Tamale, Nov. 14, GNA - The government would soon create several jobs for the many unemployed youth through the provision of infrastructural development by using labour intensive methods.

In line with this, it has in collaboration with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and other development partners established the Employment and Investment Policy (EIP) Unit to formulate a national policy in the use of labour based technologies in the infrastructural sector. Mr. Stephen Sumani Nayina, Northern Regional Minister, announced this at a "Technical Training Workshop" for District and Municipal level engineers, administrators and technicians in the Northern Regional capital of Tamale, on Friday.

The workshop was organised by the ILO/Ghana Project and funded by the Department for International Development (DFID). Mr. Nayina said one of the Projects under the EIP Unit was the "Decent Work Project" currently being implemented to ensure that people were given jobs that were decent and devoid of exploitation and harmful working conditions.

He said under the project contractors, administrators and technicians were expected to adopt labour friendly methods and simple tools that would create jobs and thereby reduce the high unemployment rate. Mr. Charles Kwarteng Asafo-Adjei, National Programme Manager of the EIP-ILO, announced that a rural safety network project, funded by the World Bank, would be launched early next year to specifically create jobs for peoples in the Northern, Upper East and Western Regions.

He said all the projects being undertaken were aimed at poverty reduction and achieving the MDGs, with other objectives. He said the EIPU was collaborating with the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and the Polytechnics to develop a curriculum to include labour intensive methods in the course structure for graduates and undergraduates in the universities and polytechnics. 14 Nov. 09