By Agnes Csonka
The Albanian pilot of the One UN Programme will make use of the experiences of the International Labour Organization (ILO) gained in the field. As the only tripartite organisation within the United Nations system, the ILO plays a key role in involving social partners in the recently launched UN reform process.
The Albanian government and the UN signed the One UN Programme on October 24, 2007. The goal of this action plan is to enhance development results and impact by bringing together the comparative advantages of the UN system within a single programme in order to align and support the European integration and development goals of Albania, and to complement the assistance provided by other development partners. It combines and synthesizes the work of twelve UN organisations and funds.
 |
Signing ceremony with UN Agencies and witnessed by the Prime Minister and attended by key Ambassadors and Cabinet Ministers of Albania |
“The role of ILO is unique and quite significant in the One UN Programme and I am confident ILO’s contribution will have a positive impact in Albania,” says Ms Gülden Türköz-Cosslett, the UN’s Resident Coordinator in Albania.
As the ILO has been working with the government and social partners – organisations of workers and employers – ever since Albania rejoined the organisation in 1991, the model championed by the ILO will be an integral part of the One UN process in the country.
“This tripartite approach has been part of ILO from the beginning, while it is new for the other organizations in the UN system,” says Ms Petra Ulshoefer, Director of ILO Subregional Office for Central and Eastern Europe. “So we can safely say that ILO is leading the way in this respect. Furthermore, our international experience can be helpful for Albania to fill in its Decent Work deficits.”
The One UN Programme encompasses a financial contribution of $75 million over the next four years. UN agencies will contribute $40 million and the remaining $35 million will be funded by donor countries and institutions.
Albania volunteered along with seven other countries – Cape Verde, Mozambique, Pakistan, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uruguay and Vietnam – to become a One UN pilot country.
“It was natural for Albania to be selected to pilot UN reform as One UN fits very well within national efforts to align external assistance with national priorities and national plans and budget,” Ms Türköz-Cosslett says.
The programme aims to maximise the UN’s impact in five areas: establishing more transparent and accountable governance; greater participation in public policy and decisionmaking; increased and more equitable access to quality basic services; regional development to reduce disparities; and evironmentally sustainable development.
The ILO is participating in three of the five main development goals: governance; participation in public policy and decision making; and regional development, all of which are interrelated.
“Our specific role and main purpose is to help the country move towards EU accession and to put the necessary reforms into place,” says Ms Ulshoefer. “We are working at both levels: the policy level and the operational level, which go hand in hand.”
The chief goal of the ILO is to provide opportunities for people to obtain decent and productive work in conditions of freedom, equity, security and dignity. Decent work country programmes promote decent work as a key element of development policies and as a national policy objective of governments and social partners.
Albania signed its Decent Work Country Programme (DWCP) for 2006-2007 with the ILO in 2006, targeting the unemployed, workers in the informal economy, the poor, victims of trafficking, the homeless, and working children.
The ILO’s Decent Work agenda has now been embraced as a global goal by the UN and the EC, according to Ms Ulshoefer. “The essence of the decent work paradigm is an integrated approach to economic and social development. Now it’s not only ILO’s vision, but that of other players as well,” she says.
“The One UN Programme in Albania reflects the major topics of the DWCP – namely the fight against child labour, the reduction of informality, the effective implementation of international labour standards through social dialogue, the formulation and implementation of sound policies on decent employment at central and local levels, particularly of young people, the enhancement of the effective operation of National Labour Council as the highest forum of social dialogue,” adds Mr Alfred Topi, the ILO’s National Coordinator in Albania, who signed the One UN Programme on behalf of ILO.
The ILO is represented in Albania at project level by the National Coordinator’s Office. Its presence in Albania started through technical projects, assisting the government and the social partners in building up their capacities, and continued with earmarked interventions aimed at resolving problems of the labour market and legislation, the trafficking of human beings, child labour, social dialogue and social security. Its partners include Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities, employers’ and workers’ organizations, local governments and handicraft associations.
As follow-up to the Albanian Review of Employment Policy and the recent adoption of the National Employment Strategy, the ILO’s Employment Programme in Albania contributes to strengthening the capacity of the Ministry of Labour and the National Employment Service to design, monitor and evaluate employment and labour market policies. In 2006 and 2007, successful pilot initiatives were implemented to make productive use of remittances of migrant workers and to move informal micro-enterprises managed by women to the formal economy. Together with other agencies of the UNCT and under the coordination of the Office of the UN Resident Coordinator, the same programme is planning interventions to enhance decent work opportunities for youth exposed to migration. The programme targets under-employed and informal young workers engaged in subsistence agriculture in poor regions. The ILO also plans to provide assistance to ensure the implementation of the government’s National Action Plan on Remittances.
