WTI project team organise a conference on sustainable employment

The keynote speaker was Lena Einsele from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) who talked about measuring the effectiveness of Swiss international cooperation in the field of employment.

Presentations were given by researchers from Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia, the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, and the University of Ghana.

The r4d Employment Project aims to find out whether there are policy instruments that may create and sustain “good” jobs in a developmental context by connecting local enterprises with international markets, stimulating technological upgrading, and restructuring the regulation and functioning of labour markets. It is divided into six country sub-projects, involving institutions in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Ghana, Madagascar, South Africa and Vietnam.

R4d Employment is part of the Swiss Programme for Research on Global Issues for Development. It receives funding from the SDC and the Swiss National Science Foundation. The first project phase runs from February 2014 until February 2017.

The r4d project team in Bern also organised a PhD summer school in Bern from 22 August until 2 September. Held for the first time, the summer school included courses on ‘Trade and Labour in Developing Economies’ and ‘Advanced Panel Data Econometrics’.