted the Employment Intensive Investment approaches as an effective means of social mobilization and economic recovery while respecting fundamental principles and rights at work.

In order to help the Government to implement its vision, the ILO is currently implementing the project entitled “Project for the promotion of peace and the creation of decent and productive jobs in the Central African Republic (CAR)” with an important EIIP component. Thanks to his project, so called RBSA project, with the implementation of demonstration sites, the ILO is currently strengthening the constituent’s capacities in the different aspects of EIIP outputs. In addition, the ILO is working with the Ministry of Economy, Planning and International cooperation to consolidate the advances on institutional aspects, especially about the coordination of EIIP initiatives in the country. Most importantly, the ILO is taking the opportunity of this project to prove our comparative advantage on EIIP and develop project documents with the other partners in the country. In coming months, we’re expecting to be able to implement new operations in order to create new jobs, to rehabilitate infrastructure, to consolidate peace and economic recovery.

With the RBSA project, the Employment Intensive Investment (EII) approach has been successfully applied in Central African Republic with the strengthening of community capacities and the construction of infrastructure in order to create immediate jobs and income opportunities, facilitate access to infrastructure, strengthen social cohesion, and reduce grievances against institutions. Specifically, the results of the project are quite significant:

Firstly, the project organized several training sessions on Employment Intensive Investment (EII) for thirties professionals (10% of women) of the Public Works sector and hundred young people (30% of girls). Today, these public administration officers are equipped to design and manage EII projects. The theoretical trainings were accompanied by the achievement of 3 demonstration school sites (Bangui, Bimbo 3 and SIKA) in the field of road maintenance, sanitation and building construction.

This improvement of knowledge on the EII has resulted in an increase in projects integrating the EII approach across the country (Londo 2 project, AFD's THIMO4 project, ...), a better technical contribution of the ILO constituents in the development of strategic documents such as the EII Methodological Guide adopted in August 2018 and the creation of a multisectoral EII committee by the Government to ensure the promotion, coordination, monitoring / evaluation of EII initiatives across the country. The EII methodological guide is a technical reference for a better integration of the EII approach in infrastructure works (road works, building and sanitation systems) in order to encourage local economic development and jobs creation at the local level.

In addition, the project promoted SMEs through the creation of 3 cooperatives in public works. In fact, 45 young people trained in the EII approaches organized themselves into 3 building and civil engineering cooperatives, namely: (i) a building construction cooperative, (ii) a pavement manufacturer and paver co-operative; (iii) a cooperative in charge of road maintenance. Discussions are currently under way with partners to facilitate the access of these cooperatives to public procurement.

Throughout these various demonstration works, social cohesion and social peace have been strengthened. Indeed, young people from different communities and religious denominations, once opposed, have learned to work together during the works and have been able to regroup in cooperatives. Thanks to the organization of training sessions and demonstration works through the rehabilitation / construction of the various infrastructures, these young people from rival communities have learnt to live and work together. In addition, they carry out activities that provide them with incomes in order to see the future differently. At the end, 45 direct jobs have been created for young people during the different demonstration school site works. These jobs become sustainable with the organization of these young people in cooperatives and the development of business relationships with partners in order to facilitate their access to public markets. With the scaling up of EII programs in Central African Republic, there is no doubt that these jobs will become sustainable.

Historical Information

For the previous years, despite several attempts, the level of involvement of the EIIP unit in CAR was relatively weak mostly because of the shortage of funds and the physical absence of the ILO in the country. However, the ILO has been successfully involved in the implementation of the project entitled “Supporting the Redeployment of Public Administration and the Socio-Economic Revitalization of Communities (ARAT-RSE)”.

Thanks to this project, the ILO has been able to provide technical assistance to UNDP for the integration of the Employment Intensive Investment approaches in the construction and rehabilitation works of Public Administration and security services. For instance, with this project, the EIIP contributes to: (i) the rehabilitation of 15 buildings using EII techniques with the creation of 659 direct jobs; (ii) the training of 120 ILO constituents involved in the construction sector on the use of the EII; (iii) the development and publication of the THIMO-RCA Guide. In addition, to consolidate the socio-economic revitalization of the rural communities, the ILO has trained 443 group leaders (including 136 women) on employability and simplified accounting.

This project has developed several actions which are currently consolidated with the funding of the on-going RBSA project.