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Ghana needs 300,000 jobs annually – World Bank

This is according to the World Bank’s Senior Country Operations Officer, Dr Beatrix Allah-Mensah who was speaking at the launch of the National Labour Intensive Public Works (LIPW) policy in Accra.

The aim of the policy is to have public works such as the construction of roads and new schools involving community members as labourers instead of using heavy machinery to do all the work.

“[LIPW] is a systematic and coordinated approach with the essentials to ensuring that the economically active poor in Ghana gain access to needed employment and training,” Allah-Mensah said.

“Job creation and job sustenance, which continue to plague many countries, are key to promoting development and eradicating poverty…Access to jobs is even more crucial in the rural areas and for the poor thus making job security a social protection issue.”

In May, the World Bank, in a new report on unemployment in Ghana, found that about 48 percent of Ghanaians between the ages of 15-24 do not have jobs.

With 71 percent of Ghana’s population projected to be under 35 years old in 2020, there is an ever more need to create jobs for the youth.

“We as an institution are very pleased to see that the labour intensive public works policy is in line with the national employment policy as well as the national social protection policy [of the country].”

Present at the event was the Chairman of the National Development Planning Commission, Professor Kwesi Botchwey and the Minister for Employment and Labour Relations, Haruna Iddrisu.

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