Chapter 7: Skills: Paid Work, Training, and Reconstruction Trades¶

In December 2015, eight months after the April 25 earthquake, a Japanese cooperation project working with Nepal's National Reconstruction Authority begins training masons. The trainees are chosen with care: working masons with at least one year of experience, put forward by their village development committee and then selected after an interview and a practical test. There are about thirty per session, with expenses covered and meals provided. They are taught the rules of earthquake-resistant construction, first in theory and then in the field. The course was supposed to last six days; that proved too short, and it was extended to seven. Over 72 sessions, the project trains 2,157 masons, 19 of them women. It also trains more than 6,500 homeowners.

In March 2017, the project takes stock in ten village development committees. Minimum standards are in place, homeowners and masons have been trained, engineers have been prepared to carry out inspections. And yet the reconstruction start rate is only 21.3%.

The project changes its approach. It helps each village form a reconstruction committee, and it sends "mobile masons" into the field: trained masons, paid by the project, who work free of charge on families' building sites while training other masons and laborers. Each one follows about a hundred beneficiaries. At the peak, there are 548 of them.

Elsewhere in Nepal, another organization trained 3,140 masons and construction workers between May and July 2016, in seven days, using a course designed by the government. Its review, published in a collection of case studies from the Global Shelter Cluster, contains this sentence: "Masons had limited employment prospects after the project ended."

Training two thousand masons is not enough to get houses rebuilt. You also need a building site, someone to pay for it, and a trade that outlives the site.

What the scene teaches¶

A skill is not a job. The masons trained in Nepal knew how to build to standard, but families were not starting their building projects; the project attributed this delay to a lack of mutual support within the communities. Its answer was to take the training onto the building site itself, alongside the families.

The second project shows the other half of the problem. Reconstruction creates a sudden demand for labor, and then it stops. Its own authors acknowledge that they did no labor market study and had no plan for livelihoods beyond reconstruction. They trained for a spike in demand, not for a trade.

This chapter deals with both halves: the paid work of the first months, which puts money in people's pockets and clears the streets; training, which gives local residents the jobs of reconstruction; and the move to the employment that will remain once the cranes have left.

Reconstruction, a sudden and temporary demand¶

How big the job is¶

The Post-Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA) after the Nepal earthquake, carried out by the government with its partners, puts the labor needed for housing alone at 352 million workdays over five years. Its main concern is skilled workers: 46% of needs according to the housing chapter, 40% according to the employment chapter, which means more than 20,000 masons according to the first, 17,500 according to the second. The gap shows how uncertain these estimates are; the order of magnitude is clear. The same assessment expects demand to push masonry wages up, and it warns: "it is critical that suppliers of manufactured goods are supported to take advantage of the increased demand in the construction sector. Otherwise, the reconstruction efforts will contribute to greater imports of such goods, mainly from China and India, and thus, a subdued impact on job creation in manufacturing."

The message holds for a club of business owners: reconstruction money only sustains the local economy if the workers, craftspeople and suppliers are local. Otherwise, it just passes through.

What the disaster does to the labor market¶

The PDNA guidelines on employment describe what happened in Bangladesh after Cyclone Sidr, in 2007. Many fishermen had lost their boats. In the weeks that followed, they and family members who did not usually work went looking for jobs; field interviews estimate that for each boat destroyed, there was half an extra worker per family on the market. Wages in some occupations fell. At the same time, in the same area, electricians and carpenters saw their work and pay rise, driven by reconstruction demand.

So the disaster creates two markets at once: a surplus of unskilled labor, which needs income right away, and a shortage of skilled labor, which needs to be trained fast. Paid work answers the first; training answers the second.

The same guidelines describe the sequence that should follow: employment that depends entirely on relief should gradually give way to employment linked to reconstruction and economic recovery; then, as reconstruction comes to an end, the structure of employment should return to that of the economy. This is the logic of the three employment tracks presented in Chapter 1: stabilizing incomes, local economic recovery, sustainable employment.

Paid work in the first months¶

What it is¶

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in its 2013 guidance note on emergency employment, defines cash for work as paying a wage in exchange for short-term work: repairing irrigation canals, dikes, tracks, marketplaces, schools; clearing debris; preparing land. These programs generally last up to six months after a limited disaster, and at least a year after a major one. That is an order of magnitude, not a rule.

