41 B Session of the African Regional Labour Administration Centre (ARLAC) Governing Council of Ministers 10 June 2015

Transcription

1 41 B Session of the African Regional Labour Administration Centre (ARLAC) Governing Council of Ministers 10 June 2015 Remarks by: Aeneas C. Chuma ILO Assistant Director-General and Regional Director for Africa 1

2 Chairperson of the ARLAC Governing Council, Honourable Priscah Mupfumira; Honourable Ministers; Delegates; Colleagues; Thank you so much for inviting me to attend this session of the ARLAC Governing Council. This is my second time to meet with you in my capacity as ILO Regional Director for Africa. I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate you, Honourable Chairperson of the ARLAC Governing Council and Honourable Ministers, members of ARLAC here present, for the continued work you are doing for ARLAC. The ILO recognizes that an effective and operational labour administration machinery is crucial for achieving social justice. This has been demonstrated over the years. Since we last met, I have had an occasion to officially visit many of your countries; I have also had the opportunity to visit your sister council in Yaoundé, Cameroon - CRADAT. I feel more confident, therefore, that I meet you this year with a deeper understanding of the issues and challenges you face as a labour administration centre. I would like to commend the Honourable Priscah Mupfumira, Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare of Zimbabwe and Chairperson of the ARLAC Governing Council, for having assumed the Chair of ARLAC and for having successfully chaired the ARLAC Governing Council in February this year. I commend the Honorable Minister s commitment to advancing the mandate of ARLAC as a centre of labour administration excellence. In particular, I congratulate ARLAC, through its Chairperson, for the ongoing ARLAC job evaluation exercise, which has been launched to determine the appropriate staffing levels and structures of ARLAC in light of its responsibilities. This exercise will undoubtedly be very helpful in determining the appropriate organization of ARLAC s capacities in order to deliver its important mandate. Rest assured that the ILO will accompany you in this reform effort. 2

3 Honourable Chairperson, Honourable Ministers, We are gathered here in Geneva on the occassion of the 104 th Session of the International Labour Conference, where we are being called upon to examine the place of work, not only in the present, but indeed, in the future of our societies. We are here to discuss some of the key challenges for labour administration today, among them employment creation through enterprise development, ways out of informality and advancing social protection. Not least, these are essential concerns for the region we all represent Africa. I am grateful for this opportunity to share with the ARLAC Governing Council some of my reflections on the decent work challenges and opportunities that confront the African region, and which have implications for effective labour administration. Ladies and Gentlemen, To most observers, Africa has turned a corner. Growth is solid. Exports are growing. Foreign direct investment is flowing. Remittances continue to grow, exceeding 67 billion US dollars in alone. Africa is on the rise! Six of the world s ten fastest growing economies are in Africa, with GDP growth averaging over five per cent in recent years. Some economies have recorded double-digit growth rates. However, we also know that below the surface of this growth optimism, the undercurrents are still very strong. Decent work deficits, strong inequalities, persistent poverty, increasing informality and gender discrimination are some of the major challenges in the daily reality of African people. We are learning, the hard way, that the growth model developed over the last decades does not always serve Africa well. A few months ago, in Addis Ababa, during the 24 th Ordinary Session of the African Union Assembly, Heads of State and Government adopted the Declaration and Plan of Action on Employment, Poverty Eradication and Inclusive Development. This was a milestone politically 3

