Highlights of the Regional Director Mr Yoshiteru Uramoto’s first trip to ILO Country Office Islamabad
The ILO Regional Director for Asia and Pacific, Mr Yoshiteru Uramoto, made his first visit to Pakistan from 12-13 November 2013. During his visit he met the constituents, ILO Office staff and other development partners to understand more about the social and economic context of the country, the implementation of the decent work agenda and explore possibilities of ILO support to the country.
25 November 2013
On the first day, Mr Uramoto was welcomed by the ILO Islamabad office team and was given an overview of the work of the ILO Office Pakistan is doing to support decent work. As is the longstanding tradition, Mr Uramoto participated in a tree plantation ceremony in the ILO garden.
Mr Uramoto reviewed the Decent Work Country Programme for Pakistan at a meeting with tripartite constituents from Government, Employers and Workers. the tripartite constituents the Pakistan Decent work Program (2010-2015) expressed their satisfaction with the programme development. During the review the Regional Director focused on enterprise development, public employment services, and social protection law, gender being cross cutting for all, promoting equal access to employment. He also emphasized on implementation of labour conventions ratified by Pakistan and appreciated ILO’s strong bonding with the tripartite constituents including the Government, Employers and Workers Organizations and the role of The Employers Federation of Pakistan (EFP), the Pakistan Workers Federation (PWF) and the Ministry of Labour & Manpower (now Ministry of OP&HRD) that played an instrumental role in technical deliberations and in developing International Labour Standards.
The Regional Director also held separate meetings with senior government officials and people from the business sector to understand the trade and economic potential of the country, and how ILO might play a role in enhancing it. Meetings with representatives of the Punjab government, including the Minister and Secretary for Labour were particularly fruitful, with the Punjab Government assuring commitment to promote Decent Work It was decided that the Government of Punjab with the technical support by ILO will organise an International Labour Conference in March 2014 to highlight the good labour practices in the global community and encourage foreign investment.
Mr Uramoto also met with the Federal Secretary, Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development where the Government of Pakistan formally requested ILO to start a ‘Better Work’ Programme, focusing on the application of ILS in the manufacturing sector, on a priority basis and expressed their commitment to support any resource mobilisation for this programme.
The first day concluded with a dinner at the ILO premises held in the honour of Mr Yoshiteru, attended by partners, donors, government officials and heads of bilateral and multilateral development agencies.
The second day was equally busy. Mr Uramoto inaugurated the first ever Complaint Management Information System (CMIS) against workplace harassament, launched by the Federal Ombudsman Secretariat (FOS) for Protection against Harassment at Workplace. The project is supported by the ILO project Promoting Gender Equality for Decent Employment (GE4DE) .The inauguration ceremony took place at Pak Secretariat P Block Auditorium.
While congratulating the Government of Pakistan and the ILO team on the launch of CMIS, Mr Uramotos said tha though he had seen “many such interventions around the world but the commitment I have seen from the Government and the social partners here is unique”
Later the same day, the Regional Director met with a delegation of young entrepreneurs from Islamabad Chambers of Commerce and Industry. These entrepreneurs were from various business sectors including telecom, steel, flour, textiles and services. the ICCI-delegation identified main challenges including lack of understanding on labour laws; unprofessional dealing of labour machinery with industrialists and complication in labour matters and the image of the country which does not help in getting international investors and orders. As a way forward it was decided that ILO will work with ICCI on the areas of Labour Law education and will engage ICCI delegates in ongoing work on Labour Law Reforms as well as developing a platform for Provincial Young Entrepreneurs.
In a session at Quaid-e-Azam University (QAU) the Regional Director addressed youth groups at a seminar on the ‘Significance of Decent Work for Economic Development of Pakistan’. The seminar was organized bythe ‘Quaidian Economics Society’, a group of active students of School of Economics at the University, attended by around 100 students and scholars. Mr Uramoto highlighted the importance of ‘Decent Work Agenda’ for economic development and some regional initiatives. In the end it was discussed to invite QAU Students for seminars at ILO to discuss different dimensions of Decent Work.
