South Africa has called on African heads of state to use the forthcoming leaders’ summit in Ouagadougou in September to reiterate their 2004 decision that employment should remain central to continent’s socio-economic policies.
The call was made at the 103rd session of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) International Labour Conference (ILC) in Geneva, on Friday. Sipho Ndebele, chief director of international relations at the Department of Labour, told the session that maintaining such focus would help lift the continent out of the unemployment morass.
He was speaking on the topic focusing on how the International Labour Organisation, along with member states, could promote the inclusion of employment goals in the post-2015 sustainable development agenda.
He said the way forward lay in taking up the challenge of employment and ensuring a significant scaling up of actions in support of employment promotion policies at the global and national level.
“Coherence and complementarity between pro-employment macro-economic frameworks and labour market interventions to promote jobs should be promoted,’’ Ndebele said.
He said priority sectors with the potential for employment creation included manufacturing as well as infrastructure investment.
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