This activity provides livelihood opportunities and responds to urgent service delivery needs in urban areas. Implementation of activities is managed by UNOPS as the Implementing Partner (IP) and delivered through private sector contractors. This promotes local capacity for civil works implementation  Labor intensive works cover 520 sub projects across eight cities (namely Kabul, Herat, Mazar, Kandahar, Jalalabad, Kunduz, Bamyan and Khost Matun) which:

 (i) have witnessed a high influx of internally displaced persons (IDPs);

 (ii) were part of Community Investment Project (CIP)/EZ-Kar projects; and

 (iii) are hubs of economic and private sector activity. 

Subprojects are selected based on local priorities identified through Community Representative Groups (CRGs), Gozar Assemblies (GAs) or community consultative groups (CGs) in the target cities. Interventions are prioritized in:

 (i) sectors in which access to urban services are lacking; 

(ii) neighborhoods in which work opportunities are scarce;and

 (iii) intervention types that maximize the use of unskilled and semi-skilled labor. 

The selection of subprojects is also guided by a positive list of eligible investments, and a negative list, outlining projects which are prohibited due to substantial social and/or environmental impacts.

The project finances the engineering feasibility studies, surveys and design, implementation (labor, material, machinery) and engineering supervision costs for the LIWs. 40% of the budget for each subproject must be paid to the community who provide labor for the subprojects.    

LIWs provides an average of 28 days of work per beneficiary household directly benefiting approximately 115,000 IDP and vulnerable urban households. It is expected to reach 2.5 million Afghans