The ILO’s International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) signed a memorandum of understanding with the Albanian government in 1999 and set up the Child Labour Monitoring Unit in the Ministry of Labour aiming to prohibit, restrict and eliminate child labour and to increase awareness concerning the issue.
“The transformation to a market economy in Albania has generated a large informal economy in which child labour is widely used,” says Ms. Etleva Vertopi, National Programme Manager for IPEC. “A whole series of socio-economic factors explain this situation: poverty, lack of schools and teachers in certain regions, family breakdown, lack of awareness of the importance of schooling, discrimination against ethnic minorities.”
According to the Albanian Institute of Statistics, 32% of children between age 6 and 17 in the country are working. The Ministry of Public Order estimates that between 1992 and 2002, 4,000 Albanian children were trafficked.
“Children work as vendors, beggars, scavengers, shoe polishers and porters,” Ms. Vertopi says. “Their lives are marked by problems related to their health, moral, socialization and overall development. Working street children are also vulnerable to recruitment for other forms of hazardous work, child trafficking, illicit activities and prostitution.”
The IPEC strategy in the country has been a combination of policy-related upstream interventions to create an environment hostile to child labour, with downstream service activities at the community level to pilot appropriate models of intervention, Ms. Vertopi adds.
As part of policy-related interventions, issues related to the fight against child labour have been included in national policies. Service-oriented interventions have been aimed at preventing children from entering child labour, withdrawing and rehabilitating children already engaged in such activities, and protecting all working children above the legal minimum age from exploitation and work hazards.
|
Working children in Albania |
ILO/IPEC is about to launch two action programmes, which will contribute to the reduction of child labour in Albania by by introducing the tested model preventing child labour and trafficking and facilitating the reintegration of victims in three other cities: Elbasan, Durres and Shkodra.
The ILO/MIGRANT project deals with the issue of trafficking in young women. Its first phase was implemented between November 2003 and December 2005, its current, second phase was launched in January 2006 and runs until March 2008. In this context, the project aims to improve migration management capacities, link labour migration services with employment and training services and directly assist victims with reintegration services.
“Our project’s intervention, seen under a mid- and long-term perspective, has satisfactorily contributed to prevent and reduce trafficking in women in Albania,” says Mirela Kasmi, Coordinator of the ILO/MIGRANT project in Albania.
Nevertheless, the problem remains widespread. According to a report, between January and December 2006, altogether 200 women victims were referred to shelters.
“Trafficking in women in Albania still exists and encompasses the entire territory of the country, mainly the poor remote areas as well as the capital and the biggest cities because of internal migration,” Ms. Kasmi says.
Among the results of the ILO/MIGRANT project, Ms. Kasmi lists involving government officials, social partners, NGOs, private employment agencies in the fight against trafficking. Training workshops have been organised to help implement national policies on labour migration. A new law has been adopted to protect migrant workers’ human rights, gender equality, and to prevent irregular migration. Links between public employment services and service provider institutions to victims have been reinforced, so the target group has access to professional employment orientation and counseling. Training opportunities have been provided to victims, and some have received a micro-credit to set up their own businesses.
Examples of the success of ILO’s local enterprise development (LED) initiative include assistance provided to a cluster of traditional handicraft workshops in the Shkodra area in Northern Albania.
Overall, the success of Albania’s experience will impact how countries in the region and around the world pursue UN reform. “This is a new, ambitious process to better coordinate within the UN,” Ms. Ulshoefer says. “It is quickly advancing, but needs time for assimilation. We need to look at what’s working and what’s not. It’s a process in the right direction, although we cannot see its end or its impact yet.”
Summary of One UN Programme
One United Nations Programme Albania
|
 |
|
| ILO Film |
| Fully fit at work |
Film about the advantages of employing persons with disabilities. As this ILO film (Fully Fit at Work) shows, not only may people with disabilities be more productive, they may actually be more skilled in some jobs than non-disabled people. Produced for the ILO by the Andrzej Wajda Master School of Film Directing.
Watch the film online in Polish with English subtitles. Duration: 21 min 11 sec
If the video is not displayed, download the free RealPlayer™
Press release in English and
Polish |
| Events & campaigns |
World Day Against Child Labour
12 June 2008
Education: The right response to child labour
» read more
|
| ILO, UN deliver as one in Albania |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
A package for social and economic progress
The Albanian pilot of the One UN Programme will make use of the experiences of the International Labour Organization (ILO) gained in the field. As the only tripartite organisation within the United Nations system, the ILO plays a key role in involving social partners in the recently launched UN reform process.
more
|
|
|
|
|
