Opening Remarks at High Level Tripartite Dialogue on Employment, Industrial Relations and Social Protection

By Tomoko Nishimoto, the ILO’s Assistant Director-General and Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific at the Opening of High Level Tripartite Dialogue on Employment, Industrial Relations and Social Protection

Statement | Jakarta, Indonesia | 26 August 2016
  • High level tripartite representatives
  • Mr. Harijanto from Apindo
  • Mr. Andi Gani Wea representing trade unions,
  • Mr.Abdul Wahab Bangkona, Secretary General of Ministry of Manpower representing the Minister, and
  • the special guest, Indonesian Ambassador for Switzerland, Mr. Triyono Wibowo
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Indonesia has made great progress in recent years and looking to sustain that progress over the fifteen years to 2030. The issues to be discussed at the Dialogue are of vital importance to realizing national goals which are very much aligned with the global goals of the 2030 Agenda.

For several years now Indonesia has been playing an important leadership role, both in Asia and globally. In the G20, within the United Nations, and in many other international forums, Indonesia speaks with authority and is a highly respected leader of the emerging economies.

Considering the high quality calibre of leaders gathered here today and elsewhere in the Indonesian society, I see the role and status of Indonesia at the international arena will continue to be strong – going strong to stronger in the coming years.

Today, as we hold this National Tripartite High Level Dialogue on Employment, Industrial Relations and Social Security, we are recording yet another important milestone in the history of Indonesia’s social dialogue and the collaboration between this great nation and ILO.

This 2-day event is a follow-up from the tripartite conference on ‘Indonesia’s Agenda for SDGs toward Decent Work for All’ held on 17-18 February 2016.

As concluding the tripartite conference in February, the participants adopted “The Way Forward”. In doing so, the tripartite constituents unanimously recognised the importance of achieving the Decent Work for All goal through tripartite social dialogue.

As a follow up to that way forward, the Dialogue has four general objectives:
  • To promote the implementation of SDGs, particularly Goal 8 on Economic Growth and Decent Work and its relevance for the tripartite constituents;
  • To introduce and promote best practices globally and regionally about various employment issues;
  • To promote and facilitate the dialogue among the tripartite constituents; and
  • To facilitate detailed discussion about skills, wages and collective bargaining, and social security administration.
The Dialogue will discuss in depth among the tripartite constituents. We expect the discussion will culminate in recommendations/action plans on the following three topics:
  • Skills development: with focus on implementation of public-private partnership in vocational training, tripartite involvement in training programs, skill development through apprenticeship program and skill diversification to enlarge employment;
  • Social security: with focus on strengthening social security institutions, universal coverage, unemployment insurance, and extension of social protection coverage; and
  • Wages and collective bargaining: with focus on strengthening social dialogue mechanism and institutions, development of wages structure and scale, promotion of collective bargaining and strengthening national and regional wages councils.
We feel privileged to be part of this high-level dialogue.

Just like in February, this is yet again the way we the ILO demonstrate how we can support our partners by mobilizing expertise from different parts of the organization. We have the ILO here in Jakarta, taking the lead for coordination. Technical experts from Regional Office in Bangkok and global headquarters in Geneva are here. Most of them, including myself attended the conference in February. Under the reform agenda of the ILO, one of the key items is One ILO, meaning we act and deliver our support and services in a coordinated and effective way.

In my capacity as the Regional Director for this vibrant region, I take this opportunity to reiterate my pledge to continue and enhance our effort to be flexible and responsive to the need from our partners in providing support and technical assistance.