The rules the sources agree on¶

Rule	What the sources say	What the club checks
Wage	at minimum wage level, sometimes slightly below market	the rate set with the other actors
Selection	clear criteria, agreed with the community and authorities	who chooses, and on what criteria
Exit	planned from the start, gradual	the date, and what comes next for workers
Payment	on time, every two weeks or monthly	the actual delay between work and pay
Safety	equipment, insurance, no children	one adult per household

Wages. UNDP asks for a wage "commensurate to the minimum wage," possibly slightly below the market rate to attract the poorest. It accepts higher wages right after a major crisis, temporarily, but not over time, because they pull workers away from other activities and create tensions. No gap between men and women for work of equal value; higher wages for skilled workers. There is no universal rate: in its recommendations for the Philippines after Haiyan, the World Bank notes that global practice is to pay 5 to 10% below the minimum wage, while, according to the World Bank, the International Labour Organization (ILO) recommends the full minimum wage. Chapter 5 showed what excessive wages cost farmers and employers; Chapter 12 will show how actors in the same area align. The rule for your club is simple: it never sets its rate alone.

Selection. UNDP finds that emergency employment works better when affected groups and local authorities agree on the criteria and take part in the selection, and it warns against capture by local elites. In the Philippines, the government program hired only one person per household, above the legal working age, to keep families from sending their children.

Exit. Every project needs a clear exit strategy, with a gradual phase-out, so that the beneficiaries do not all find themselves out of work on the same day. UNDP cites one bridge: withholding part of the wage and paying it into a bank account at the end of the work period, as in Burundi.

Payment. "Failure to pay workers on time can lead to discontent, conflict and negative media coverage," UNDP writes. The evaluation of an ILO project in Leyte, in the Philippines, after Haiyan, shows what happens otherwise: because of the government's normal procedures, payments arrived one to two months after the work was done. "Such delays in payment defeats the purpose of the initiative," the evaluator concludes, and they create tensions between local governments and their residents.

Haiti: from daily wage to cubic meter¶

After the January 2010 earthquake, UNDP employs, among others, 1,000 residents of six neighborhoods of Bel Air, in Port-au-Prince, to clear rubble-choked streets and clean out canals. In the debris removal program, teams work two to four weeks, six days a week, at the minimum wage, and rotate so that more families benefit. In 2011, UNDP switches to cash for production: payment is by the cubic meter of debris removed, counted in trucks, wheelbarrows or containers. According to UNDP, workers were able to increase their income, sometimes significantly; but the transition was poorly understood and contested by workers used to a daily wage.

The independent evaluation of UNDP's programs draws the lesson: cash for work was a sound approach, but it "lasted too long and took time to evolve into a more constructive modality." It goes further for the programs as a whole: when the emphasis is on handing out money rather than on the results of the work, cash for work becomes a simple cash transfer.

Kobe: hiring cannot be decreed¶

In March 1995, two months after the Kobe earthquake, the Japanese government requires public works sites in the affected area to reserve up to 40% of their workforce for disaster survivors who had lost their jobs. According to the World Bank, a year later, only 30 people had been hired under this rule. Companies kept recruiting on the basis of profitability and efficiency, and no penalty was provided for.

An obligation does not create a skill. If disaster survivors do not have the trade a company is looking for, it hires elsewhere.

Aceh: training so the jobs stay local¶

For the Philippines after Haiyan, the World Bank summarized the lessons it had drawn from Aceh after the 2004 tsunami. Once reconstruction needs have been estimated, you need to calculate how many construction jobs they will create and check the labor available locally. In Aceh, some workers came from other regions of Indonesia; elsewhere, residents were trained "so the jobs could go to local people." Bringing in labor is sometimes necessary, "but it does create social jealousy." The other lessons in the box fit in two lines: organize training, guidance and job placement for jobseekers, especially in construction; and move quickly from paid work to restoring people's original livelihoods.

