From jobs to decent work: integrating job creation and social protection, a partner approach by SI Jobs and ILO

Summary Creating sufficient employment and income opportunities is one of the key challenges for Africa's development. With Africa's population expected to double to 2.5 billion people by 2050, 25 million new jobs are needed annually to provide Africa's population with local economic and social prospects for the future. However, opportunities for decent jobs (in accordance with ILO framework) are still scarce in Africa. Many African countries have highly dynamic economies and offer attractive investment opportunities for companies. However, these investments do not always translate in decent employment with adequate and comprehensive social protection for all. In addition, the continent is experiencing widespread impacts of climate change, resulting in loss of lives and incomes, water shortages, food production, and notably reduced economic growth across Africa. Against this background, additional support is needed to overcome current challenges and successfully invest in Africa’s ambitious, up-and-coming markets, while ensuring that the fruits of growth are equally shared through decent employment opportunities with comprehensive and adequate social protection for all. An inadequate pool of suitably qualified experts, gaps in infrastructure, lack of adequate comprehensive social protection systems and underdeveloped markets pose considerable challenges for the private sector. The Special Initiative on Training and Job Creation is commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) to pursue an objective that is explicitly related to a development objective. The activities supported by Invest for Jobs are designed to create jobs and training opportunities in the partner countries in Africa (Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Morocco, Rwanda, Senegal and Tunisia), to improve working conditions and to promote sustainable investments by German, European and African businesses. The aim is to create more and better jobs and training opportunities while preserving local jobs and to increase and promote private investments. To achieve this, the Special Initiative is working in cooperation with various actors such as multinational enterprises, local companies, chambers of commerce, business associations and universities. Social protection as a key pillar of decent work is an important consideration for the sustainable creation of quality jobs. Social protection systems allow enterprises and workers to be more productive by helping to manage life cycle risks, access health care and have greater income security; they are investments with positive returns on the economy. By supporting a healthy, skilled workforce, social protection, including health protection, can enhance and maintain the productivity of workers. Social protection provides the resources and time that people need to develop skills, enhancing their employability and helping them to manage work and life transitions. Promoting decent employment creation with social protection reduces inequalities and the risk of social disruption by renewing the social contract between people and governments, building solidarity across society and between generations, and secures the resilience of workers and enterprises, communities and people. The crucial role of social protection has become increasingly visible during the COVID-19 pandemic and universal social protection is seen as necessary for a human centered recovery and to facilitate structural transformations of the economy, in the context of climate adaptation, digitalization, the need for increased labour market participation of women and youth, among others. Promoting and building national social protection systems increases the sustainability of private sector investments and their contributions to the SDGs. The political priorities of the BMZ regarding a Just Transition and Feminist Development Policy point out the importance of the creation and implementation of social protection

Project symbol

RAF/22/09/DEU

Admin unit

SOCPRO

Start date

17/03/2023

End date

30/09/2024

Total allocation

490067

Total expenditure

Status

Closed

486899

Development Partners

Germany, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ)

Country/Countries

Global

Outcomes

Outcome 7: Universal social protection