Background

Decent work is the ILO's primary goal for everyone, including persons with disabilities. The ILO has worked for over 50 years to promote skills development and employment opportunities for people with disabilities based on the principles of equal opportunity, equal treatment, mainstreaming into vocational rehabilitation. Since 2001, the ILO-Irish Aid Partnership Programme has worked in selected countries of South East Asia and East and Southern Africa to promote decent work and a better life for people with disabilities through enabling legal and policy environments, and by providing entrepreneurship development training and access to related services, with a particular emphasis on women with disabilities.

In the current Phase II, PROPEL supported the Government of Indonesia and other key stakeholders to address barriers to equal employment opportunities, and promote disability inclusion. The ILO’s previous programme on the role of businesses in creating inclusive workplace, the 1st Indonesia Business Disability Network held in December 1, 2015, also found substantial enthusiasm from the corporate sector to open more opportunities for workforce with disabilities. The questions raised were mostly in the line of ‘how can we start?’. The seminar will attempt to carry the spirit of previous IBDN and expand it toward a more focused dialogues on training, building blocks of inclusive workplace and role of government policies.

As global economy continues to rediscover its balance, slower and unequal growth widen the gap between the rich and the poor. Amidst such inequality, the rate of labour force growth is not matched with expanding opportunities for work. ILO estimates that more than 204 million were unemployed in 2015. As in many middle income countries, reducing inequality is an urgent issue for the government to tackle. Despite Indonesia’s successful effort at halving the poverty rate from 24 per cent in 1999 to 12 per cent in 2014, Indonesia still has one of the fastest rising rates of inequality in the East Asia region.

Recent Conference on Indonesia’s Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) toward Decent Work for All (17-18 February 2016), held by the ILO in collaboration with The Ministry of Manpower, concludes with acknowledging the critical importance of achieving inclusive growth and decent work through tripartite social dialogue in Indonesia. The (SDGs) aim to encourage sustained economic growth by achieving higher levels of productivity and through technological innovation. A recurring theme of the discussions was rising inequality. Increasing the opportunities for People with Disabilities to access decent work is one way in which inequality can be reduced while attaining inclusive economic growth. Decent work should be seen as a key driver of sustainable development – economic, social and environmental.

Decent work is especially challenging for workforce with disabilities. Current service and facilities provided by public institutions are inadequate to support the basic needs of people with disabilities, including their rights to adequate education and training which would allow them to possess the necessary skills to access decent works.

Despite lack of overarching policy which work seamlessly to promote inclusive employment, there are numerous beneficial practices carried out by different institutions which can serve as the basis for future replications. Businesses who have started their own initiative to build inclusive employment find that there are strong business cases for inclusive employment. Opening up employment for people with disabilities is seen as integral strategy for value creations, which occur among others from: 1) the positive impact people with disabilities have on workforce morale in general, 2) good levels of productivity linked to low levels of absenteeism and low levels of rotation; and 3) Improvement in business practices to accommodate people with disabilities resulting in practices benefitting all employees. This seminar will attempt at bringing forward such practices and foster more collaboration between interested parties.

Objectives

This one day seminar is aimed at showcasing different ways through which different stakeholders can do more in supporting creation of inclusive workplace. Different actors would have the opportunity to elaborate their experience in building inclusive environment.

Some of the speakers are in their early part of a long journey, which would allow others to not only learn from, but also contribute their ideas to the speakers. The seminar will also attempt to foster collaboration between stakeholders with related scope of work.

The event is designed to provide sharing of information and inputs regarding following subject matters:

1. How companies can be involved in - and benefit from supporting vocational education for workforce with disabilities;
2. How companies can make their major activities more inclusive, especially in the area of recruitment & HR management; and
3. What reasonable accommodations should companies provide to enable productive & inclusive working environment.