Creating one billion new jobs
Harrison, P.
People 6(3): 16-19
1979
ISSN/ISBN: 0301-5645 Document Number: 521325
This article summarizes a number of policies which must be introduced in Africa, Asia and Latin America if the required thousand million new jobs are to be created by the year 2000. The vast majority of these must be in rural areas to achieve balanced development and avoid deepening the urban crisis. It is essential to find ways of increasing food production that also create more jobs, such as the use of high-yielding varieties of seed, which require more labour than traditional varieties; the extension and improvement of irrigation to allow two or three crops to be grown each year, increasing labour needs; and making small plots yield enough to support a family by improving credit, supplies and advisory services, thus reducing the number of people needing to obtain work. More workers can also be absorbed in labour-intensive public works programmes, such as the food for work projects under the World Food Programme. Appropriate technology must be made more widely available, and small-scale, labour-intensive industries must be encouraged. However, only a few countries such as India and Tanzania have adopted such policies wholeheartedly, and for the remaining countries the biggest obstacles are essentially political.