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Green Plan, Lebanon
Introduction
The plan stands for employment creation & enhanced agriculture productivity through construction and rehabilitation of farm infrastructure. The International Labor Organization (ILO) through the Employment Intensive Infrastructure Programme in Lebanon (EIIP) is implementing the Green Plan to respond to reduced livelihood and food security challenges linked to the Syrian crisis, the economic downturn and the COVID19 pandemic, and tackles its negative impact on the host communities, through support to agriculture infrastructure development in small mountainous regions, thus improving the agricultural productivity and farmer's income in addition to creation of employment opportunities for both host communities and displaced Syrians.
About the Initiative
The project will secure soil health and water availability where natural resources are subject to overexploitation and degradation. Support is extended to vulnerable farmers, identified by the Green Plan division of Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), through provision of labour-based farm infrastructure. The thematic areas addressed in the Plan are Green Works, Green Jobs, and Agricultural Infrastructure.
The EIIP methodology facilitated 800 farms with small scale infrastructure works such as land reclamation (terracing, stone walls, field rehabilitation in rocky areas), creation of water tanks and boundary walls. The plan created 116,550 workdays paying short term cash and targeting Syrian refugees and vulnerable Lebanese host communities. In 2023, a new phase has begun where the Plan objectives were extended to provide training to selected farmers and workers in order to upskill them for small business and entrepreneurship, sustainable agriculture, and construction skills development and facilitating on the job training including on Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) while special consideration being given to women and Person with Disability (PWD).
Learning & Impact
The core themes under EIIP methodology are about maintaining decent work, environmental and social safeguards compliance, including OSH and minimization of environmental impact. The plan also ensures increased income for crises affected people directly from the Cash for Work approach, enhancing farm yield and food security outcomes for farmers due to farm improvement interventions.
The framework of the plan includes beneficiary and economic impact surveys to be conducted before, during and after the intervention, to measure the impact of the project. The project is at the initial stage of its implementation. The project so far has created 116,550 workdays under phase IV and 2,040 jobs with 40 days of duration. The initiative plans to address the poor performance of contractors through contractual mechanisms and oversight through ensuring regular project steering committee. Moreover, the enhanced version planned for phase V has potential for replication across similar contexts.
