PARAMETER 1

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• Public works and employment programmes towards a
  long term development approach for social
  protection and the delivery of assets and
  services
• Long-Term Social Protection for Inclusive
  Growth A Policy Dialogue and Learning Event,
• Johannesburg, October 12, 2010
• Radhika Lal
• International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth

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Current Context

• Slowdown of the world economy
• Financial fragility
• Fluctuations in exports
• Volatility in commodity prices
• Difficulties in ensuring a recovery in jobs
• Some countries had a jobs crisis even before
  the current economic crisis
• Differential country experiences in weathering
  the crisis
• All other things being equal, some countries
  appear to have been able to mitigate impacts
  because of (long term) social assistance measures
  which were already in place (e.g. Brazil, India)
• Interest in results-based innovations in social
  assistance programmes that can be easily expanded
  and can address emerging public good deficits

3
Conventional Short-Term Policy Options
Scaling up cash transfers Effective though it may be difficult to scale up quickly unless a single registry for social programmes has information on the entirety of the low-income population (i.e. both beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries), and the cut-off point can be increased to allow more "vulnerable" people to enter
Subsidies to the private sector to hire workers May result in a substitution so its not clear how many new jobs will be created and how many retained
ALMP Training schemes Important to upgrade skills on-job training is best but the private sector unlikely to have an incentive to skill people when demand is stagnant.
Promoting labor market flexibility What is efficient on the microeconomic scale (enterprise level) may be counter-productive on the macroeconomic scale (if it does not stimulate higher investment or increase export demand)
Microfinance Recent studies point to a limited impact on poverty - not all young people, and of the unemployed in general, have the potential to be entrepreneurs
Infrastructure programmes Impact on employment depends upon labor intensity
Public works The quality of assets and longer term impacts on poverty are likely to be an issue unless there is a focus on these issues.
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Medium term policies

• Need for a longer-term development perspective in
  response to the crisis
• Public policies to re-ignite investment for
  transformational and inclusive growth
• Priority assigned to livelihood diversification,
  social upgrading and skill development for
  selected sectors
• Investment in social protection programmes that
  go beyond safety nets
• Address deficits in infrastructure, social
  services, and demand which have detrimental
  impacts on the conditions for re-igniting growth
  and limiting adverse impacts on human capital
• However, ensuring scalable and sustainable
  investment in social protection has been
  difficult for many countries in the region.. and
  the crisis has cut into the fiscal space
  available
• Making the linkages between growth and social
  protection and, more specifically, between the
  productive dimensions of social protection and
  the real economy productive policies could help

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Medium-long-term structural transformation
policies

• Development transformations are key for
  sustainability of growth,
• Without a forward looking focus on innovation,
  countries can be locked into production and
  exports of minerals, primary commodities and
  simple processing activities which make them
  vulnerable to competition and generate too few
  resources for economic and social upgrading and
  for the creation of good jobs.
• Transformation is a continuous process which
  requires a focus on learning, productive
  experience, virtuous institutional inter-linkages
  and stimulation of demand it takes time and
  experimentation
• Innovation and transformation involves creative
  destruction (including of jobs), thus there is a
  need to
• facilitate cross-sectoral mobility and skills
  upgrading
• explicitly foster innovation to address the needs
  of more labour intensive sectors/segments
  particularly in rural areas - and to foster
  delivery platforms for services aimed at the poor
  

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• Employment centered social protection programmes
  Safety nets or pathways out of poverty?
• While public employment programmes can (rightly)
  be viewed as a symptom of the employment deficit
  in the economy they can also provide a platform
  for innovation and help to underpin investments
  in service delivery and asset creation
  under-served areas.and serve as a transitional
  mechanism for the creation of jobs

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Public Employment Programmes (PEPs) an overview

• Conventionally, public works have long been
  considered a staple of social assistance
  programmes with the objective of short-term
  consumption smoothing and insurance functions
• Two traditions
• Public works have long been organized in
  situations of drought or to combat seasonal
  unemployment by providing short-term employment
  on labor-intensive projects such as road
  construction, maintenance, small-scale irrigation
  and water conservation works
• Public works have also been designed as workfare
  programmes in the context of short-term safety
  nets to address temporary job-losses
• However,
• viewing work only as a conditionality for payment
  works against a focus on value of assets and
  services provided
• Short term safety net approach works against the
  development of programme capacities and synergies
  with complementary programmes
• New approaches point to multi-year funding
  frameworks and include rights-based programmes
  and guarantees

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Role of public employment programmes

• PEPs can play a bridging role with regard to
• Addressing deficits in the provision of services
  and potentially providing a pathway to better
  jobs
• Fostering investment in assets and services
  relevant for the poor and under-served areas
• Ensuring stabilization of demand and incomes
  relevant for economic resilience
• Providing a platform for innovation in the
  delivery of services
• If so, PEPs need to be linked to
• Macro-economic and structural transformation
  policies to promote employment-rich inclusive
  growth
• Policies to enhance employability, training and
  skills development
• Promotion of private sector development and
  entrepreneurship
• These linkages are easier to foster when there
  is a long-term development framework for
  employment programmes