With this the Regional Director Mr Yoshiteru’s visit came to an end. He expressed his gratitude to the ILO team for making him feel at home and appreciated the work and the progress that they have made doing collective work with the Government and partners.
Mr Uramoto reviewed the Decent Work Country Programme for Pakistan at a meeting with tripartite constituents from Government, Employers and Workers. the tripartite constituents the Pakistan Decent work Program (2010-2015) expressed their satisfaction with the programme development. During the review the Regional Director focused on enterprise development, public employment services, and social protection law, gender being cross cutting for all, promoting equal access to employment. He also emphasized on implementation of labour conventions ratified by Pakistan and appreciated ILO’s strong bonding with the tripartite constituents including the Government, Employers and Workers Organizations and the role of The Employers Federation of Pakistan (EFP), the Pakistan Workers Federation (PWF) and the Ministry of Labour & Manpower (now Ministry of OP&HRD) that played an instrumental role in technical deliberations and in developing International Labour Standards.
The Regional Director also held separate meetings with senior government officials and people from the business sector to understand the trade and economic potential of the country, and how ILO might play a role in enhancing it. Meetings with representatives of the Punjab government, including the Minister and Secretary for Labour were particularly fruitful, with the Punjab Government assuring commitment to promote Decent Work It was decided that the Government of Punjab with the technical support by ILO will organise an International Labour Conference in March 2014 to highlight the good labour practices in the global community and encourage foreign investment.
Mr Uramoto also met with the Federal Secretary, Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development where the Government of Pakistan formally requested ILO to start a ‘Better Work’ Programme, focusing on the application of ILS in the manufacturing sector, on a priority basis and expressed their commitment to support any resource mobilisation for this programme.
The first day concluded with a dinner at the ILO premises held in the honour of Mr Yoshiteru, attended by partners, donors, government officials and heads of bilateral and multilateral development agencies.
The second day was equally busy. Mr Uramoto inaugurated the first ever Complaint Management Information System (CMIS) against workplace harassament, launched by the Federal Ombudsman Secretariat (FOS) for Protection against Harassment at Workplace. The project is supported by the ILO project Promoting Gender Equality for Decent Employment (GE4DE) .The inauguration ceremony took place at Pak Secretariat P Block Auditorium.
While congratulating the Government of Pakistan and the ILO team on the launch of CMIS, Mr Uramotos said tha though he had seen “many such interventions around the world but the commitment I have seen from the Government and the social partners here is unique”
Later the same day, the Regional Director met with a delegation of young entrepreneurs from Islamabad Chambers of Commerce and Industry. These entrepreneurs were from various business sectors including telecom, steel, flour, textiles and services. the ICCI-delegation identified main challenges including lack of understanding on labour laws; unprofessional dealing of labour machinery with industrialists and complication in labour matters and the image of the country which does not help in getting international investors and orders. As a way forward it was decided that ILO will work with ICCI on the areas of Labour Law education and will engage ICCI delegates in ongoing work on Labour Law Reforms as well as developing a platform for Provincial Young Entrepreneurs.
In a session at Quaid-e-Azam University (QAU) the Regional Director addressed youth groups at a seminar on the ‘Significance of Decent Work for Economic Development of Pakistan’. The seminar was organized bythe ‘Quaidian Economics Society’, a group of active students of School of Economics at the University, attended by around 100 students and scholars. Mr Uramoto highlighted the importance of ‘Decent Work Agenda’ for economic development and some regional initiatives. In the end it was discussed to invite QAU Students for seminars at ILO to discuss different dimensions of Decent Work.
With this the Regional Director Mr Yoshiteru’s visit came to an end. He expressed his gratitude to the ILO team for making him feel at home and appreciated the work and the progress that they have made doing collective work with the Government and partners.