SAFEWORK: Occupational Health and Safety

The prevalence of occupational disabling injuries and diseases including fatal cases repor ted in the member States is a major cause for concern and is a direct reflection that the level of protection of workers against occupational hazards is highly inadequate. Member States are faced with the challenge of addressing the agenda of Decent Work through the national and enterprise implementation of effective safety and health programmes based on a proactive preventive schemes.

The ILO/SRO-Harare continues to enhance its activities to provide technical cooperation and assistance to member States to ratify and implement the obligations of the Occupational Health and Safety Conventions through programmes that target the highly hazardous occupations in agriculture, mining, construction and those involving use of chemicals among the covered areas of concern. Focus has also been directed to the motivation and encouragement of member States to develop and implement operational strategies to address the specific OSH concerns through development of national policies and legal reform to improve the working conditions and environment.