The Department of Labour will host the ILO's 12th African Regional Meeting, in Johannesburg in the second week of October.
The theme of the conference is "Empowering Africa’s Peoples with Decent Work". The meeting will hold at the Sandton Convention Centre from 11 to 14 October 2011. Four heads of states, including President Jacob Zuma who will officially open the meeting, will attend alongside labour ministers and delegates from around the continent and the ILO Director General.
The Minister of Labour, Mildred Oliphant, who is hosting the meeting has welcomed the conference saying it is important for the country in particular and the continent in general.
“The theme of this conference fits in with our mandate as a department which enjoins us to create a labour market that is conducive to Investment, Economic Growth, Employment Creation and Decent work,” she said adding that she was particularly pleased that Gauteng government and the City of Johannesburg have come on board to make the conference a success.
Central to conference discussions will be; the progress made by the countries in the region towards achieving the targets set by the Decent Work Agenda in Africa for 2007-15, adopted by the 11th African Regional Meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 2007, and to set out future priority actions for the region to achieve the Decent Work Agenda in Africa.
Minister Oliphant added that South Africa had played and continues to play an important role within the ILO and has contributed to a number of ground-breaking conventions including the Decent Work for Domestic Workers convention adopted in June this year. “Work is already underway for us to ratify these and other conventions and give real meaning to the quest for decent work especially for vulnerable groups like farmworkers and domestic workers,” she said.
The meeting will be preceded by election of officers: the Chairperson of the Regional Meeting, and the Government, Employer and Worker Vice-Chairpersons. The meeting will also appoint the members of the “Credentials” Committee and the members of the Drafting Committee.
A number of discussions will be held during the plenary sessions. Key among these is a special debate on the theme of “Efficient Growth, Employment, and Decent Work in Africa: Time for a new vision”. There will also be a general debate on the Director-General, Juan Somavia’s report titled: Empowering Africa’s Peoples with Decent Work.
These discussions in plenary will be interspersed with a series of six parallel discussions on the following themes: women empowerment, rural employment, promoting national ownership of international labour standards; investing in skills and sustainable enterprises for decent work; industrial development and structural transformation as a path to decent work; and moving out of informality.
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Notes to editors:
The ILO was created in 1919, as part of the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I, to reflect the belief that universal and lasting peace can be accomplished only if it is based on social justice.
The Constitution was drafted between January and April, 1919, by the Labour Commission set up by the Peace Conference, which first met in Paris and then in Versailles. It resulted in a tripartite organisation, the only one of its kind bringing together representatives of governments, employers, and workers in its executive bodies.
The Constitution contained ideas tested within the International Association for Labour Legislation, founded in Basel in 1901. Advocacy for an international organisation dealing with labour issues began in the nineteenth century, led by two industrialists, Robert Owen (1771-1853) of Wales and Daniel Legrand (1783-1859) of France. The driving forces for ILO's creation arose from security, humanitarian, political, and economic considerations. Summarising them, the ILO Constitution's Preamble says the High Contracting Parties were 'moved by sentiments of justice and humanity as well as by the desire to secure the permanent peace of the world...'
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Media Statement on the upcoming International Labour Organisation (ILO) Regional Conference
