MAPUTO, Mozambique (ILO News) - The Director-General of the International Labour Office (ILO) will address a meeting of Foreign Ministers of the African Union on Tuesday, 8 July during the 2nd African Union Summit which continues through Saturday.
Juan Somavia is to warn that unless new ways are found to create opportunities for decent work for the world’s poor, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of reducing poverty by half by the year 2015 will remain beyond the reach of many countries in the region.
The ILO Director-General will expand on elements of his new report, entitled "Working out of Poverty" unveiled during the recent International Labour Conference in Geneva.
"We know that work is the best route out of poverty", Mr. Somavia says. "But we cannot legislate employment in and poverty out. It is a long and complex process requiring all elements of society to work together. We must harness the unique power of governments, employers and workers - the global community of work represented by the ILO’s constituents - to a concerted global drive against poverty.”
TMr. Somavia is to outline the scope of African poverty, in which :
- Slow growth in sub-Saharan Africa in the 1990s elevated the number of people living in poverty by 25 per cent, to nearly 500 million.
- One in six children between the ages of 5 and 14 (211 million) were doing some form of work in 2000. The highest incidence of child labour is found in sub-Saharan Africa, where 29 per cent of children between 5 and 11 work.
- A large number of African countries are unlikely to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of ensuring that all children complete a full course of primary education by 2015
- In most developing countries, young women and men face the choice of informal work or no work. In some countries in Africa, up to 55 per cent of the population is under 18 years old; youth unemployment is 56 per cent in South Africa and between 30 and 40 per cent in Algeria, Egypt and Morocco.
- In sub-Saharan Africa, statutory social security personal coverage is estimated at 10 percent of the working population and in some cases is decreasing.
"This decent work dividend involves providing more stable incomes and productive employment", Mr. Somavia says. "The ILO is doing this with programmes designed to create jobs, ensure basic rights and social protection at work, end discrimination and fight child labour. These also aim to provide access to financial services, skills development and training, healthier and safer work environments and more entrepreneurial opportunities for small businesses."