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Twelfth Asian Regional Meeting

Bangkok December 1997

Report of the Director-General

International Labour Office   Geneva

PREFACE

As the major ILO forum in Asia, the Twelfth Asian Regional Meeting will review the ILO's work in the region and provide tripartite guidance on future activities. My Report is intended to stimulate and support your discussions at the Meeting. It covers recent developments in the fields of employment, poverty and human resource development, and in industrial relations and workers' protection. These developments are viewed against the backdrop of the globalization and liberalization of economies in the region, and the resulting challenges and opportuni-ties. The ILO's strategy in response to those challenges is described in terms of selected activities in Asia and the Pacific, and in the Arab States of West Asia. The points for discussion which form part of the conclusion to the Report will, I hope, assist you in formulating con-clusions on future ILO action at the Meeting.

Recent discussions at the ILO Governing Body and the International Labour Conference, as well as the positive statements made by Asian governments, among many others, at the United Nations World Summit for Social Development and the First Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization, have encouraged me to hope that international labour standards will guide your deliberations, and particularly the need for ratification and application of the fundamental human rights Conventions, including the discussions in progress concerning inscription on the Agenda of the 86th (1998) Conference of a Declaration.

A word of explanation on the Asian Regional Meeting is in order. It is the successor meeting to the Asian Regional Conference of the International Labour Organization, which last took place in 1991. Regional Meetings, which are a simplified version of the former Regional Conferences, were conceived as a way of reducing budgetary expenditure. They will be financed by the ILO budget, will last only three days and will consist of a single agenda item, to be discussed in plenary, concerning ILO activities in the region concerned. At its 83rd Session in June 1996, the International Labour Conference empowered the Governing Body to adopt a draft set of Rules for the new Regional Meetings. These Rules were adopted by the Governing Body at its 267th Session in November 1996. To allow an evaluation of the new arrangements, the Rules are to be applied on an experimental basis before being submitted to the International Labour Conference for confirmation.

This Twelfth Asian Regional Meeting is particularly important in the light of major changes in the ILO's structure and methods of work which have taken place since 1993. I refer to the introduction of the active partnership policy and the setting up of the multidisciplinary teams, and to the new emphasis on country objectives established in close collaboration with governments and the social partners in the countries concerned.

I commend this Report to you as a tool for the Asian Regional Meeting, and as a reference work on the ILO's future role in the region into the twenty-first century.

CONTENTS

Preface

I.   Employment, poverty and human resource development

• Introduction
• Employment and labour market trends
• Poverty and other labour market issues
  • Poverty
  • Women's employment
  • The informal sector
  • Migration
  • Child labour
• Explaining employment performance: Lessons and policy issues
• Growth and international competitiveness
• Human resource development
• Quality of employment
• Poverty alleviation and safety nets
• Concluding remarks

II.   Industrial relations, workers' protection and globalization

• Introduction
• Industrial relations and globalization
  • Industrial relations in the new environment
  • Industrial relations trends in Asia and the Pacific
  • Developing a more effective response
• International labour standards and human rights
• Workers' protection
  • Working conditions
  • Occupational safety and health
  • Social security
  • Labour administration and labour inspection
• The special situation of child labour
  • The nature and magnitude of the problem
  • Intolerable forms of child labour
  • Challenges and priorities for action
• Concluding remarks

III.   The ILO response

• The changing ILO structure
  • The active partnership policy
  • Decentralization and restructuring at the field level
  • Technical cooperation
• ILO activities
  • Employment promotion and poverty alleviation
  • Women workers
  • Migrant workers
  • Human resource development
  • Industrial relations and tripartism
  • Employers' and workers' activities
    • Employers' activities
    • Workers' activities
  • International labour standards
  • Workers' protection
    • Working conditions
    • Occupational safety and health
    • Social security
  • Labour administration
  • Labour statistics
  • Child labour
• Concluding remarks

IV.   Conclusion: Challenges for the twenty-first century

• Finding the means to sustain economic dynamism
• Combining growth with social justice
• The role of the ILO
• Suggested points for discussion

Figure

1. Framework for analysing the impact of globalization on industrial relations

Tables

1. Growth of employment and labour force, Asia and the Pacific, selected countries and areas, 1978-95
2. Rural poverty in West Asia and the Pacific islands, 1988
3. Poverty trends in selected Asian countries, 1976-96
4. Women's economic activity rates in Asia and the Pacific, and West Asia, by subregion, 1950-2010
5. Female-male wage gap in Asia and the Pacific, and West Asia
6. Inflows and outflows of FDI for selected regions of the world, 1983-94
7. Asia and the Pacific: Technical cooperation expenditure by source of funding, 1991-96
8. West Asia: Technical cooperation expenditure by source of funding, 1992-96
9. Asia and the Pacific: Technical cooperation expenditure by major technical field, 1991-96

Annex

A1. Socioeconomic indicators, 1995: Developing Asia, developing countries and the world

A2. Ratifications of fundamental international labour Conventions, Asia and the Pacific, as of 30 June 1997

A3. Ratifications of fundamental international labour Conventions, Arab States of West Asia, as of 30 June 1997