Challenges

Countries in the Arab States and Asia-Pacific regions faced mounting challenges from climate change, conflict, and economic downturns, resulting in job losses, fragile livelihoods, and weakened resilience. Natural disasters, conflict-induced displacements, and environmental degradation highlighted urgent needs for employment creation, infrastructure recovery, and climate adaptation. Traditional recovery models often overlooked employment-intensive approaches that could simultaneously address resilience and create decent jobs. The Forum responded to these needs by promoting knowledge exchange on Employment-Intensive Investment Programmes (EIIP) and green job creation through South-South learning, fostering capacity to integrate employment, crisis recovery, and environmental resilience into national policies and public works programs.

Toward a Solution

The EIIP Inter-regional Technical Forum brought together decision-makers from Ministries of Labour, Technical Line Ministries, and research institutions from 16 countries in the Arab States and Asia-Pacific. The initiative aimed to strengthen their capacities to mainstream employment-intensive approaches into climate adaptation and crisis recovery policies through peer learning and South-South Cooperation (SSTC).

The approach combined technical sessions, case study exchanges, experience sharing, and participatory roadmap development. The Forum was organized around three key themes: (1) Understanding EIIP concepts and application in green jobs and crisis contexts, (2) Learning from good practices and innovations, and (3) Developing a collaborative action plan for advancing EIIP approaches nationally and regionally.

The process was highly participatory. Peer learning exercises, group discussions, and interactive workshops allowed participants to identify good practices, challenges, and opportunities for collaboration. Officials from India shared lessons from large-scale national programs like MGNREGA and PMGSY, while Arab States counterparts reflected on post-conflict and refugee crisis responses using EIIP.

The Forum led to concrete South-South knowledge exchanges between Arab States and Asia-Pacific institutions. Participants committed to further collaboration through identified roadmaps, with action points such as mainstreaming EIIP approaches into national policies, creating training modules, and promoting regional cooperation.

Key outcomes included:

• 70 participants enhanced their understanding of EIIP and its application to climate resilience and crisis recovery.
• Good practices and innovations from both regions were collected and shared across the network.
• Country-specific action plans and regional roadmaps for EIIP mainstreaming were developed.
• Commitments were made to pursue funding strategies for EIIP expansion through South-South and Triangular Cooperation (SSTC).

The innovation of the initiative lay in its inter-regional, cross-crisis focus — bringing together lessons from conflict, disaster, and climate adaptation contexts — and positioning employment-intensive methods as core to resilience-building strategies.

The initiative was designed with sustainability in mind. It fostered institutional linkages, encouraged the integration of EIIP into national systems beyond donor-driven projects, and identified concrete mechanisms for continued peer learning, including through digital platforms.

Replication is highly feasible. The SSTC model can be adapted for other regions confronting complex crises and seeking job-rich, climate-resilient recovery paths. Successful replication depends on political buy-in, technical capacity, and modest resources to facilitate exchange and technical support.

Lessons learned:

• South-South peer learning accelerates knowledge transfer and inspires policy innovation.
• Crisis and climate responses are more effective and sustainable when employment is deliberately integrated.
• Regional and inter-regional cooper