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Every four years the ILO African Regional Meeting brings together ILO's tripartite constituents from its 53 Member
States in Africa to discuss developments in the world of work in Africa and provide guidance for the work of the ILO in the
region in the following years. The 11th African Regional Meeting took place at the United Nations Conference Centre in
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from 23 to 27 April 2007.
At the African Union Extraordinary Summit on Employment and Poverty Alleviation that took place in Ouagadougou in September
2004, the Heads of State and Government present committed themselves to,"…place employment creation as an explicit and central
objective of our economic and social policies at national, regional and continental levels, for sustainable poverty alleviation
and with a view to improving the living conditions of our people". Since the Summit the goal of generating full and productive
employment and decent work for all has taken centre stage not only on the African continent but has become a global goal.
In paragraph 47 of the outcome document of the UN World Summit in September 2005, world leaders reaffirmed their commitment
to the goal of full and productive employment and decent work as an important element of the efforts to achieve the Millenium
Development Goals. This was followed by a commitment at the July 2006 High Level Segment of the UN's ECOSOC meeting to "creating
an environment at the national and international levels, conducive to generating full and productive employment and decent work
for all…".
The 11th African Regional Meeting defined the steps that Member States, the ILO and its development partners
need to take in the coming years to make decent work a reality in the region and thus provide an effective way to reduce poverty
in a sustainable fashion. Debate at the meeting centred around two reports presented by the ILO's Director-General.
The first report describe how the ILO has worked with its Member States and development partners,
particularly the African Union Commission and the Regional Economic Communities, to implement the Plan of Action adopted by the
Ouagadougou Summit. The second report, entitled Decent Work: A Global goal, an African Reality, identifies a number of policies
and practical actions that are necessary to implement the decent work agenda in the different areas of ILO's mandate: international
labour standards and fundamental rights at work; employment; social protection and social dialogue.
The ILO also issued two new publications on the occasion of the meeting. One, entitled Success Africa II , describes
some 35 examples of efforts undertaken or underway to further decent work in the region. The other, entitled African Employment Trends , outlines and analyzes the employment situation in the region.
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