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Promotional Social Protection Important to
recognize inter-linkages and hybrid nature of PEPs
Labor Markets Reduction in working poverty
through potential impact on wage levels and
number of days worked
Human Capital consumption smoothing and support
to investments in human capital
Promotion of Livelihood Opportunities (through a
long-term development approach)
Assets and services 1st and 2nd round impacts
on livelihoods, increased viability of
self-employment and investments in human capital
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Public Employment Programmes Issues

• Useful asset creation requires a focus on assets
  and work not just creation of work (workfare),
  technical capacity (that can be built over the
  long term), accountability and participatory
  inputs.
• In many cases the problem is high levels of
  working poverty coupled with high wage levels for
  a few hence there is a role for the employment
  guarantee in setting a wage floor
• Impact on private sector is mixed they gain from
  local demand for their products while
  experiencing some potential increases in wage
  costs and competition for workers
• Both the private sector and society at large can
  benefit from the work experience gained as well
  as from the training (and/or education support)
  received by beneficiaries of public employment
  programmes.

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Recent Innovations in Rethinking Design/Role of
PEPs

• Go beyond a focus on cash for work to focus on
  job creation and useful asset and service
  provision
• Multi-year funding and implementation frameworks
• Multiple focus areas conventional infrastructure
  and social services (EPWP) and natural resource
  management (EPWP, MGNREGA)
• Catalytic Social Information and Delivery
  Systems Can be deployed for complementary
  programmes and can help to catalyze service
  provision in other-wise under-served areas e.g.
  financial and digital inclusion
• Strong Transparency and accountability frameworks
  useful for other programmes and empowerment for
  social justice
• Facilitate a shift from stand-alone to
  complementary programming

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MGNREGA (India) Service Delivery Platform
Innovation

• Rights based framework making the state
  legally accountable for providing work (100
  days/rural HH)
• Decentralized implementation with technical
  support and participatory selection of projects
• Mandates use of IT infrastructure this can also
  foster businesses and digital inclusion.
• Mandates payment through post offices/banks,
  allows for banking correspondents and provides a
  platform to test biometrically-enabled
  micro-payments via linkage to UID
• Mandates Social audits by the implementing agency
  and allows for civil society role MGNREGA has
  had impacts on the transparency and
  accountability of other poverty reduction
  programmes
• Can be combined with sectoral initiatives through
  convergence programmes to increase quality of
  assets and services

Source Fabio Veras 2009
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NREGA Results to date
Employment Labour Market Impacts Assets, Services and productivity improvements Income
Increase in Agriculture Minimum Wages, wages earned/day annual income. (Source IIM Lucknow, NDUAT Faizabad) Livelihood diversification in rural areas (Source IIM Shillong, CSE, IHD) Financial Inclusion 8.8 crore accounts opened Improvement in ground water (Source ASCI, IHD) Reduction in water vulnerability indexes for water , agriculture, and livelihoods (Source IISc) Improved agricultural productivity cropping intensity (Source ASCI, IIT Roorkee) Increase in earnings/ HH 2006-07 Rs. 2795 2007-08 Rs. 3150 2008-09 Rs. 4060 Supplementary income source during non-agricultural seasons (Source IIM Ahmedabad) visible decline in levels of distress migration (Source Disha, NFIW, IHD, CSE)
Source Amita Sharma (2010)
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EPWP (South Africa) Green Jobs for the Poor and
Provision of early childhood development

• EPWP Social Sector
• The social sector had an innovative focus on
  early childhood development (ECD) and community
  home-based care (CBHC) to create jobs while
  providing services to reach infants, young
  children, and the sick members of vulnerable
  households.
• These services help alleviate unpaid care burdens
  by providing support for the raising of children
  and the care of the ill. (Antonopoulos)
• EPWP environment sector
• E.g. Working for Water program which aimed to
  enhance water security, restore the productive
  potential of land and promote sustainable use of
  natural resources and invest in marginalised
  sectors of South African society

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Selected Sources

• Amita Sharma (2010) Mahatama Gandhi National
  Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 A Rights
  based Law for inclusive growth
  http//www.ipc-undp.org/pressroom/files/ipc130.pdf
  
• Maikel Lieuw-Kie-Song and Kate Philip, (2010)
  Mitigating a Jobs Crisis Innovations in Public
  Employment Programmes (IPEP) ILO Employment
  Sector, Employment Report No.6 www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/
  groups/public/---ed.../wcms_142973.pdf
• Maikel Lieuw-Kie-Song (2009) Green Jobs for the
  Poor A Public Employment Approach
  http//content.undp.org/go/cms-service/download/pu
  blication/?versionliveid1847980
• Maikel Lieuw-Kie-Song and Radhika Lal (2010)
  Green Jobs for the Poor Why a Public Employment
  Approach is Needed Now
• Radhika Lal, Steve Miller, Maikel Lieuw-Kie-Song,
  and Daniel Kostzer (2010) Public Works and
  Employment Programmes Towards a Long-Term
  Development Approach www.ipc-undp.org/pub/IPCWork
  ingPaper66.pdf
• Rania Antonopoulos, 2009. "Promoting Gender
  Equality through Stimulus Packages and Public Job
  Creation-- Lessons Learned from South Africas
  Expanded Public Works Programme," Economics
  Public Policy Brief Archive ppb_101
• Smita Gupta (2007) The Significance And
  Limitations Of Indias National Rural Employment
  Guarantee Act In Addressing Rural Poverty
  www.networkideas.org/ideasact/jun07/Beijing.../Smi
  ta_Gupta.ppt