Introducing Employment Intensive Investment Approaches in Iraq

ILO holds workshops on EIIP in Erbil as part of efforts to support immediate employment creation, skills development and labour market formalisation.

The ILO held workshops in Erbil introducing Employment Intensive Investment Approaches (EIIP ++) to partners and stakeholders, as part of efforts to support immediate employment creation, enhance workers’ skills, support national vocational training and certification systems and promote small businesses.

The workshops brought together representatives from municipalities and ministries, as well as engineers, contractors’ associations and union members. They were the first EIIP workshops to be held in the country for activities being implemented by the ILO in collaboration with the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation in labour intensive approaches. 

The workshops included a one-day awareness raising session to introduce the ILO’s labour-based work approach to constituents and discuss implementation modalities. It also introduced ILO’s skills development and certification processes and an employment service model, which are being implemented in other countries by the ILO and which can be replicated in Iraq.

A three-day technical training on EIIP was also held for municipal engineers and local development officers on ways to implement Local Recourse Based works, including preparing and managing tenders and contracts for the work that will be carried out.

The work falls under a wider inter-regional partnership that aims to improve the access of host communities and forcibly displaced people to employment and livelihood opportunities, known as the PROSPECTS Programme. Supported by the Government of the Netherlands, PROSPECTS brings together the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the ILO, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Bank to support this transformative approach. The programme operates in eight countries across the Middle East and the North Africa, including Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt as well as in the East/Horn of Africa.