9. Pro-poor Civil Engineering

The Challenge for Civil Engineers

• Both poverty and traditional development are unsustainable
• Need new ways of working to stop contributing to climate change
• Engineering organisations working towards sustainable development in the developing world
• Corruption
• Growth along the old model is unsustainable
• Climate change will impact the poor more even if it is caused by more developed countries (major impacts on agriculture, extreme weather events will have greater impacts on poorer infrastructure)
• How to provide and operate the infrastructure needed for poverty reduction in a sustainable way.

Some approaches:

• Combining large project with smaller local approaches

• Capacity building - investing in skills and education

• Local businesses, ownership and decision making

• Using local skills, jobs, materials and design to improve infrastructure as well as developing communities (Case study - Aswan dam and local solar heating)

Local Content

Increasing the input of local labour, goods and services - contributes to economic growth and creates jobs in construction and supply industry.

Local content requires: change in donor and government policies, and local enterprises and supply chain capacity.

Labour based approaches - people who are less effective do the work, but it will positively impact their lives.

Small contracts - divide the contracts between smaller local companies.

Potential benefits:

• Alleviate poverty by investing in rural roads by better access to markets and schools
• Inclusive growth
• Job creation and a route out of poverty if rural roads are constructed and maintained
• Employment increased by using more labour instead of equipment and using materials with a high labour content

It is important to get the balance between labour intensive / equipment based construction right because heavy traffic requires good quality roads and good compaction.

Labour intensive roads and local materials can also provide cost saving - wages for local people spent in the local economy and less imported equipment saves on foreign exchange.

For labour intensive roads to work well:

• Capacity building - training in construction and maintenance
• Good quality assurance - so that the benefits of building the road aren’t compromised by poor quality
• Long term commitment to funded maintenance - provide long term jobs and maintain road
• No conflicts - construction programmes do not conflict with other priorities such as agricultural employment
• Time and payment - advances for capital equipment and prompt payment

Corruption

Need to strengthen transparency and accountability in public construction. It reduces mismanagement, waste, corruption and risks to public safety from poor building practices. Improves fairness in competition for contracts and increases the flow of foreign direct investment and development into a country’s construction sector.

CoST = Construction Sector Transparency Initiative

Four core features of CoST:

• Disclosure
• Assurance
• Multi-stakeholder working
• Social accountability

Means that it can be understood where money is going, reducing corruption.

CoST assurance - CoST validates the information and provides plain language versions to all stakeholders

CoST accountability - information is used to hold responsible parties accountable; this information includes purpose, scope and location, feasibility and alternatives, quality and safety, impact on land and settlements, delays and overspend, misuse of funds, etc.

CoST capacity building - helps government agencies in developing and adopting transparent systems, and teaches the public how to ask for disclosure and how to interpret results.

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