4 and strategically as it reconfirms the commitment of African leaders to place employment at the centre of their economic and social policies. Esteemed Participants, The need for a new policy paradigm to promote inclusive job-rich growth has been underscored in numerous policy debates, including in the African Union s Agenda 2063, which calls for the transformation, growth and industrialisation of our economies. Let me focus on three imperatives that I see as essential in this respect: For economic transformation and sustained growth to occur, African governments need to address three binding constraints: First: Bridging the infrastructure gap. Africa s underdeveloped infrastructure has been a longstanding barrier to accelerated and sustained growth. Roads, railways, ports and reliable electricity supply the lifeblood of all economic activity have suffered from decades of mismanagement and chronic underinvestment. On average, African governments have tended to invest less than 10% of GDP in building infrastructure while other developing regions have invested on average twice that level. Second: Deepening regional integration. Most African economies are too small to diversify and develop a competitive manufacturing base without expanding trade links to regional markets and deepening integration. Countries with large populations Nigeria with 180 million people or Ethiopia with 90 million people have the advantage of a large and growing consumer base but most African economies are too small to draw significant investment on their own. Big private sector investors, domestic and international, with the capacity to make transformative investments are looking for big regional markets to make their investments worthwhile. Further, they want to be able to draw on regional supply chains and an expanded pool of labour and inputs to bolster efficiency and competitiveness. Integration has been an African aspiration since independence but progress to date has been uneven, challenged by various barriers including uneven political commitment, fear of being overwhelmed by wealthier, larger neighbours and of course the lack of physical infrastructure. The colonial hang-ups also remain: at independence, most African states inherited a transportation infrastructure designed to move primary commodities from inland to a port to European capitals. This remains so for many countries. 4

5 Third: Building a capable workforce and expanding employment opportunities. If African economies are to move up the value chain and lay the foundation for more sophisticated and competitive manufacturing and services capacity, governments need to invest in their young citizens to become competent and capable participants in the workforce of the future. The human capacity challenge in Africa is two-fold. First, there is simply a shortage of jobs in quantitative terms to meet the demands of an increasingly well-educated generation of young people. Much of this problem is due to the structural underdevelopment of African economies which continue to rely on the production and export of primary commodities and capital intensive extractive industries. At the same time there is a shortage of suitably qualified workers to fill the limited number of skilled jobs available. This stems largely from the longstanding mismatch between the demand and supply of labour. Beyond the structural and binding constraints outlined above, there is one additional point that needs to be kept in mind: Embracing technology in promoting structural transformation and sustained growth. The African Union s Agenda 2063 envisages well educated citizens and skills revolution underpinned by science, technology and innovation for a knowledge society However, the current information and communications technology (ICT) revolution is resulting in a widening global digital divide for Africa. Unless this is addressed urgently, the employment aspirations and productivity potential of millions of workers in scores of developing countries cannot be realized. Access to the technologies and ensuring that workers possess the education and skills to use them are the fundamental policies that developing countries need to consider. Honourable Chairperson, Honourable Ministers, What I have just said presents the challenges that our labour administration systems should address. Labour administration is vital to efforts aimed at creating jobs for our youth, extending the coverage of social protection systems at the country level and ensuring that our efforts do not erode the rights of workers. In this connection, labour administration must increasingly be accorded a high profile as it has become a key factor in the elaboration and implementation of governments economic and social policies. 5

6 Indeed, the building blocks for effective social dialogue include well-resourced institutions for tripartite social dialogue, mechanisms and processes that promote sound labour relations and a solid legislative foundation for labour relations. In this respect, ARLAC is an important element in our institutional framework. Its programmes are a major component of our strategy to build the capacity of the labour administrations of member States and develop the human resources at their disposal. The ILO has been pleased and honoured, despite our limited resources, to contribute both technically and financially to ARLAC s successes over the years. I am committed to continuing this support to continuously assisting member states to put in place coordinated labour administration systems. But the ILO s support is not enough by far and the mobilization of resources through other partnerships is essential for the realization of ARLAC s outcomes. I encourage member States to take full ownership of ARLAC and invest your resources to strengthen ARLAC to become a top institution, regionally and globally. In addition, I encourage ARLAC to remain focused in terms of coverage and to deepen the contents of its training programme to make it more attractive to member States and partners. Lastly, I also encourage ARLAC to regularly convene a meeting of Permanent and Principal Secretaries and Directors-General prior to your Governing Council meetings, as is mandated by the rules of procedure of ARLAC s Governing Council. These meetings constitute important fora for providing inputs to the annual Programme and Budget of ARLAC. Thank you for your attention. 6