Training the craftspeople of reconstruction¶

What experience says¶

The World Bank handbook on post-disaster housing reconstruction (Safer Homes, Stronger Communities, 2010) devotes a chapter to training. It opens with this sentence: "Training is the intervention that most determines whether the housing reconstructed after a disaster is an improvement over what people had before". Its rules are the ones a business owner would apply:

Simple and concrete. The simpler the instructions, the better; a worker with modest skills can learn the basic requirements in a few days.
On the building site. On-the-job training is essential, and follow-up is needed throughout reconstruction.
Fast. "The more time that passes after the disaster, the greater the probability that people will begin to rebuild without any guidance or supervision."
With local resources. Check what exists in terms of institutes, trade associations and certifications; international experts must not crowd out local experts and builders.
Without overpromising. Do not build demonstration buildings that raise hopes of a quality the available aid cannot pay for.

Pakistan: a skill that outlives the building site¶

After the earthquake of October 8, 2005, Pakistan opts for owner-driven reconstruction, with grants paid in tranches according to progress and compliance with standards, and training centers. How many people were trained? The Asian Development Bank's project completion report gives 783,314 people trained in the reconstruction authority's centers; the same report mentions elsewhere 25,000 master trainers who trained more than 200,000 homeowners; an expert report claimed more than 250,000 people trained. The scopes are not defined, and the three figures cannot be compared.

The most interesting result lies elsewhere. According to the reconstruction authority's social impact study, as reported by the Asian Development Bank, in 2009, 72% of the houses built since the earthquake without any grant used earthquake-resistant techniques. The know-how stayed in the hands of masons and homeowners after the payments ended. The same report notes a limit: homeowners waited on average more than a month for corrective instructions, and often had neither the time nor the means to wait.

Certification¶

The Nepal PDNA recommends, in the medium term, training based on actual labor market demand, and adds that it is essential for the certificates issued to be recognized by the national vocational training institution. A recognized certificate follows the mason to the next building site; a project attendance certificate stays in a drawer.

What turns training into a job¶

Start from the employer¶

The CED guide sets the rule for normal times: you do not train people for trades the market does not need. After a disaster, the most obvious employer is reconstruction itself, but it is not the only one. The ILO's rapid assessment manual asks, before any training: Is the training based on a market assessment? Does what is offered match the needs of the labor market? Is there on-the-job training?

The evaluation of the ILO project in Leyte illustrates this. The training offered covered carpentry, food processing, and bamboo and woven-grass handicrafts. Few people earned an income from it. The evaluator notes that handicrafts require the support of an entire value chain, impossible within a relief program, and concludes that the trades taught should be those "with a clear demand within trainees' own neighborhood."

An example on a club's scale¶

This example comes from Lebanon, after the 2006 war: a post-conflict setting that this book does not cover, but whose method carries over to a disaster. Two nongovernmental organizations train displaced people returning home in plumbing and electrical installation. The course lasts ten weeks: five of theory, five of practice in houses in their own villages, under the guidance of working craftspeople, who themselves received four days of training of trainers. The trainees keep their tools. Of 42 enrolled, 37 finish, and 28 had found a job by the end of the course.

Everything that makes this small program work is within a club's reach: working craftspeople as trainers, a trade needed for reconstruction but useful after it, practice in the neighborhood, and tools that stay.

A Rotary project: Khokana¶

In Khokana, a Newar village of about 7,000 people nine kilometers from Kathmandu, the 2015 earthquake completely destroyed about 550 houses and damaged 307 others, out of 900 households. The Rotary Club of Mississauga-Meadowvale (Canada), with the Rotary Club of Patan (Nepal) as host club, puts together a community economic development global grant with two objectives: strengthening the local women's awareness association of Khokana, and giving about 150 women affected by the earthquake income-generating skills, close to home. According to the district page reporting on it, the sewing and straw-weaving courses are finished, the cooking course nearly so, and the trainees are doing their practical training; two more sessions are planned, but in July and August the women are busy transplanting rice. According to Rotary Great Britain and Ireland, dozens of women had already been trained in productive activities, management, marketing and building their links with markets.

According to the same page, the project runs from May 15, 2017 to December 31, 2018, so it started two years after the earthquake, and it costs $42,263. The Rotary sources give no income results. It still shows two things: a global grant can carry a skills project after a disaster, and it works through a local association that will stay. The farming calendar, for its part, is a reminder that training fits around people's lives, not the other way around.

