By Akanimo Sampson
Initiatives developed through the International Labour Organisation (ILO)-supported Partnership for Action on Green Economy (PAGE) programme and the Employment Intensive Investment Programme (EIIP) have been recognised in the 2019 Future Policy Awards.
Senegal’s National Strategy for the Promotion of Green Jobs was selected from 67 nominated policies from 36 countries as one of the two winners of the Future Policy Vision Award. The ILO supported the Senegalese government in creating and implementing the strategy, which has created 2,000 green jobs.
South Africa’s Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) received the Bronze award in the category for Decent and Sustainable Jobs for Youth Economic Empowerment. The programme was set up in 2004 in response to high unemployment rates, opening up more than eight million job opportunities. The ILO’s Employment Investment Programme (EIIP) contributed to its design, planning, implementation and evaluation.
The Future Policy Awards, also known as the “Oscar for Best Policies”, highlights the world’s most impactful policies empowering youth. It is the only global award that recognizes policies designed to benefit both present and future generations. Its aim is to raise global awareness of the importance of good policies and speed up action.
The award was created by the World Future Council in 2010, in partnership with UN agencies and the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU). The 2019 award theme highlighted the need to find inspiring and effective laws and policies that could empower young people in building a fair and sustainable future.
Senegal’s first National Strategy for the Promotion of Green Jobs serves as a reference framework, strengthening the legislative, institutional and regulatory framework for green jobs, building human capacity, developing an appropriate financing policy, promoting advocacy, and setting up mechanisms for monitoring and sustainability.
Mainly young people and women have benefited from the 2,000 green jobs that have been created under the strategy. They include recycling, aquaculture and forestry projects. All generated a return on investment in their second year of production. The Senegalese approach is being adopted as a model by other countries in Africa and elsewhere.
In South Africa, youth benefited from almost half of the eight million temporary work opportunities generated under the Expanded Public Works Programme.
The programme has taken an innovative approach, expanding beyond the more traditional infrastructure-related activities and mobilising unemployed youth to support social services and environmental activities such as home-based care, early childhood development, prevention of forest fires, rehabilitation of wetlands and other ecosystems.
The ILO’s EIIP has operated for around 40 years and is currently active in more than 25 countries. It supports and implements programmes for youth and other groups whose livelihoods have been threatened, such as refugees, farmers and those affected by conflict or natural disasters.
“Government policies have the potential to open up opportunities for millions of green, decent jobs in the context of the ecological transition. Actions that transform the entrepreneurial ecosystems – the actors, organisations, culture, and policies – are central to realizing the employment dividend of a green economy.
The ILO works to empower our constituents – governments, workers and employers – in that direction,” said Moustapha Kamal Gueye, Head of the ILO’s Green Jobs unit.
PAGE brings together five UN agencies: the ILO, UN Environment, the UN Development Programme, the UN Industrial Development Organization and the UN Institute for Training and Research. The Partnership was launched in 2013 to help countries adopt greener and more inclusive growth trajectories.
PAGE seeks to put sustainability at the heart of economic policies and practices and to advance the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It provides support in refraiming national and regional economic policies and practices around sustainability, so fostering economic growth, creating income and jobs, and reducing poverty and inequality.
The winners of this year’s Future Policy Award were recognised on October 16, during the 141st Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, in Belgrade, Serbia. A live webcast was available from 3:00 – 4:15pm CEST.
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