Youth Employment in Sub-Saharan Africa Toolkit

Public works programmes are publicly funded programmes which employ people for a limited duration. Traditionally public works programmes have invested in infrastructure, but may also be used for conservation work or social care. Workers may receive training before engaging in the public works.

📈How are public works programmes expected to increase youth employment?

Public works increase youth employment directly by employing the youth to construct public works. There are indirect effects from the skills and experience gained during the public works which may increase future employability as well as building work habits, increasing self-respect and the desire to more actively seek further employment.

The young person may also be able to save to have funds to invest in their own business.

In addition, the assets created by the public works programme may increase productivity of other activities. There may be both consumption multiplier effects, from the injection of cash into the local economy, and production multiplier if local materials are used in construction. 

✅Impact

There are two impact evaluations of public works in Côte d’Ivoire targeted at youth. One of the studies reports that most youth in the programme would have been employed even in the absence of the programme, but that this employment may well be self-employment. Those in the programme worked longer hours per week, but fewer hours in self-employment. Youth in the programme had substantially high earnings, expenditures and savings. However, most these effects were not sustained.

Additional benefits: Descriptive factual data show that beneficiaries enjoyed increased income. In Rwanda and South Sudan the evaluations report that beneficiaries used the cash transfer to save and start small scale income generating activities, such as agriculture and retail.

🖋Design choices

In sub-Saharan Africa public works are most commonly implemented following an emergency, such as conflict. They have also been implemented as a component of donor-funded projects and so are of limited duration. The exception of these statements is the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) in South Africa.

Public works employees are typically paid a low wage. This makes the programme self-targeting to the most needy. Additional targeting – usually geographic – may also be used. Quotas may be set for employment of women, youth or people with disabilities. Community sensitization may be undertaken to encourage female participation.

The public works are often undertaken by private contractors – some of which may be youth owned enterprises – who also provide training of participants.

The projects supported the construction, rehabilitation or maintenance of a range of infrastructure. Three of the projects are exclusively focused on roads, and two more include roads amongst eligible infrastructure. Four projects support a range of community infrastructure, such as water supply. Two projects have a conservation focus, such as terracing, tree planting, and ponds. EPWP also includes social sector work and income-generating activities.

Design choices for a programme of public works are:

• Define the target group and how to reach them. Public works programmes are usually geographically targeted, and use self-targeting by paying a low wage.
• Consider how to include more disadvantaged groups, including women. Setting quotas alone will not usually be sufficient for achieving such quotas.
• Determine eligible infrastructure and the means for identifying it. Public works in sub-Saharan Africa generally support small-scale infrastructure, so community-level identification may be possible and appropriate.
• Have a plan for the maintenance of infrastructure constructed by the programme, identifying the source of the money and who is responsible for doing it.
• Have in place a centralized system for infrastructure design and costing, whilst being aware of administrative costs.
• Decide who will manage construction, which is most usually private sector firms. Decide if preference may be given to youth-owned firms in awarding construction contracts.
• Determine what training is to be provided and who will provide it. Training in the skills to be used in construction may be expected to be provided by the contractor. But business training will need a different provider.
• Provide business training to all participants, given the possibility some will use savings from public works income to invest in their own business.
• Put in place safeguards against corruption.
• Include an impact evaluation in the M&E system.

📊Implementation experience

Missing targets: Of the three projects for which there are data, in two cases the project paid for fewer person days of labour than intended. Projects also struggled to meet their targets for female beneficiaries. The major causes of missing employment targets were start up delays, delays in funds disbursement and a shortfall in funding compared to original plans. Additional causes are the lack of suitable projects, a lack of youth-run MSEs to implement projects and high construction costs reducing funds available for labour.

Implementation issues in South Africa: EPWP in South Africa experienced different issues, with workers complaining about (1) doing the same task as municipal workers for less pay; (2) hazardous working conditions; (3) unsatisfactory living conditions; (4) lack of transportation; (5) insufficient or inadequate tools and equipment such as work boots or gloves; (6) delayed payments; and (7) a lack of monitoring.

Corruption: The issue of corruption is not mentioned in any of these studies. But since public works programmes are prone to both grand and petty corruption in both developed and developing countries it is worth mentioning the evidence from other developing countries of effective means of safeguarding against it. These are: monitoring, accountability and centralized construction standards and costings.

📜Evidence-based policy recommendations

Public works have mostly been used in SSA in post-conflict and crisis. Given the very limited evidence, it would be appropriate for governments across Sub-Saharan Africa to evaluate public works programmes in conjuction with technical skills training for youth and business training for youth-owned MSEs to undertake construction work. These should be national programmes rather than short-duration programmes undertaken in the context of specific donor projects.

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