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Basra governorate, despite being the major hub for oil exports in Iraq, has a high rate of unemployment, poverty, and a lack of basic services. According to the 2021 Labour Force Survey, Basra city with an estimated population of four million, unemployment reached to 21.8% way higher than the national average unemployment rate of 16.5%, which makes the governorate the 5th highest rate in unemployment rate in the country. Basra also has the 3rd highest NEET rate amongst young women in the country, and the 5th highest amongst young men (at 62.5% and 27.5% respectively).1
Furthermore, during the designing phase of the project, COVID-19 pandemic was rampant in the region and has negatively affected the most vulnerable people, particularly those living in the informal settlements deprived of services. Many households depend on informal economy and minimal savings which led them to precarious economic situations. Besides, the city is renowned for its informal settlements which is densely populated with inadequate potable water and sanitation, little or no waste collection, and limited access to formal health care facilities.
Against these backdrops, UN-Habitat launched a project with the support of the European Union entitled “Increasing Access to Employment Opportunities for Vulnerable Urban Population in BasraCity in Response to the COVID 19 Crisis” to curb the pervasive situation on the ground. The project envisaged to achieve two objectives, namely: a) improve water, electricity, waste management services and access in three underserviced settlements in Basra (Al-Ahrar, Al-Kubiyah, and Jurf AlMelah) which was led by UN-Habitat, and b) enhance job opportunities for unemployed young men and women, led by the International Labour Organization (ILO).
The ILO signed UN-to-UN agreement with UN-Habitat on 24 October 2022 to implement the second component of the project with the overarching objective of creating more and better employment opportunities in basic services and waste management sectors for unemployed youth and vulnerable urban population in the three neighbourhood of Basra city. Furthermore, the project was designed in such a way entrepreneurs to benefit from quality support services that allow them to start businesses or enhance the productivity of existing businesses. The project has the following three outcomes:
Outcome i: Mainstream the Employment Intensive Investment Programmes (EIIP) into the construction activities and application of decent work principles.
Outcome ii: Strengthen employment services through employment centres and digital employment platform for employed and unemployed young women and men in the three targeted neighbourhoods and support participants’ access.
Outcome iii: Delivering vocational and business skills training through the Start and ImproveYour Business (SIYB) approach to enhance the skills and capacities of vulnerable urban populations and SMEs in Basra City and to increase employability and productivity.
The logical framework which depicts the underlying results chain, indicators, targets, sources of verification, and assumptions regarding each project objective can be found in Annex 1.
The overall UN-Habitat project aimed to reach 21,000 individuals from the three neighbourhoods with improved access to services, to which the ILO will contribute through the EIIP component. More directly, the ILO planned to reach 450 young men and women in technical skills programme with theEIIP methodology and 150 beneficiaries (including 50 informal waste collectors and SMEs engaged in waste collection) to receive training on the Start and Improve Your Business (SIYB) programme package. These project participants were planned to also access employment services as delivered by the employment centre, which will also target unemployed young men and women from the neighbourhoods more widely, with the objective of reaching a total of 600 individuals over the project period.
This project was designed to contribute towards the achievement of several objectives of the currentDecent Work Country Programme (DWCP) for Iraq (2019-2023). In particular, it contributes to the achievement of Outcome 4, which is creating more and better employment opportunities ensuring that private sector development supports much-needed creation of new jobs.
Moreover, it also contributes to the accomplishment of some important objectives of the ILO Programme & Budget (P&B) 2022-2023, that set out the strategic objectives and expected outcomes for the organization’s work, Outcome 4: Sustainable enterprises as generators of employment and promoters of innovation and decent work. It is also expected that the implementation of the project might contribute to the achievement of the Country Programme Outcomes (CPO) IRQ 126 and IRQ127.
Most importantly, the project contributes to the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs) under the UNSDCF (2020-2024) for Iraq under strategic priority 2: Growing the Economy forAll, especially in what concerns the promotion of inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work for all (SDG 8), targets 8.5 “achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men, including for young people and persons with disabilities, and equal pay for work of equal value”.
All proposed activities have been looked into through a gender and disability inclusion perspective and reinforce equal consideration of women and Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) while implementing the activities.
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