REMUNERATION SYSTEMS FOR LABOR-INTENSIVE INVESTMENTS - LESSONS FOR EQUITY AND GROWTH

After making a critical analysis of unpaid labour in the context of self-help projects, the author examines the forms (payments in cash and kind), methods (piece or task work and daily paid wages) and levels of remuneration applied in 11 labour-intensive infrastructure programmes in countries receiving technical assistance from the ILO. These remuneration systems are then compared with those prevailing in the formal and informal sectors of the same countries. The result is practical policy prescriptions for promoting employment, growth and equity in least developed countries as mutually complementary objectives targeted at the poor.