Investment Programme Workshop ends in Koforidua

Koforidua, Dec. 9, GNA - Municipal and District Chief Executives including their Coordinating Directors on Wednesday ended a four-day workshop on Employment-Intensive Investment Programme (EIIP) in Koforidua. The EIIP of the International Labour Organization (ILO) is linked between employment and infrastructure development using local resource and labour based technologies.

Mr Charles Kwarteng Asafo-Adjei, National Programme Manager, Employment and Investment Policy (EIP), said the large numbers of school leavers should not be led on a path to unemployment and resulting poverty. He said as the country tried to address expectations of young people through education and skills, there was the need to expand job opportunities for both women and men through public and private initiatives. Mr Asafo-Adjei urged district assemblies to develop comprehensive employment strategies and action plans to address that security risk. He said the government was trying to address its great backlog of social and economic infrastructure adding that substantial investments were being made in the sector of construction, developing communication and transport infrastructure for increased access to markets for natural resources and products.

Mr Asafo-Adjei said construction of housing, water and sanitation services, education and health services were providing social facilities. "Many try and link public expenditure to the creation of jobs and enterprise development using existing budgetary allocations. However, more needs to be done to take advantage of the direct, indirect and induced employment opportunities these vast construction and infrastructure investments could provide".

Mr Asafo-Adjei said the ILO with its Employment Intensive Unit at the Ministry of Employment and Social Welfare was formulating Employment Policy to achieve their decent work potential. The priority is to realize labour market opportunities to create more and better jobs for women and men. He said the policy intended to focus on urban and rural employment, the informal economy, youth employment and child labour, gender quality, social protection, social dialogue and rights at work. 09 Dec. 09