On November 30 and December 1, 2015, The Let's Work Partnership held three private sector consultative workshops for the agriculture, forestry and construction sectors in Maputo, Mozambique. The workshops were attended by key stakeholders from large and small firms, the Government, and development organizations in the three sectors.
The objective of the workshops was to contribute ideas to develop interventions that have the potential to be impactful in creating private sector led inclusive jobs in Mozambique. The participants discussed opportunities to deepen value chains and links between large firms and smaller domestic enterprises and constraints that need to be addressed to promote job growth.
Value chains are attractive as an entry point as they offer the potential to leverage large-scale job creation that can span from high-skilled, formal employment in globally-competitive lead firms, to quality, sustainable earning opportunities for the low-skilled, self-employed or smallholders. From a practical perspective, the value chain approach is useful because it allows for the identification of specific interventions to unlock competitiveness. Results from the workshop will be used to validate and expand on the Let’s Work’s strategy to develop more, better and inclusive jobs in Mozambique. The workshop outcomes will also feed into a larger Let’s Work Mozambique conference that will be held in 2016.
Mozambique was selected by Let’s Work partners as one of seven pillar 1 country pilots and is the largest, to date. In April 2015, the Mozambique government approved the Plano Quinquenal do Governo (PQG 2015-2019), a five year plan that defines Mozambique’s strategic priorities, including job creation. Let’s Work aims to support the objectives of the PQG by focusing on developing the implementation of a comprehensive jobs strategy that centers on the bottom 40 percent of the population.
