Dar es Salaam (ILO News): H.E. Florence Tinguely Mattli, Switzerland’s Ambassador to Tanzania paid a courtesy visit to the ILO Country Office for East Africa, in Dar es Salaam on 11 March 2016, with the objective of strengthening the already existing relationship between the ILO and the Government of Switzerland.
During the visit, Ms. Mary Kawar, Director of the ILO Country Office for the United Republic of Tanzania, Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda, briefed the Ambassador on the implementation of the Decent Work Agenda (DWA) in Tanzania which is being done in collaboration with the ILO constituents. She highlighted that the priority areas highlighted for the country are productive employment, social protection, labour standards and social dialogue.
Ms. Kawar shared the success story of the apprenticeship training programme in hotel operations that improves employability of young Tanzanians through providing opportunities of first hand work based experience alongside industry professionals. Through this programme, ILO has supported institutionalization of skills recognition system in the VET thereby providing pathways to decent work and improved productivity for millions of people who were hitherto ignored. The programme has so far certified nearly 600 informal apprentices and is targeting 5000 more for this year. Due to the success of the programme, the government with ILO’s support is on the process of validating a national framework for Apprenticeship training programme.
The development of a National Action Plan for the promotion of Women’s Entrepreneurship Development was also cited by Ms. Kawar as another success story. Through awareness creation campaigns on entrepreneurship, ILO managed to reach more than 1.8 million young people, both in rural and urban areas with training opportunities on entrepreneurship skills development.
Ms Kawar pointed out that “… a recent impact survey showed that at least 56 percent of them established new businesses as a result of the entrepreneurship campaigns and training…” Furthermore, a total of 378 youth Business Development Services (BDS) providers were developed who managed to reach out to 29,000 youth out of which 16,240 (56% ) started own businesses. On average 2.4 jobs were created per business started and a national taskforce/working group was formed.
In the fight against the rising unemployment, which stands presently at 11.7% in Tanzania, ILO provides support to build the capacity of the Tanzania Employment Agency (TAESA) as well as technical assistance during review processes of existing social protection instruments such as policies, legislations and regulatory frameworks.
H.E. Florence Tinguely Mattli commended the efforts being put by the ILO in various areas of work, “… these efforts are important asset for successes of all important initiatives on employment and other areas in Tanzania… Let’s turn the one million youth entering the labour market every year from challenge to an opportunity”.
Ms. Kawar further highlighted the work that ILO is doing the UN Development Assistance Plan (UNDAP) on trade sector development: Market value chain relating to horticultural products for responsible tourism market access. The project aims to improve the livelihood of Tanzanians through a greater adoption of responsible tourism that leads to better access to tourism markets. Switzerland contributes to the ILO and to its development cooperation programmes through the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). The support has been through the sustainable enterprises and promoting productive and decent work programmes including Sustainable, Competitive and Responsible Enterprises (SCORE), which is implemented in emerging economies in Africa, Asia and Latin America and Better Work programme, which aims to improve labour standards in the global supply chain in several countries.
Switzerland has been a strong supporter of ILO in Tanzania through development cooperation programmes, State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO).