After the building site¶

Demand for masons will fall. We recommend choosing, where possible, trades that are also useful in normal times (electrical work, plumbing, carpentry, repair), and preparing access to savings or credit during training for those who will set up on their own (Chapter 6). The Beira trial, presented in the same chapter, points the same way: after the cyclone, it was the carpenters, whose services reconstruction was demanding, that a small grant helped most.

Employment services matter too. ILO Recommendation 205, adopted in 2017, asks states to restore and strengthen public employment services, including emergency employment services; the 2021 ILO-UNDP guide describes them as bridges between jobseekers and vacancies when supply and demand are changing fast. A club can offer its employer members to these services, or organize its own job board for the building sites in its area.

Decent work, even in an emergency¶

Recommendation 205 sets benchmarks your club should know, even though they are addressed to states.

Safety. It calls for "safe and decent working conditions, including the provision of personal protective equipment and medical assistance for all workers, including those engaged in rescue and rehabilitation activities." Its references to safety and health "apply equally to persons in volunteer work participating in crisis response": we conclude that they apply to your club's volunteers.
Women. It calls for measures to ensure that women who have been employed during the crisis "are not replaced against their will when the male workforce returns."
Children. The PDNA guidelines accept that some labor law requirements may be suspended during the emergency, but never the standards on the worst forms of child labor or slavery.
Businesses. The Recommendation asks employers' organizations to "assist sustainable enterprises, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises, to undertake business continuity planning to recover from crises by means of training, advice and material support." A club of business owners is not an employers' organization, but it has the skills of one.

What the club does¶

The roles¶

Your club does not run a paid work program itself: the rules on wages, selection, insurance and payment require an organization few clubs have. It does not train masons itself. It connects.

Action	Who leads it	What the club does
Paid work	local government, NGO, agency	cofunds, checks rates and pay delays, provides equipment
Building trades training	recognized center, master craftspeople	finds the sites and working trainers
Apprenticeship	local businesses	mobilizes its employer members
Job placement	employment service, placement committee	sets up a committee before the course ends
Reconstruction purchasing	project owners	asks for local craftspeople and suppliers
Self-employment	lender, savings group	connects graduates with a financial partner

When your club funds a building project itself, it can write into the specifications the hiring of craftspeople and suppliers from the area. After Haiyan, the World Bank proposed requiring reconstruction contractors to hire unskilled workers from affected communities and using public works as an opportunity to train them in construction trades.

The Rotary Foundation's rules¶

The Foundation's CED guidelines, in their April 2024 version, require that training not be a one-off: "It shouldn't be a standalone course or one-time intervention." For an existing training program, the project must improve its quality or reach: "Simply improving the physical facility or replacing existing equipment doesn't meet the requirements for a global grant." Any major equipment requires a three- to five-year financial plan. Global grants can also fund vocational training teams, groups of professionals who travel abroad to train local professionals. They pay for nothing prior to their approval; Chapter 10 draws the consequences for the timeline. Check these rules against the current Terms and Conditions on My Rotary.

Pitfalls¶

Pitfall	Why it happens	Remedy
Training with no site or employer	training is easy to organize	link each session to real building sites
Training only for the reconstruction peak	demand is visible and urgent	trades useful afterward, recognized certificate
Paying above market for work	you want to help more	rate set with the other actors
Paying late	the partner's usual procedures	check pay delays before cofunding
Letting paid work drag on	it is popular and visible	exit date and bridge from the start
Decreeing hiring quotas	it seems simple	train for the trades businesses seek
Handicraft training with no outlet	the project seems suited to women	trades in demand in the neighborhood itself
Bringing in skilled labor	it is faster	train local residents from the start

What your club now has in hand¶

Your recovery file now gets its "skills" section: the trades targeted, with the demand that justifies them; the employers and building sites committed; the training partner and the certification; and what will become of the people trained once reconstruction is over.

In Nepal, training masons was not enough; they had to be sent to the building sites, alongside the families. A skill is only worth something when it is linked to demand. And demand, for farmers, fishers and traders, runs through markets and chains in which one link has often broken: that is the subject of the next chapter.