18th Regional Seminar for Labour-based Practioners “Towards sustainable and inclusive local development: local resource-based approaches and decent job creation”, 9-13 September 2019, Tunis, Tunisia.

Closing session - Friday, 13 September

Part 1: Field visit feedbacks
The final day was led by Mr. Jad Boubaker, Mr. Sami Montessari and the facilitator, Ms. Aya Frioui. Participants were first asked to share some of the experiences of the field trips. One person from each field trip shared their experiences. Overall the experience with the field trips was positive, only with the suggestion for the introduction of an electronic platform for collecting feedback.

Part 2: Seminar Evaluation
Subsequently, participants were asked to fill out the evaluation survey for the seminar.

Part 3: Development of the statement by the participants
One of the main activities of the final day was the release of the statement of the participants. The Tunis Statement of the Participants was presented to the seminar delegates by the representative of Benin at the seminar.
The statement of the participants was approved although some suggestions of improvement were made by some delegates. Several comments were made in order to include some measures to monitor the commitments being made in the seminar. In addition, one proposal was made to have an interim review after one year to ensure that the countries are on track to deliver the expected outcomes of the Ministerial Declaration. Another was to include commitments on climate change in the statement of the participants and to separate Minister’s commitments from the general information.
Consequently, the Seminar technical Committee has agreed to incorporate the delegates’ suggestions and the Tunis statement of the participants was approved. Then, the 337 delegates including 140 international participants, coming from 42 countries, across Africa, Latin America, Asia and Europe, commit themselves, to translate into concrete actions the Ministerial Declaration of Tunis which is articulated around the following 8 commitments:

• Put in place a strategy to diversify Employment-Intensive Investment Programmes (EIIP) into non-infrastructure works and services, to maximize employment opportunities and create sustainable livelihoods for the poor;
• Strengthen the capacity of public bodies, local institutions and communities through skills training that is aligned to national education systems and reflect national/sectoral priorities and that meet the labour market needs;
• Promote coordination and coherence of public policy and programmes and improve collaboration between the different implementation and governance structures;
• Take concrete measures to improve public procurement policies and procedures, at both central and decentralized levels, to ensure full involvement of community-based organizations;
• Design and implement public employment programmes in line with long-term national/sectoral policies and investment priorities and promote transparency and good governance;
• Sustain and strengthen the methodologies of employment impact studies, put in place appropriate monitoring and evaluation systems for Employment Intensive investment projects and strengthen the participation of local communities.

Part 4: Selection of the host of 19th Regional Seminar for Labour-based Practitioners
Four countries presented themselves as possible candidates for hosting the next seminar: Mauritania, Rwanda, Tanzania and Zambia. Each of the countries made a presentation to make their case. After an extensive election process, with anonymous voting the following results were obtained:
Total votes cast 139:

1. Rwanda 63
2. Tanzania 55
3. Zambia 10
4. Mauritania 10
5. Ukraine 1

The Director General from the Ministry of Public Service and Labour, Mr. Faustin Mwambari accepted the candidature of Rwanda and the audience welcomed the result with applause.

Part 5: Closing words
After the election, the seminar was closed with three speeches by:

• Ms. Mito Tsukamoto, Chief DEVINVEST, ILO (click here to download the statement)
• Mr. Halim Hamzaoui, Director ILO for the Maghreb
• Mr. Zied Laadhari Minister of Development and International Cooperation, Tunisia

The closing speakers thanked Organizing committee and EIIP team, as well as the Tunisian government for hosting the event. They looked forward to future collaboration between participants and congratulated the Rwandan delegation for being selected as a host for the 19th Regional Seminar, looking forward to seeing everyone in Rwanda in 2021.