JAKARTA (ILO News): With the risk of financial crises and slowdowns still haunting Southeast Asian economies, Indonesia’s dramatic experience with crisis, recovery, and poverty is the focus of an international seminar linking labour market policies and the fight against poverty.

This seminar,1)  the third of its kind, has been organized by the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Asia Pacific Regional Office, with support from the Government of Japan. Held for three days (29/4-1/5) at Hotel Borobudur, Jakarta, it will be opened by Minister of Manpower and Transmigration, H.E. Mr. Jacob Nuwa Wea. 

The main goal of this high-level seminar is to make sure that economic recovery particularly in Indonesia also brings decent jobs that lift people out of poverty.  “Indonesia was the only one of the crisis-affected countries where poverty returned to pre-crisis levels during the recovery period of 1999-2000,” said ILO Regional Director Yasuyuki Nodera. “Indonesia also saw dramatic increases in poverty directly after the crisis. The size of those changes makes it an interesting study.” 

Moreover, according to Mr. Nodera, it was widely agreed that employment was the best way to combat poverty. The seminar’s aims were founded on that principle. “We will be asking whether economic recovery in East and Southeast Asia is also bringing employment. We will also be asking whether the jobs that are created are reducing poverty – whether they are decent jobs."

Decent work for everybody is the ILO’s primary goal. It means that a person can meet his or her basic needs, and those of the family. It also means that children can go to school and do not have to work. 

The seminar, Mr. Nodera continued, would also look for ways to improve labour market policies. “We want to see how these policies can be made to work better, and play a more effective part in reducing poverty. It is important that we keep these aims firmly in mind when policies are designed.”

For this seminar, the ILO has commisioned a number of studies relating to the Indonesian experience. Four main focuses of those studies are the following:  recent developments in the labour market, linkages between employment expansion and poverty reduction, the role of labour market policies and labour market information systems, and how to strengthen the institutional capacity for formulation and implementation of labour market policies. 

This seminar brings together representatives from the government, the employers, and worker organizations of the five participating countries (Indonesia, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand). The delegations will examine a series of ILO studies focusing on the Indonesian experiences, and compare them with outcomes in their own countries. 

They will also have an opportunity to exchange experiences, and point the way forward, in terms of policies and programme packages to sustain employment growth and poverty reduction.  

The seminars and research programme have linked the ILO, the World Bank and the Japanese Institute of Labour, among other institutions and groups including the Indonesian Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration and Bappenas.   

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1)  The ILO/Japan Seminar on Labour Market Policies and Poverty Alleviation Strategies in Recovery from the Asian Crisis: Implications for East and South East Asia, 29 April – 1 May 2002.

From left to right:
Alan Boulton, Director ILO Jakarta, H.E. Jacob Nuwa Wea, Minister of Manpower and Transmigration,
 Mr. Yasuyuki Nodera, Regional Director, ILO/ROAP Bangkok, Mr. Ogawa, Representative of Japan Government