Trinidad and Tobago has experienced a consistent economic growth in the last decade, mainly driven by the Energy and related industries sector. The manufacturing sector, though decreasing its contribution to the country's GDP from 8% in 2001 to around 6% in 2006, grew by over 10% in real terms over the last 4 years. Overall, this sector employs over 55,000 workers, close to 10% of the total workforce, manufacturing in Trinidad and Tobago can be characterised as labour intensive. However, several labour related challenges are affecting the future sustainability and competitiveness of this sector, for example: low levels of labour productivity, high absenteeism and turnover; shortage of skilled local employees, difficulty in retaining the best employees and low levels of technological innovation and knowledge-transfer. These challenges have contributed to Trinidad and Tobago's slide in World Economic Forum's Competitiveness Rankings and are threatening the survival of the country's labour intensive manufacturing sector.The TTMA has partnered with the UN Development Program in a CSR Mapping Exercise in Trinidad and Tobago and will host the UN Global Compact Local Network . Based on research to date, the TTMA and key stakeholder organisations in the business and development communities have concluded that there is scope for the initiation and strengthening of internal CSR practices within labour intensive enterprises which will yield real gains in labour productivity. The project objectives are to demonstrate the gains and advantages of implementing internal CSR practices as evidenced by correspondent increases in labour productivity within participating companies, and also to develop a model through which this approach can be adopted and replicated by other companies in Trinidad and Tobago's labour intensive manufacturing and service sectors. The project will demonstrate benefits of implementing internal CSR initiatives to create safer and healthier work environments linked real labour productivity gains including increased employee motivation, reduced absenteeism and rate of employee turnover, and higher productivity and efficiency in production processes. Key components of the program will include the following: 1. Select 5 pilot firms with a labour force of 100-150 within Trinidad and Tobago's manufacturing sector (via a competitive process) 2.Pilot the design and implementation of internal CSR practices to improve labour productivity within selected 5 firms 3.Measure and Evaluate Results 4.Develop a CSR-Productivity toolkit based on pilot project results 5. Disseminate CSR-Productivity toolkit across the manufacturing and service sectors in Trinidad and Tobago.
Project Detail
Country
Trinidad and Tobago
Project Number
TT-M1012
Approval Date
January 18, 2008
Project Status
Closed
Project Type
Technical Cooperation
Sector
PRIVATE FIRMS AND SME DEVELOPMENT
Subsector
CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
Lending Instrument
Multilateral Investment Fund Instrument
Lending Instrument Code
MIF
Modality
-
Facility Type
-
Environmental and Social Impact Category (ESIC)
-
Total Cost
USD 165,000.00
Country Counterpart Financing
USD 50,000.00
Original Amount Approved
USD 115,000.00