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Every three years, the International Labour Office (ILO) and the International Social Security Association (ISSA) organize, in conjunction with a national institution, the World Congress on Safety and Health at Work. The next Congress will be organized in collaboration with the Korean Occupational Safety and Health Agency (KOSHA) in Seoul, Republic of Korea from 29 June to July 2nd 2008 at the Convention and Exhibition Centre (COEX). The motto for the Congress is "Safety and Health at Work: A Societal Responsibility" while the main topics are as follows: For the first time in the history of the World Congress, a safety and health summit will be held on the first day of the Congress. High-level leaders, decision-makers, officials, corporate chief officers, senior employers' and workers' representatives as well as noted academics will be invited with a view to placing safety and health at work high on the world agenda. The theme for the Summit is "Safety and health as a basic human right and as a means for economic growth and development".
A joint delegation from the ISSA and the ILO visited KOSHA as part of the first International Organizing Committee (IOC) of the World Congress at the beginning of May 2006 to start preparing this major event. KOSHA which also serves as CIS National Centre in Korea was established in December 1987 while the CIS Centre was founded in 1989. KOSHA aims to contribute to the national economy by maintaining and improving safety and health conditions of workplaces through: the efficient implementation of projects such as research and development; the promotion of industrial accident prevention technologies; the provision of technical assistance and training; as well as inspection of dangerous facilities and equipment. The CIS National Centre is involved in various activities, including answering requests from KOSHA personnel (Headquarters and its 21 regional offices) using KOSHA Intranet and international information sources. It translated and published in Korean a number of chapters from the ILO Encyclopaedia on Occupational Health and Safety and plans to publish additional chapters; it is preparing an OSH dictionary in Korean (containing about 3,600 entries) and translated into Korean other practical documents (Booklet on construction, short guide from HSE on manual handling, etc). Finally, it has produced multilingual basic training materials for immigrant workers (in English, Chinese, Bahasa Indonesia, Bangla, etc.) available at http://wish.kosha.net/foreign/foreign.html. KOSHA also collaborates actively with other organizations or networks such as the Asia-Pacific Occupational Safety and Health Organization (APOSHO) and the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EASHW) in Bilbao. KOSHA became the focal point in Korea of the Bilbao Agency in February 2006.
Updated by AV. Approved by GS. Last update: 24.10.2006.
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