Labor markets and the diversity and quality of jobs that are available play a critically important role in the resilience of extremely poor households and their long-term pathway out of poverty. Through its Leveraging Economic Opportunities (LEO) project, USAID is exploring strategies to further the inclusive nature of market systems development, and labor is one important element of this.

In this webinar, Lucy Scott of ODI's Chronic Poverty Advisor Network framed the importance of labor, drawing on recent research from ODI's Working Out of Chronic Poverty: an Employment Policy Guide. Marian Boquiren of SDC Asia presented her experience as an implementer merging labor market development work with the very poor within the context of a broader mariculture value chain development project in the Philippines. Marian shared how her project applied both push and pull strategies at various sequenced stages including private sector-provided asset bundles, technical training, aspiration and behavior change interventions, linkages and relationship building, and market development work to facilitate more inclusive systems and pathways out of poverty for the poor.

Relive this exciting LEO project-sponsored webinar, hosted by SEEP's Market Facilitation Initiative (MaFI) and the Strengthening the Economic Potential of the Ultra Poor (STEP UP) Working Group.

Related Resources:

• The Chronic Poverty Report 2014/2015: The Road to Zero Extreme Poverty
• Working out of Chronic Poverty: A Policy Guide
• Pro-poorest Economic Growth: Employment and Social Assistance Contributions to the Eradication of Extreme Poverty
• Rethinking Lessons in Tackling Chronic and Extreme Poverty in Bangladesh
• Escaping poverty in Tanzania: What can we Learn from Cases of Success?

Related Webinars:

• Inclusive Market Development Framework: from Theory to Practice
• Improving Food Security through Inclusive Markets
• Building More Inclusive Markets by Integrating the Extremely Poor

Speakers:

Marian Boquiren - Co-Founder and Manager, SDC Asia

Marian Boquiren has more than 20 years of experience, specializing in the design, management, and implementation of enterprise development programs focusing on non-financial support structures for MSME development and pro-poor value chain development. As manager of SDC Asia, a local Philippine non-profit organization she co-founded in 2003 after many years with Swisscontact, Marian is involved in projects that employ a market systems approach to meet varying development objectives, including scaling up, reaching the very poor, environment, and labor and employment promotion. In 2013, she led a snapshot assessment of six VCs for the ILO aimed at identifying labor and enterprise development opportunities for Muslim out-of-school youths and marginalized communities. From 2011 to 2013, she provided guidance in the implementation of the Livelihood Component of ILO's International Program on Elimination of Child Labor in the Philippines. Marian has been an active advisor to USAID's LEO and AMAP contracts, particularly in the area of facilitation, reaching the very poor, and behavior change.

Lucy Scott - Research Officer, ODI's Chronic Poverty Advisory Network

Lucy Scott is a Research Officer with ODI's Chronic Poverty Advisory Network and has co-authored several reports dealing with chronic poverty and labor, including Working Out of Chronic Poverty: an Employment Policy Guide, and The Chronic Poverty Report 20147-2015: The Road to Zero Extreme Poverty. She has a focus on policy and program approaches to reduce extreme and chronic poverty, how poverty reduction can be incorporated into climate change responses and mixed methods approaches to monitoring and evaluation. Lucy is also an External Associate of the Brooks World Poverty Institute at the University of Manchester where she completed her PhD. This investigated the processes resulting from the implementation of a large-scale asset transfer program in north-west Bangladesh with the mandate to reduce extreme poverty. She has worked as a long-term consultant in a range of contexts including for the World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), the Chronic Poverty Research Centre at ODI, and on the Chars Livelihoods Program in Bangladesh.

Moderator:

Anna Garloch - Director at ACDI/VOCA and LEO Learning Coordinator