The ILO at Work: Results 2014-2015

ILO results in Africa

Despite the economic growth seen in many African countries, unemployment, underemployment and informality, especially among young women and men, remained key decent work challenges for the region in 2014-15.

 

Africa has said very clearly that governments, and employers’ and workers’ organizations, are ready to take up the challenge of shaping a development path that is sustainable because it is grounded in the central importance of decent work opportunities to families, communities and nations."

Guy Ryder, ILO Director-General at the 13th African Regional Meeting, 3 December 2015

HIGHLIGHTS:

  • In Botswana, Egypt, Ghana, Mozambique, Rwanda and Sudan, as a result of ILO support, employment objectives have been included in their development strategies. Rwanda’s Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy II now includes, as a target, the creation of 200,000 non-farm jobs per year. In Senegal, the Plan Sénégal Émergent 2014 has set a target of creating 100,000 to 150,000 decent jobs annually.
  • Liberia has made history by adopting, on 25 June 2015, a new Decent Work Act – the only such legislation in the world that directly refers to the ILO’s Decent Work Agenda in its title.
  • In Ghana, ILO support has led to the adoption of the country’s first-ever National Employment Policy, which reflects input from the social partners on employment-friendly macroeconomic policies and other issues.
  • With ILO assistance a collective agreement was signed In Tunisia in October 2015 covering over 500,000 agricultural workers, the first of its kind.
  • Nigeria has placed employment creation, especially for young women and men, at the heart of its Government’s administration, by pledging to create 3 million jobs annually.
  • The Rural Youth Enterprise for Food Security (Yapasa) Programme, launched in Zambia in 2014, aims to create up to 3,000 decent jobs for rural youth and improve the performance of 5,000 youth-owned or managed enterprises by August 2017.
  • On 5 June 2014 Niger became the first country to ratify the Protocol of 2014 to the Forced Labour Convention, 1930, giving fresh impetus to the global fight against forced labour, including trafficking in persons and slavery-like practices.