ZGJP: Zambia Green Jobs Programme

The Zambia Green Jobs Programme (ZGJP) facilitates private sector development for inclusive green growth, more and better jobs particularly for young people and women. 

The programme promotes the development of the green economy in Zambia by supporting competitive and sustainable development of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in order for them to grow, create green and decent new jobs as well as improve the quality of existing jobs by extending basic social protection and improving access to occupational safety and health services for workers initially in the building construction sector and potentially in other sectors.

Market systems and interventions

The programme uses a multidimensional intervention approach to promote a sustainable market change in the Zambian construction industry. The coordinated interventions are being undertaken at three different system levels (meta, macro and micro level), targeting three main objectives:

Outcome 1: Meta level interventions

Mindset, attitude and behaviour towards sustainable development

Outcome 1 addresses the consumer buyer behaviour of the public, policy makers and industry practitioners’ towards best practice in green building, green financing and linkages. Through awareness raising activities, the programme motivates change in mind-set and attitudes among important stakeholders in the building construction sector, as well as the general public. This includes communication and publicity works, architectural competitions and green building demonstration units. It raises the levels of awareness and knowledge of green construction, and in turn increases the demand and creates markets that warrant commercial interests.

Outcome 2: Macro level

Greening of policy framework

The programme promotes a refined industry-specific regulatory framework that stimulates demand among private and public housing developers for environmentally friendly building materials, products and methods. This includes policy, legal and regulatory framework interventions which encompasses the work of UNEP (policies, standards, and guidelines); FAO (good practice guidelines on sustainable timber production and harvesting) as well as ILO (CSO/ Ministry of National Development Planning green jobs assessments for an enabling green economy; as well as climate change policy formulation, baseline and implementation).

Outcome 3: Meso and Micro level

Capacity building for MSMEs

The programme aims to build capacity of local MSMEs in effectively participating in the building construction and green building goods and finance and business development services market in Zambia and, hence, enable them to grow and create green jobs.

The MSMEs benefit from a market-driven mix of financial, non-financial and value chain development services, facilitated through various and differentiated financial service providers (FSPs) and business development service (BDS) providers. These include:

• Productivity and working conditions improvement through better occupational health and safety (OSH) services, as well as extension and strengthening of social protection;
• Entrepreneurship training;
• Business linkage support;
• Small business management and value chain development;
• Development of technical and vocational skills for green jobs; and
• Support for financial literacy and access to green finance.

Results

• Since inception, 2,880 decent green jobs have been created. In addition the working conditions of 2,900 existing jobs were improved measured through extended social protection; coverage of occupational safety and health; and increase in income parameters. 
• As a way of making the primary target MSMEs more competitive, 1,160 have accessed business development services. Within this number, a group of women were trained in solar panel assembly, installation and maintenance. They retrofitted 30 housing units which previously did not have lighting.   
• Through advocacy work, 14,300 people have been reached by influencing mindset change towards green construction which is still a relatively new concept in Zambia.  

Updated June 2016.