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| ILO, Bosnia and Herzegovina to promote Decent Work |
The International Labour Organization (ILO) and Bosnia and Herzegovina will work together to address labour market challenges, with the aim of creating more and better jobs, under a partnership agreement signed on 14 October 2009 in Budapest, Hungary.
High-level representatives of the ILO and Bosnia and Herzegovina signed the second Decent Work Country Programme (DWCP) for Bosnia and Herzegovina for the 2008 – 2010 period. The programme of cooperation, which promotes decent work as a national priority, was signed by the Minister of Civil Affairs, Sredoje Novic, and the Director of the ILO Subregional Office for Central and Eastern Europe, Mark Levin.
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Signing ceremony: Director of the ILO Subregional Office for Central and Eastern Europe, Mark Levin and the Minister of Civil Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sredoje Novic |
The Programme, developed through a participatory process with the involvement of the ILO’s tripartite constituents, centers on three key priorities. The first seeks to strengthen the capacity of government institutions as well as workers’ and employers’ organizations to improve the governance of the labour market at state, entity and district levels. The ILO will provide technical assistance to establish the Social and Economic Council at state level in order to effectively address economic and social challenges. The ILO will also assist its tripartite members to strengthen the existing mechanisms and establish new alternative systems of labour disputes resolution to avoid strikes or long court procedures. To empower women in trade unions, the ILO will support the inclusion of women in collective bargaining.
The second priority is to assist the government and social partners to develop and implement measures to reduce the informal economy. The ILO will promote cooperation among different institutions to create an integrated strategy to fight against undeclared work. The ILO will also provide technical assistance to local institutions, including the social partners, to develop and implement local economic and employment strategies, programmes and tools that promote employment in the formal economy. The aim of this assistance is to create a more business friendly legal environment, to increase productivity and competitiveness of enterprises and to improve the quality of work.
The third priority will focus on improving the effectiveness of the social protection system, including the development of a pension reform strategy and improvement of social security governance. The ILO will enhance the capacity of labour, and where appropriate, administrative inspection services, and the social partners, to use ILO tools and procedures, designed to improve occupational safety and health.
A major contribution to implement development agendas
Immediately after the war, Bosnia and Herzegovina embarked on a process of physical, economic and social reconstruction with international support. Some positive results in terms of socio-economic renewal have been achieved, in spite of complex governance structures and different levels of development. However, there is still much to do to establish a fully-functioning labour market.
Despite sustained growth rates of 5.5 per cent between 2004 and 2008, modest employment growth did not offset the losses caused by the war and by the restructuring process. The current global economic crisis has exacerbated labour market imbalances, and the year 2009 is expected to witness negative labour market determinants, with a shrink of 3 percentage points in GDP.
The preliminary release of the Labour Force Survey 2009 shows a contraction of the employment rate, from 33.9 per cent in 2008 to 33.1 per cent in 2009. Furthermore, the disparity between rates for men and women (respectively 43.2 and 23.7 per cent) reveal serious gender gaps both in employment and participation patterns. The unemployed are 24.1 per cent of the labour force and one worker out of three is working informally. Unemployment is particularly high among youth with an overall youth unemployment rate of 47.5 per cent. Together with new entrants, the low skilled and the elderly experience particular difficulties to access decent work.
Labour market problems are linked with income inequality and poverty. About 20 percent of households still live with an income that is lower than the national poverty line, and the system of social protection is faced with challenges to its sustainability brought about by poor living standards and significant numbers of war casualties.
The new Decent Work Country Programme is based on the previous successful cooperation between the ILO and Bosnia and Herzegovina and is aligned to the goals and targets set out by national development strategies.
The Programme supports Bosnia and Herzegovina in meeting its commitments arising from international and regional development agendas, including the ratification of international labour standards and the Stabilization and Association Agreement with the European Union. The DWCP is also linked with major priorities identified by development assistance programmes, including the Millennium Development Goals and the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF).
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Press release in Bosnian in pdf
Decent Work Country Programme (DWCP) for Bosnia and Herzegovina for the 2008 – 2010 in pdf in English,
Bosnian, Croatian,
and in Serbian
Further information:
Ms Edit Horváth
tel. +36 (1) 473 2656
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| Events & campaigns |
On the occasion of the 8th European Regional Meeting, the ILO is launching the Albanian, Romanian, Serbian and Ukrainian versions of the Decent Work Flash
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