ROME/GENEVA (ILO News) – As part of the forthcoming 2011 Global South-South Development Expo, the International Labour Organization (ILO) will be hosting a Solution Exchange Forum on social protection, decent work and food security on 6 December at FAO headquarters in Rome, Italy (Red Room, 13:00–15:30). The ILO hosted the 2010 edition of the Global South-South Development Expo, and is now demonstrating a number of its good practices and strategies to promote horizontal cooperation while promoting Decent Work.

The ILO-coordinated event will address a range of issues related to food security and will showcase innovative solutions and mechanisms to improve food security through decent work and social protection.

Decent jobs and social protection are being increasingly recognized as effective instruments in addressing the issue of food insecurity. With close to one billion people suffering from chronic hunger worldwide, as well as the current trend of increasing food prices that further exacerbates income inequalities and makes for more poverty, hunger, social unrest and political instability, the need to act is pressing.

“Strategies that invest in decent and productive employment and social protection can accelerate economic growth, stimulate food production, processing and accessibility, and provide incomes to allow large parts of the population to exit poverty and food insecurity”, says Alette van Leur, Director of the ILO’s Sectoral Activities Department, who will be moderating the panel.

A Social Protection Floor aims to guarantee basic income security and access to essential social services which has a direct effect on both food production and consumption. Evidence from developing countries has shown that regular cash transfers are mostly spent on food and investment in livestock or agriculture. Increased consumption also supports agricultural demand for local services which has a direct knock-on effect on agricultural production.

The Forum will also highlight the increasing recognition of the importance of social protection as a strategy against child labour, particularly in times of economic and food crisis. Child labour in the agriculture sector, which includes farming, fishing, aquaculture and livestock, continues to be a major problem in many parts of the world and represents the sector where a majority of all child labour is found, with 70% of all child labour engaged in these activities.

The event will be the occasion to present the preliminary edition of joint “FAO-ILO Good Practice Guide for Addressing Child Labour in Fisheries and Aquaculture: Policy and Practice”. This preliminary version of the will be made available to stakeholders, including social partners, for comment, and the final version will be published early next year.

The Solution Forum on Food Security and Social Protection is an opportunity for the ILO to demonstrate its integrated approach to South South Cooperation for the promotion of the decent work agenda. The ILO will also have a key role in other events of the GSSD 2011 edition, including the High Level meeting on development cooperation and the South-South Stakeholder meeting, where the ILO will present its development cooperation strategy.

List of speakers:

Dr Sammy Nyambari, Commissioner for Labour, Head of the Department of Labour and Secretary to the National Labour Board, will deliver a presentation, entitled ”Towards a Systems Approach in South-South Cooperation Anchored on Decent Work: Tangible Labour Market Examples and Lessons Learned from Kenya”.

Mr Renato Bignami, Brazil’s Deputy Secretary of Labour inspection, will talk about the “Programa de Alimentação ao Trabalhador" (PAT)”, a nutritional programme targeting low income workers aimed at improving nutritional conditions and, consequently, promoting better health and productivity. The scheme involves the government, workers and companies.

Ms Vicenta Trotman, a community leader and a member of the Administrative Board of Rural Water Supply in the Ngäbe-Buglé indigenous territory of the No-Kribo region in Panama, will speak about her community’s experience with the Joint UN Water and Sanitation Project, an MDG-F project under the ILO’s Employment Intensive Investment technical assistance.

Mr. Say Sam On, Coordinator for the Cambodian Union Federation, will discuss the importance of eliminating child labour in the fishing and aquaculture sector in Cambodia.

Dr Guilherme Costa Delgado will demonstrate how two public policies in Brazil – Social Security and Agricultural Policy – focusing on small rural producers have a positive convergent impact on the improvement of social protection and food security levels in his country.

For more information, please contact: Francesca Ferrari, ILO Rome, Tel: +3906/6784-334, mobile: +39338/9536-855 or the ILO Department of Communication and Public Information in Geneva on +4122/799-7912, communication@ilo.org.