Economic Development, Investment & Jobs

Advancing economic development, attracting private sector investment and creating more and better jobs are identified as key drivers of growth and poverty reduction in DFID’s Economic Development Strategy, with cities playing a crucial role.

These themes also sit at the heart of ICED’s work in providing guidance and exploring approaches to improve the enabling environment for sustainable, inclusive economic development, alongside more targeted support to DFID advisers to implement the Department’s Economic Development Strategy.

Areas of focus for ICED’s work in the economic development, investment and jobs space include:

• Exploring ways to increase economic opportunities for young people through infrastructure and cities investments and programming
• Understanding links between labour productivity and access to WASH infrastructure in the informal economy
• Identifying opportunities and barriers to the construction industry being a source of productive and decent job creation in low income countries
• Developing a framework to assess construction sector capacity and exploring new, smart and digital forms of construction applicable to low income countries
• Undertaking a strategic review of Tanzania’s digital landscape and opportunities to leverage digital interventions to support youth employment and better urban service delivery
• Assessing the effectiveness and broader value for money of subordinated investments on the mobilisation of private capital for infrastructure, on deepening of impact and on wider investment confidence and behaviour.

See a full list of resources under the themes below:

1. Frontier Technologies

2. Digital Technologies

3. Economic Evidence for Infrastructure Growth

4. Inclusive Urban Finance

5. Informality

6. Finance for Infrastructure

7. Finance for Water

8. Improved Infrastructure Programming

9. Construction Sector Employment in Low Income Countries

10. Value for Money (VfM) in FCAS