20 Feb 2022

The African Regional Labour Administration Centre (ARLAC) governing council has been applauded for making the institution a centre of excellence.

Addressing the 48^th ARLAC governing council meeting for ministers responsible for labour/employment/manpower in Kasane on Tursday, International Labour Organisation (ILO) assistant director general, Ms Cynthia Samuel-Olonjuwon said ILO recognised that an effective and operational labour and administration machinery was crucial for promoting decent work and social justice.

Ms Samuel-Olonjuwon who is also ILO regional director for Africa noted that 2022 began on a general sense of uncertainties especially considering the continuing COVID-19 and its impact.

She said COVID-19 vaccine nationalism and equal access remained a challenge despite that Africa was making giant strides in manufacturing its own.

She said there was need to close the vaccine inequality divide in order to keep the pandemic in check and called for collective responsibility in encouraging all to vaccinate as there was evidence that vaccination reduced the chances of death.

Ms Samuel-Olonjuwo however, said vaccination should not be a standalone solution for safe operational work places but there should be a set of preventative measures in order to manage the pandemic.

She indicated that the recently launched ILO World Employment and Social Outlook Trends for 2022 projected that this year, the number of hours worked globally would be two per cent below the hours of work in the last quarter of 2021 and that the trend would continue if the pandemic remained uncontrolled.

ARLAC chairperson, Professor Paul Mavima said the world of work had increasingly become complex in all aspects and it was therefore, imperative to enlighten and equip labour administrators, inspectors and researchers with knowledge regarding the tenets of decent work agenda.

Professor Mavima said there was need for the labour administrators to be able to promote tenets of the decent work agenda so that everyone benefited from working conditions that offered freedom, equality, equity, security and human dignity.

He said equipped labour administrators would be able to assist businesses on global priorities in emerging areas such as responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Professor Mavima said ARLAC was continually seeking to evolve what a labour administrator did, enable trainees to apply skills and abilities to maximise social impact and shaping how the profession would continue to thrive in a digital age.

ARLAC is an inter-governmental training institution based in Zimbabwe and it exists to strengthen labour administration system in English speaking African countries. Out of the 23 English speaking countries in Africa ARLAC has a membership of 19.

Mr Ketlhalefile Motshegwa representing BFTU and BOFEPUSO as ARLAC social partners indicated that the meeting was an important platform at regional level pertaining to dialogue on labour and employment matters.

He said labour and employment matters were a fundamental component in the political economy of any state in striving for inter-alia social security, social justice and broader social protection.

He said as labour federations, they encouraged ministers and other delegates to continue to nurture and enhance social dialogue and strengthen labour institutions in order to build industrial peace, democratisation of the working place towards socio-economic and political prosperity in their countries.

Business Botswana’s Mr Dichaba Molobe appreciated ARLAC, stating that as the business community, they were interested in the institution’s component of advisory services and research.

He said the business community would, going forward, appreciate collaboration between ARLAC and the business so that they enjoyed cutting edge research as it was important to recover from the pandemic. ends