Dates

The plenary sittings of the Conference devoted to the discussions of the reports of the Director-General of the International Labour Office and the Chairperson of the Governing Body will take place from Monday 7 June to Wednesday 16 June, from 13:00 to 16:00 CEST (Central European Summer time).

At the 109th Session of the Conference, the Reports of the Director-General consist of a report on the theme of the ILO response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the programme implementation report for the 2018–19 financial period, and the 2019 and 2020 reports on the situation of workers of the occupied Arab territories. The report of the Chairperson of the Governing Body will cover the periods 2019-2020 and 2020-2021.

Who can speak in plenary

One delegate or attending minister representing the Government, one delegate representing the Employers and one delegate representing the Workers may speak in the plenary. A visiting Head of State or Government may also speak in addition to the Government delegate or minister.

In order to take the floor in plenary, it is necessary to register in advance. Delegates must be accredited either as “Minister attending the Conference”, “regular delegate” or “adviser and substitute delegate” acting on behalf of the regular delegate. Persons accredited as “advisers” are normally not entitled to speak in plenary. For further information, please refer to the “Explanatory note on credentials for national delegations” .
In addition to one representative each from Observer States and Palestine, representatives (one per organization) of invited intergovernmental organizations and invited international non-governmental organizations may also speak in plenary.

How to register for the plenary

•  All requests for speaking in the plenary must be sent to plenaryspeeches@ilo.org indicating the name, title, and contact information of the speaker.
• Registration will open on 17 May 2021 and close on Tuesday 8 June at 18:00 CEST.
• Once their speaking slots are confirmed, delegates are requested to send an electronic copy of their speech to the same address at least 24 hours before they are scheduled to speak. Speeches should clearly indicate:

This text version will be posted on the Conference website shortly after delivery, together with the recordings in the original language, as well as its interpretation into English, French and Spanish.

Time limit for speeches

Four minutes, instead of five, in view of the reduced number of core hours available in a virtual format. Four minutes correspond to approximately 550 words, or two typewritten double-spaced A4 pages.

Format of the speeches and related technical information

Delegates may either deliver statements live or, if there are obstacles in doing so, through a video message that will be broadcast at the plenary sitting for which they are registered, during the core plenary hours (13:00-16:00). The same time limit of 4 minutes applies to both live and recorded statements.

Delegates speaking live are requested send written versions of their speech 24 hours in advance and to connect to the Zoom platform at least 15 minutes before their speaking time, in order to avoid connection difficulties.

For delegates intending to deliver statements through a video message, it is important to note the following:

• Technical specifications:

• As there might be difficulties in emailing large files directly, speakers may wish to use wetransfer (wetransfer.com), which is a free application, when sending their videos to plenaryspeeches@ilo.org.
• Videos must be sent 48 hours before the scheduled speaking slot, to ensure that the quality of the video is verified in advance and that any potential technical problems are dealt with beforehand. The text version of the video message should also be sent to the same address in advance of the plenary sitting.
• The following information should appear on the subject line of the email: “name of speaker - country – video”. It is important to note, however, that for technical reasons, the name and title of the speaker should be indicated only in the email, and not inserted in the video itself. These will be added by ILO video technicians.
• If the video statement is delivered in any language other than the seven ILO working languages (Arabic, Chinese, German, English, French, Russian and Spanish), the video message should be subtitled in one of the three official languages (English, French or Spanish).

Registration to speak in committees

Requests to speak in the committees must be directed to the committee secretariats Please refer to the relevant committee’s webpage for further details.