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EAC, ILO agree to improve work environment in East Africa

Xinhua,May 11, 2018 Adjust font size:

ARUSHA, Tanzania, May 10 (Xinhua) -- The East African Community (EAC) and the International Labor Organization (ILO) Thursday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) aimed at improving the work environment in East Africa.

The pact, which was signed at the EAC headquarters in the northern safari capital of Arusha, by EAC Secretary General, Liberat Mfumukeko and Wellington Chibebe, the Director of the ILO Country Office in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, will address issues such as youth employment, extension of social security, and Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women at the workplace.

The MoU is a follow up to another one that was signed between the two organizations in 2001. The 2002 MoU enabled the EAC and ILO to develop and launch a five-year East African Decent Work Program (2010-2015).

Mfumukeko said that the revised MoU provides for the development of a framework for the harmonization of the EAC Partner States' policies on social security in line with the ILO Convention on Social Security (Minimum Standards) No. 102 of 1952.

"The MoU further provides for the expansion of micro, small and medium enterprises for employment creation. Also included is the development of an EAC labor migration policy as one of the facilitators of labor mobility in the Community," Mfumukeko said.

He said the community was striving to address youth unemployment as a matter of priority, adding that having well-educated but unemployed youth out of work was a time bomb.

The EAC boss disclosed that EAC Partner States were addressing the issue by seeking to make agriculture as an attractive income-generating venture for the youth.

Chibebe said that his organization would work with the EAC to accelerate regional integration and at the same time ensure that the drivers of integration, that is the free movement of labor, goods, and services enhance livelihoods of the millions of working women and men and their families.

"We welcome the signing of this new Memorandum of Understanding, which will be based firmly on a new DWP for East Africa, addressing strategically prioritized areas agreed upon by the ILO on one side and the EAC and the East African social partner organizations on the other side," said Chibebe.

Chibebe said that giving financial assistance to the needy instead of equipping them with vocational skills was akin to creating a culture of perpetual dependency. Enditem

 

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