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ILO Employment for Peace Programme South and Central Somalia

MEDIA ADVISORY

Event:                  Somali Engineers Training on Employment-Intensive Approaches - Closing Ceremony

Date:                    9th March 2007

Venue:                  Hotel Triangle, Jinja, Uganda

Time:                     9am

Officiated by:       Engineer Samson Bangonza, Engineer in Chief, Ministry Works and Transport

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Sixteen engineers drawn from the whole of Somalia complete a six week intensive training course on technical and management skills for employment-intensive approaches to public infrastructure works on the 9 th March 2007. Facilitated by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Employment for Peace Programme in South and Central Somalia and funded by the European Commission and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the course has been run by the Mt. Elgon Labour-based Training Centre of the Ministry of Works Uganda in Mbale in Uganda.

The ILO Employment for Peace Programme has been engaged in community employment projects to improve sanitation, access and infrastructure in Baidoa and Mogadishu .  These projects act as an entry point for community mobilization and capacity building and draw on ILO’s extensive experience in reintegration and economic recovery in other post conflict countries. The approach provides the means to re-engage large numbers of people into productive activities, which reorients their minds from conflict and destructive activities, while rebuilding the social and economic infrastructure.

However, local engineering skills and capacity crucial for such projects has been eroded by the years of conflict in Somalia . One of the strategic objectives of the Employment for Peace Programme is therefore to build technical and management capacities. Through this training and other complimentary initiatives, the Programme aims at developing a nucleus of trained Somali Engineers who can plan, manage and implement employment-intensive projects, so that they are in a position to play an active part in the future Reconstruction and Development Programme of Somalia.  

The ILO Programme is also building the capacity of the nascent local district administrations and seeks to set up public works units within the administrations to which some of the newly trained engineers will be deployed. The engineers will also act as trainers of technicians and supervisors when they return to their respective regions.

ILO has promoted and supported employment-intensive approaches to infrastructure development and reconstruction in the region for several years and has developed training programmes and capacities of national civil works training institutions and of universities in several countries including Lesotho, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

Source: ILO, Mar 09, 2007

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