Emergency employment through rural road rehabilitation for decent jobs and livelihoods recovery (sub-objective 2) ltpgtThe project aims to address the incapacitating impact of winter conditions on underserved communities in rural Aleppo and enhance their resilience. This will be achieved through the survey, clearance, and rehabilitation of critical road arteries, to allow access to basic services and livelihood opportunities. The project will be implemented through the provision of income generating opportunities for communities to enable them to secure their basic livelihood needs, enhance their resilience through skills and employability development. The rehabilitation of the critical roads will further allow for humanitarian access to the communities and commercial activities along the agricultural value chains. ltbrgtAccording to the ILO’s labour market assessment 2023 in Aleppo, the unemployment rate stands at 36.58%. Even when employed, the majority (69%) of the surveyed workers are working poor with a wage rate between 20-40US$, falling below the absolute poverty line. At this prevailing wage rate, people are unable to buy necessary goods and services, such as fuel for heating, food with a diet adaptation, and medicines for seasonal diseases, among others, to survive the coming winter and beyond. ltbrgtThe labour market failure derives from decent work deficits including the lack of market-relevant skills development opportunities. The same survey found that the most important form of support preferred by surveyed individuals (34%) in Aleppo is training in new skills. The local communities aspire to make ends meet with their own decent incomes. Capacitating them for self-reliance with the initial provision of decent jobs combining on-the-job apprenticeship in partnership with local enterprises, is therefore a much-needed early recovery strategy to part ways from life-saving humanitarian aid. ltbrgtFor this purpose, the proposal combines rural road rehabilitation works with transferrable skills to enhance employability of beneficiaries. 350 such decent jobs with the duration of 90 workdays will be created. The ILO, with the support of UNMAS to ensure the decontamination from EO on a no-cost basis from its other resources, will rehabilitate 48 km of rural feeder roads to create these jobs. The work will include the repair of potholes and cracks on roadways as well as concrete lining, culvert repair, and gabion erosion control on sideways that will also serve against climate change-induced flood risk mitigation. After the rural feeder road rehabilitation works, 10% of willing beneficiaries (i.e. 35 workers) will be selected and matched with local enterprises from the pool of 350 workers to further hone their employability and skills. The selection will be made through the skills profiling and assessment of labour market demands in cooperation with the local TVET institutions (for theoretical training) and the Aleppo Chamber of Industry (for on-the-job training), to provide wage subsidies to the accepting enterprises for the duration of 60 workdays. This intervention acts as an exit strategy of the short-term intervention to integrate workers into the labour market to formalize jobs and ensure sustainability.ltbrgtThe project will start by sensitizing communities and establish a Steering Committee consisting of representatives from different vulnerability categories including underserved women and youth, people with disability, IDPs, etc., assisted by the ILO, to validate and cater to the imminent and evolving needs. Core of the interventions is to empower the communities through such an institutional mechanism to enhance the ownership of resilience-building initiatives to overcome future winters. This approach is in line with ERL Sector approaches and the Sub Objective 2 of the Fund’s Allocation Strategy.lt/pgt