The Emergency Labor Intensive Investment Project (ELIIP) is a World Bank-funded project implemented by the Social Fund for Development (SFD), with the cooperation of 15 development implementing partner NGOs and CDAs covering 15 Egyptian governorates. ELIIP started in December 2012 and is due to end in December 2015, a 3-year project for a total budget of USD 200 million.

The objectives of the project are 1) to create short-term employment opportunities for unemployed unskilled and semi-skilled workers; and 2) to provide access to basic infrastructure services to the target population in poor rural areas. Objectives’ delivery is channeled through the implementation of employment-intensive sub-projects in two main sectors (i) small-scale local infrastructure public works sub-projects such as canal cleaning and protection, rehabilitation of schools, housing, and rural roads, and (ii) community service sub-projects such as maternity and child health and early childhood education initiatives. The project used various implementing approaches to ensure the attainment of results and quality of delivered outcomes. Such approaches are:

• Demand-driven and social accountability approaches to better address the needs of the targeted populations. This has been done by establishing Community Monitoring Groups who are directly involved in prioritizing sub-projects and monitoring their performance;
• A decentralized approach in which contractors and NGOs are contracted by local administration units.

The project has set up a number of key performance indicators. The main one is the number of persons-days or employment opportunities created. Sub-indicators are as follows:

• Direct and indirect short-term employment opportunities. The latest status report dated 15 May 2014 reported that 16, 058 direct jobs were created out of 194,800 jobs.
• % of women employed is 50% compared to 25% as originally planned.
• % of youth employed (18-30 years old) is 80% of the total created jobs thus exceeding the 60% indicator.
• Wages disbursed. About 5 Million EGP and 2.7 Million EGP were disbursed for men and women respectively. Planned total wages value is 79 Million EGP.
• Labor intensity in sub-projects reached 70% of project’s costs compared to the 40% planned.

The project anticipated additional EU funding, about 67 Million US$, but channeled mainly into community services projects. ELIIP is still an active project and will generate more business opportunities for implementing NGOs, local contractors, and consulting service providers. You can monitor such opportunities on our Tracker. However, the question remains whether investing in community services program to creating jobs is worthwhile such investment.

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