Today Petter Matthews took part in the launch of “Routledge Handbook on Labour in Construction and Human Settlements”, edited by Edmundo Werna and George Ofori.

Labour in construction is an area extremely familiar to Engineers Against Poverty, including our core thematic areas, social inclusion and engineering capacity. Achievements of this work include advocating for better conditions for migrant construction workers in Qatar where some recommendations we made in 2012 were implemented before the Men’s World Cup in 2022, such as making it easier for workers to change employers and an electronic payment system. 

EAP’s former Senior Policy Adviser, Jill Wells, worked on this area, and is one of the chapter authors in the book, focused on the same topic. As part of our work around labour in construction, we have also provided over a dozen countries with support in technical assistance and capacity building. 

Both Edmundo Werna and George Ofori have played an important role in EAP’s history. Edmundo Werna is an EAP Associate, which focuses on mutual opportunities to work together across infrastructure, gender and social inclusion, capacity building including training and engineering education. George Ofori is a former board member of both EAP and CoST, which EAP manages. In these roles, he strongly advocated on behalf of both organisations, including speaking at EAP’s anniversaries, panels, workshops and CoST member events covering topics such as infrastructure governance, CoST’s work and membership, open contracting, mitigating corruption and more. 

Alongside the co-editors, the launch had a range of academic speakers, and representatives from organisations including the International Labour Organisation, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, United Nations Environment Programme and United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS).

The book provides a detailed examination of the relationship between the global workforce and development; employment generation, policies, practices and quality; climate literacy and climate justice; migration and wage theft; culture; gender; smart cities and the Global South. This includes considerations around poverty in the workforce. It explores problems and potential solutions to this vital topic. It is recommended to those across construction, business and management, economic development, urban studies, sociology, political science and project management. Find out more about, and purchase the book here.