THE QII PRINCIPLES IN ACTION Lao PDR Maximizing the benefits of Ph oto © public workfare programs La oP ov ert yR ed uc tio nF un d The World Bank’s Road Maintenance Group project in the Lao QII.5 People’s Democratic Republic offered road maintenance jobs to SOCIAL women in remote villages, targeting the poorest households. The project had three objectives: to increase the longevity of new roads, mitigate poverty, and empower participants. An independent evaluation revealed that the program significantly increased women’s engagement in paid work, plus their earnings and empowerment. While increasing welfare among all participants, the project had higher impacts on relatively less poor households. A study conducted under a grant from the Quality Infrastructure Investment (QII) Partnership provides insights into these results as well as recommendations on how better to integrate social inclusion and gender equality in programs. THE DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGE Although Laos is now a lower-middle-income country, large parts of the population remain vulnerable and are at risk of falling back into poverty. Interventions to fight poverty are needed, particularly among rural communities. Road networks play a critical role in development, linking businesses to markets and providing access to jobs plus essential services such as healthcare and education. Roads thus contribute to economic growth and reduce poverty. Laos’ Poverty Reduction Fund (PRF), supported by the World Bank, has invested in connecting remote villages to highways via dirt access roads. However, these roads typically become unusable within a few years due to the country’s harsh rainy season. To address this, the PRF set up Road Maintenance Groups with three overarching objectives: to extend the life of access roads, create job opportunities for the poor, and empower women. JapanGov JUNE 2023 The Government of Japan PROJECT OVERVIEW their opportunities. Families with small children or sick relatives, for example, spent their extra money immedi- A pilot project, from July 2018 to January 2020, provided ately on food, health, or education. Conversely, less-poor road maintenance jobs to women in rural villages with participants, who had other sources of income through recently constructed access roads. These jobs involved rice farming, part-time jobs, or remittances, were able to part-time minor road maintenance, such as fixing small use the new earnings to make investments. Less-poor potholes and cutting roadside vegetation. The program participants were also more likely to have land that could looked to target the poorest families and empower be used as collateral for loans, while some had prior women by providing an income-earning opportunity experience with investing and trading. outside the household. The research thus showed that the poorest households, The program was successful, providing jobs to the crippled by debt or without additional sources of income, poorest households in the villages and significantly were not able to use their earnings for investments, which improving welfare for all participants. However, even can extend the longevity of program impacts by enabling though all beneficiaries were below the poverty line, the households to diversify or invest in human capital. It also relatively better-off of these poor families diversified their became clear that the different impacts among poorer income sources more and experienced larger improve- beneficiaries could be an artifact of measurement: the ments in women’s empowerment. Women from these study, for example, did not capture paying off debts or relatively less-poor households increased their earnings food consumption. by approximately 15 percent more than did women from poorer households. Principle 5 of the QII Partnership is Integrating social considerations in infrastructure investment, and including As these results have implications for other public works the voices of women in infrastructure projects enables programs with similar objectives, the QII Partnership them to share in the benefits of such investments. The funded analytical work to explore further. A QII grant Road Maintenance Group program included poor women supported a series of in-depth interviews with women, as employees, providing them with higher income and a their spouses, and the heads of 11 villages, allowing the stronger voice in decision-making, even at home. project team to examine why income diversification and women’s empowerment were lower for the poorest beneficiaries. TAPPING INTO JAPANESE EXPERTISE The project was part of the joint action plan on gender EXPECTED OUTCOMES mainstreaming between the World Bank and the Japan The study offered recommendations that can International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in 2019. Feed- be applied to future public workfare programs. back from JICA experts was reflected in the project For example: design. The project team also collaborated with JICA • Public work programs, such as road maintenance on knowledge dissemination: in January 2022, it held a initiatives, have the potential to generate income webinar entitled Addressing Social Inclusion and Gender opportunities in remote areas. Mainstreaming in Infrastructure Investment: Lessons from • Complementary initiatives, such as training the Experiences of the World Bank and JICA, to share the or savings groups, can provide women with key findings of the project and provide opportunities for knowledge on how to channel their earnings World Bank and JICA counterparts to share experiences. to more productive uses. • The lessons learned from the study will enable APPLYING THE QII PRINCIPLES the World Bank to better integrate social inclusion The interviews found that the poorest households used and gender equality in future programs. the new income for immediate consumption, or to pay off debts, whereas the less poor could use it to expand The World Bank Group and the government of Japan established the Quality Infrastructure Investment (QII) Partnership to raise awareness and scale-up quality infrastructure investment aligned to G20 QII Principles in developing countries. The QII Partnership is managed by the Infrastructure Finance, PPPs & Guarantees (IPG) group within the World Bank Group. For more information, visit www.worldbank.org/QII or follow us on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/company/qii-partnership.