China’s Sloping Lands Conversion Programme
Protecting people and the environment: Lessons learnt from Br azil’s Bolsa Verde,
China, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, South Africa and 56 other experiences
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Box 2. Terminology: Public employment schemes
Public employment programmes PEPs refer to any government programme that directly creates short-term employment other than through the expansion of the civil service. PEPs include public works programmes PWPs
and employment guarantee schemes EGSs as well as a spectrum of options in-between. Public employment programmes are a type of non-contributory social assistance or cash transfer programme in exchange for work.
PEPs target the unemployed, underemployed, and poor, providing income security and contributing to protect the most vulnerable against shocks, while at the same time developing public infrastructure, assets, and services that
promote social and economic development. They are often implemented in countries in response to a crisis or as part of a longer term, counter-cyclical employment policy.
Public works programmes PWPs refer to more common, traditional PEP programmes. Although a PWP may be a temporary response to a specific shock and crisis, public works programmes can also have a long-term horizon.
PWPs include Cash for work CFW and food for work FFW programmes. Examples include the Argentinian programmes, Argentina Trabaja and Jefes y Jefas de Hogar Bertranou and Paz, 2007.
Employment guarantee schemes EGSs refer to long-term, rights-based public programmes in which a level of entitlement to work is provided. EGSs are based on the concept of the state acting as an “employer of last resort”
ELR. Such programmes provide employment to those willing and able to work should the labour market not offer such employment. The fundamental objective of the ELR is achieving and maintaining full employment and providing
social protection to help the chronically poor at times of vulnerability by providing a form of income security. These programmes are usually also intended to establish or improve physical infrastructure such as roads, irrigation
systems, and social or environmental assets. In this way, they contribute to livelihoods and growth even after the period of employment has been completed. Examples for EGSs are the Indian Mahatma Gandhi National Rural
Employment Guarantee Scheme MGNREGS, the South African Expanded Public Works Programme EPWP see item 4.6.2, and the Productive Safety Net Programme PSNP in Ethiopia.
The Employment Intensive Investment Programme EIIP can be seen as an EGS that specifically promotes labour- intensive rather than capital-intensive employment. This approach has been promoted by the ILO for more than 30
years. The EIIP usually focuses on infrastructure investments that simultaneously increase productive employment, including the development of entrepreneurship, skills, and improved access to basic goods and services for the poor.
Public infrastructure is developed in areas that are relevant for adaptation to climate change, such as irrigation, water and soil conservation, flood control, and rural transport improvement and maintenance. Well-designed EIIPs
may contribute to bridge immediate crisis recovery to long-term development work, as well as contribute to long-term national
employment policies.
For more
information see:
http:www.ilo.orgpublicenglishemploymentreconeiipindex.htm.
Sources: Lieuw-Kie-Song et al. 2010, pp. 3, 5; Harsdorff et al. 2011; ILO 2014; ILO 2012.
PEPs generally have more than one objective that can be prioritized or combined differently according to a concrete programme. The usual objectives of PEPs are:
employment creation;
poverty reduction; and
infrastructure development andor provision of public goods and services, such as
social or environmental assets. PEPs delivering environmental services, such as reforestation, removal of litter and
garbage, and restoration of degraded land, are increasingly offered Lieuw-Kie-Song et al., 2010; Harsdorff et al., 2011. For exa
mple, South Africa’s Working for Water programme promotes employment in water-clearing activities see below. PEPs can thus be aimed at
generating environmentally sound public goods, reinforcing the development of climate- resilient productive infrastructure, protecting and enhancing the natural resource base, as
well as offering access to affordable and clean energy. Under such conditions, PEPs combining social with environmental conservation objectives have some strong
commonalities with the PES schemes, where environmental service is the work conducted that aims to protect or restore the environment.
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Protecting people and the environment: Lessons learnt from Brazil’s Bolsa Verde,
China, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, South Africa and 56 other experiences
As described above, Recommendation No. 202 mentions PEPs among the possible instruments that can contribute to the establishment of a social protection floor. When
looking at the different modalities of PEPs as described above, from the point of view of the principles governing the SPF-
concept, PWPs can contribute within a “progressive implementation” perspective, acting as a basis for the development of more complex
programmes to support the unemployed in future. However, if seen as a rather permanent tool of an SPF, the principles of the “rights-based approach” and the “predictability” of
benefits suggest that employment guarantee schemes tend to meet to a larger extent the whole set of criteria established by Recommendation No. 202.