Social, environmental and occupational health and safety (OSH) safeguards are important issues in the context of rural roads infrastructure. Problems arising from these topics are complex and risky and they often need the involvement of many relevant parties to come up with solutions. To address these issues, the ILO’s Roads for Development Supporting Programme (R4D-SP) Bridging Phase, in collaboration with Don Bosco Training Centre conducted a three-day training programme on the three issues in the mid of 2022.

A total of 93 staff of Municipality Public Works from the top to bottom level of positions participated in the training programme, seeking to equip the participants with additional skills to identify and address gaps they find during field works when implementing road works. The training also aimed to enhance the knowledge and technical skills of the participants through the application of best practices on social, environmental and OSH safeguards of the road works and through understanding real-life issues faced by contractors and supervisors in daily basis.

The training programme utilized a participatory approach and combined classroom discussions with a site visit for practical exercise, particularly how to use and fill-in the compliance form during the site inspection.

The first two days of the training started with discussion on the classroom examining the topics of, among others, R4D’s Social Safeguards Framework (SSF) and Environmental Safeguards Framework (ESF), key concepts and principles, OSH guideline, traffic management and mitigation measures. It was followed with the site visit on the third day to one of the R4D roads in Liquica: Barkau Road with a total of 4.2 km of rehabilitation road.

Using the compliance form, the participants conducted an inspection on the condition of road from the perspectives on environment, social and OSH. They also applied what they had learned during the training programme. For example, in terms of OSH, they checked workers’ safety gears and identified possible work hazards.

Through this training programme, it is hoped that public works staff at both national and municipal levels, especially field supervisors, would be more knowledgeable and has the capacity to handle issues related to social, environment and OSH with much better approach and to provide effective solutions when problem arising.