ILO, UNESCO and UN-HABITAT launch consultations on a “Regional facility for urban crisis recovery and reconstruction in the Arab States”

News | 17 May 2018
On 17-18 April the ILO, UNESCO and UN-HABITAT met in Amman to explore the possible establishment of a joint initiative for the recovery and reconstruction of major cities in four conflict-affected countries of the Arab region, namely Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen.

During the two-day workshop, the three agencies discussed the rationale of the initiative as well as its key pillars, implementation strategy and governance structure, and agreed on the need to have one or two pilot projects to work together on an integrated, modular approach.

The “Regional facility for urban crisis recovery and reconstruction in the Arab States” will build on existing programmes of individual agencies without replicating them, and will benefit from the added value of the participating agencies, who will work together in complementarity. It will be based on the principles of sustaining peace and building back better and will aim to complement interventions of humanitarian and development actors.

For the ILO, the Regional Facility will provide further opportunities to implement Recommendation 205 on Employment and Decent work for Peace and Resilience and the flagship programme on Jobs for Peace and Resilience (JPR) as well as to replicate some of the best practices developed in Jordan and Lebanon in the context of the response to the Syrian Refugee Crisis. The ILO aims at leading on the pillar related to urban livelihoods recovery and decent work, and could contribute to other pillars, such as the historic urban areas and cultural infrastructure, and the housing rehabilitation and reconstruction.

The joint initiative was presented to relevant UN agencies and development partners during the last part of the Amman workshop and attracted promising preliminary interest.

In the coming months the ILO, UNESCO and UN-HABITAT will further refine the programme of work, including through discussions with a larger group of stakeholders, with the objective to launch the Regional Facility by October 2018.