STRENGTHEN 2: Employment impact assessment to maximise job creation in Africa

Job creation in African countries is an integral part of the African Union’s Agenda 2063. The emphasis on employment creation is even more important given the impact COVID-19 and confinement on the labour market. The ILO is forecasting that lock down measures are impacting informal workers significantly through a loss of earnings. This project builds on the Africa-EU Alliance on Investment and Jobs launched in 2018. In a comprehensive approach aimed at improving the business and trade climate and strengthening human capital, the Africa-EU Alliance seeks to leverage private investment in Africa, in partnership with Financial Institutions (FI), with a focus on decent job creation. Other flagship programmes are likely to have employment impact that can be tapped as well, notably the programmes around the green deal and digitalisation. Realising that employment outcomes differ between investment opportunities and local characteristics, the objective of this project is to assist the European Commission and partner countries in assessing the employment effects of supported investment and flagship development programmes in Africa. The parallel objective is to understand the impact of these investments by category of projects and financing instruments. Another objective is to improve the ability to take into account the employment dimension at different stages of the life cycle of the project. The overall impact of the action is to improve employment outcomes for women and men in Sub-Saharan African countries. One focus area of the project will be on the EIP and its stakeholders (including FIs), but the project will also support the European Commission (EC) and national stakeholders in selected African countries with other EU supported investments as well as programmes supporting specific value chains. The project seeks to connect and contribute to corporate information systems like the Project Management System (OPSYS) and the Results Management Framework (RMF). Regarding the EIP, the specific objective is to put in place an assessment framework of the employment impact of EIP’s investments, i.e in support of the RMF. Regarding other programmes, the specific objective is to build capacities regarding employment creation at country level, in coordination with relevant units at DEVCO, and EU Delegations (EUD) in the field. The project builds on the comparative advantage of ILO in this domain and the experience gained in the joint EU-ILO programme Strengthen that assessed employment impact of sectoral and trade policy.

Project symbol

GLO/20/19/EUR

Admin unit

EMPINVEST

Start date

01/08/2020

End date

30/04/2025

Total allocation

6751583

Total expenditure

Status

Active

6569858

Development Partners

European Commission, DG for International Cooperation, Development Cooperation Instrument

Country/Countries

Global

Outcomes

Outcome 3: Full and productive employment for just transitions