Although emergency relief and assistance programmes may help poor populations survive in crisis situations, they often do little to improve their situation in the longer term. A much greater contribution can be made to their well-being through investments which provide jobs and basic services, such as roads, water and sanitation clinics, drains, housing and schools. The importance of these types of basic infrastructure in promoting economic development is widely understood. Half of public investment in most developing countries is in infrastructure. The employment potential of infrastructure projects is vast, but is often not realized.
Many projects are equipment-intensive, frequently using foreign contractors.
This may be necessary for airports, motorways or heavy bridges. But employment-intensive alternatives are available, for more basic infrastructure, and offer major advantages. This involves a judicious combination of labour and appropriate equipment, which is generally light equipment. Over the past decade, the EIIP has helped more than 40 member States of the ILO develop sustainable employment through infrastructure investments. Approximately 1 million direct jobs and close to 2 million indirect jobs have been generated by investment programmes in which the EIIP has been directly involved through demonstration and capacity-building activities.