More than one-third of the population in Pakistan is below the poverty line. The ILO is doing the reassessment of the level of poverty. About 6.1 percent of the total labour force of 38.6 million is unemployed and approximately 3.2 million children, representing 17 percent of the child-age population, are at work. Only 45 percent of the population is literate (33 percent of women). To deal with these problems the Government has put in place an articulate and an overall vision for economic revival and national development based on poverty reduction, accountability and good governance. The Government has endorsed a Poverty Reduction Plan (2001-2004) and had presented its Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (1-PRSP) to the Donors at the Pakistan Development Forum, held in Islamabad from 13 - 15 March 2001.

The most recent Household and Income Expenditure Survey reveals a drastic increase in poverty in the past 6-7 years. Among the causes of the worsening poverty situation include: the fall of outmigration for work in the Middle East accompanied by reduced foreign exchange earnings.

Like several previous governments, the new Government has been implementing a programme of stabilization and structural reforms, including a massive poverty alleviation programme to generate employment opportunities through deregulation and liberalization of the economy. One of the major initiatives recently undertaken is the development of small and medium enterprises through credit access for youth employment. A new Small and Medium Enterprise Development Authority (SMEDA) has been set up to promote self-employment which, in a way, is to ease the unemployment problem resulting from privatization policy and down-sizing of public enterprises. The ILO is having a joint project with SMEDA to review SME's policies to improve employment generation and labour absorption.

Pakistan is represented by all three constituents in the ILO Governing Body.

Government

The Ministry of Labour, Manpower and Overseas Pakistanis is playing an active role in promoting the ratification of Conventions 100 and 182 and in the elimination of child labour and bonded labour in Pakistan. The Labour Minister is Mr. Omar Asghar Khan. He is also the Minister for Environment and Local Government and Rural Development. Mr. Farhat Hussain is the Secretary of Labour, who was in post since July 2000. The cooperation and understanding between MOL and ILO has improved since then. ILO is assisting MOL in the labour law reforms. ILO has assisted MOL in the formulation of the national Plan of Action to Eliminate Child Labour, National Plan of Action to Eliminate Bonded Labour. ILO is formulating a LMI System for MOL and will be implementing workshops to address the issues of privatization, safety nets etc. The Government has high priority to ratify ILO Conventions Nos.100 and 182.

There is only one employers' organization - the Employers' Federation of Pakistan (EFP) which is affiliated with the IOE. Mr. Ashraf W. Tabani has been its President for nearly two decades. He was appointed, in a previous Government, as Minister of Finance and Governor in Sindh Province. He has been a member of the ILO Governing Body since 1991. He has also been the President of the IOE since June 1999. ILO Islamabad works closely with the Employers' Federation of Pakistan (EFP). During 2001, ILO will be assisting EFP in holding four national conferences on Teachers' Training, CORE Labour Standards and Small Enterprise Development (for women) and Social Dialogue. Other workshops being considered (depending on availability of funds) - is on Information Technology. EFP is actively involved in the implementation of IPEC activities and very soon a new programme on domestic child labour will start.

Mr. Khurshid Ahmed is the General-Secretary of the All Pakistan Federation of Trade Unions (APFTU), a post that he has held for nearly three decades. He has been a member of the ILO Governing Body since the mid-1970s. In addition to the APFTU, the two other major trade union federations are the Pakistan National Federation of Trade Unions (PNFTU) and the All Pakistan Federation of Labour (APFOL) - all three of which are ICFTU affiliates. These major trade unions are not affiliated to political parties. However, the two main political parties (Pakistan Muslim League and Pakistan People's Party) in the country have their own labour bureaux which sponsor trade unions. There is also a Pakistan Workers' Confederation (PWC), whose General Secretary is Mr. Khurshid Ahmed. Recently, APFOL has accorded its approval to the merger plan of the constituent Federations of Pakistan Workers' Confederation which will include PWC, APFOL and six other trade unions but not the PNFTU. All the major trade unions have good working relations with ILO Islamabad and they are actively involved in IPEC activities. In addition ILO Islamabad also provided assistance in organising workshops and training activities to strengthen their confederations.

There are seven ongoing technical cooperation projects in the fields of child labour, human rights and HIV/AIDS. ILO Islamabad had recently started a project in Karachi to deal with the problems of bonded labour. IPEC has one of the largest programmes in Pakistan. It had a total delivery of US$1,700,000 during year 2000.  Additional funding has been secured for implementation of sector specific projects dealing with prevention and protection of child labour in major export-oriented industries (carpets, soccer balls, and surgical equipment), abusive/hazardous child labour, and non-formal education and skills training for children withdrawn from a working situation. A further comprehensive programme to include components of micro credit and income generation will be formulated for additional funding. In the meantime, the Government has endorsed its National Action Plan on the Elimination of Child Labour, and a National Plan of Action to Eliminate Bonded Labour is being finalised.

A major focus of the activities with the constituents, mainly supported through previous technical cooperation projects, and more recently with regular budget funding, has been on self-employment and micro enterprise promotion (with a special emphasis on women), vocational and skills development, industrial relations, labour laws, international labour standards and occupational safety and health. The Country Employment Policy Review was completed in May 2000 and a national conference was held to discuss the report recommendations. ILO Islamabad will be focussing to assist the Government in its poverty reduction programme (2001-2004). For this ILO Islamabad is providing the following technical assistance:

• Reassessment of poverty level

• Formulating a National Employment Strategy

• Reviewing the policies of small enterprise development in Pakistan

• Formulating a Labour Market Information System

• Direct intervention in poverty reduction.

Pakistan has ratified 32 Conventions, including five core Conventions. The ratification of Conventions No.182 and 100 are under active consideration.

The announcement of the long-awaited Labour Policy, caused concern among the social partners who had demanded for the Standing Committee on Labour to be convened regularly to deliberate on major policy issues before announcement. The Government has decided to lift a ban on trade union activity in the Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) and to restore May Day as a public holiday.

The Secretary General of APFOL, raised concerns about the financial procedures and accounting system applied to ILO-funded programmes and activities in Pakistan to the ICFTU during its Executive Board Meeting in Brussels in 1997. As no action was taken by the ICFTU following the Meeting as promised, he has recently followed up with ICFTU to take the issue up with the ILO Director General. For more transparency in ILO programmes in Pakistan, ILO Office in Islamabad had engaged external auditors to audit most of the ongoing activities in the country.