International conference on innovations in public employment programme and sustainable inclusive growth
Labour Ministers from 32 countries to attend
Labour Ministers from 32 countries to attend
Union labour
and Employment
Minister Shri Mallikarjun
Kharge will inaugurate the International conference on innovations
in public employment programme and sustainable
inclusive growth on March 01, 2012 at New Delhi . Labour
Ministers from 32 countries will be attending this conference.
The objectives of the three day conference organised
in collaboration with ILO are :
·
To build capacity and to share knowledge between
countries on the innovations around convergent holistic frameworks and to
assess the strategic entry points for different contexts which can lead to an
overall better cohesion for inclusive growth with equity, linking employment
and social protection to productive works.
·
To use the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee
Scheme (MGNREGA) as a case study for public policy to share insights on the
linkages and convergence, as one of the internationally recognized large scale
public employment programmes – highlighting the innovations, but also the
challenges faced in supporting sustainable development
·
To better appreciate the range of policy issues
relevant to public work programmes / employment guarantee schemes and to obtain
guidance on the design of effective public employment programmes.
·
To highlight how public work programmes / employment
guarantee schemes can be effective and efficient active labour market programmes.
Based
on ILO’s experience in countries such as India, South Africa and Ethiopia, many
countries have established or are in the process of establishing new PEPs /
Employment Guarantee Schemes (EGS). Various countries are already proposing
some aspects of an employment guarantee:
Honduras, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines and South Africa to name a
few If we take the example of labour standards, which has been a key source of debate
over the years, India’s first-of-its-kind ‘employment ‘guarantee’ has actually
helped shift this debate. If an
employment guarantee offers work at the minimum conditions at which it would
considered ‘acceptable’ to offer work – and displaces work below this level –
then a social goal has been achieved – reducing vulnerability and overall
poverty, providing regular and predictable work, and enhancing human dignity – all central to the mandate of
the ILO. Also, UNDP global mandate is
“to help countries in their efforts to achieve sustainable human development by
helping them to build capacity giving first priority to human alleviation”.
The Employment Intensive Investment Programme (EIIP) in the ILO promotes the
orientation of infrastructure investments towards the creation of higher levels
of productive employment and improved access to basic goods and services for
the poor. The EIIP is also working closely with practitioners from MGNREGA to
highlight the innovations in designing and implementing large scale public
employment programmes. Some of the key features of
ILO collaborative work have been:
- The continued debate on productive and full employment amongst key practitioners and the many ways to achieve this, especially after a crisis, but mainly with a long-term vision for creating the needed fiscal space.
- The capacity development of national practitioners and decision-makers involved in policy development in different ministries ( labour & Employment ,Rural Development, public works, planning, local government, gender, youth, etc.) since these initiatives had an impact on changing the ways of working, by encouraging more inter-ministerial work needed to have a larger impact on employment and on the economy as a whole
- The creation of networks of key people involved in international policy development, including academics, country-level experts, UN research and policy developers, and International financing institutions.
- Contributing to the debate on MDG acceleration and joint collaboration between various partner agencies.
Over
the past few years, the need for collaborative partnership for a wide range of
national / international experiences and
best practices and taking these discussions to a more practical level has been
discussed among various members of the international networks. Following
informal discussions between a few key members, ILO undertook to develop the
Policy Paper and a South-South Learning Package with the idea of allowing the
solution developers (India, South Africa and Ethiopia) to showcase their public
employment programmes for the benefit of other
countries currently in the process of designing their own public employment programmes - contributing to south-south capacity
development and focusing on the particularities of each country. The Innovations in Public Employment Programmes (IPEP) places full and productive employment and
decent work at the centre of economic and social policies which are most
adequate for each country, also pursuing to strengthen partnerships with
relevant national experts / practitioners in this field and expanding dialogue
with relevant international organizations and development banks to facilitate
their implementation
The
Government institutions and implementing agencies of participating countries
implementing large scale public employment programmes
interested in exchanging experiences and innovations will bring together a mix
of policy and decision makers from different ministries and technical
specialist, responsible for implementing and administering public employment programmes.
The
following countries are attending the conference:
Asia - India,
Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam,
Indonesia, Philippines, Kyrgystan, Tajikistan,
Uzbekistan
Africa – Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa, Zimbabwe,
Tanzania, Ghana, Nigeria, Algeria, Uganda, Zambia
South America – Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Peru, Colombia,
Bolivia, Guatemala, Dominican Republic
In addition,
a large number of participants from various Indian government institutions,
employers and worker’s representatives and civil society organizations will
participate in this International conference.
On the first day of the conference
, Round Tables Discussion IBSA /South-South Cooperation on “Employment
and Social Protection Centered Development Strategies”will
be held. Presentations on India’s key employment and social protection policies
including its employment guarantee scheme (MGNREGA), key components of some of India’s flagship programmes such as National Health Insurance Scheme (RSBY),
Skills Development Initiative (SDI), National Rural Livelihood Mission and the
synergies found through their convergence for sustainable development,
highlighting the replicable sustainable livelihood models to test the efficacy
of some of the best practices will be made.
On the second day, presentations and
discussions around various thematic themes important in properly designing a
public employment programme which can support
synergies and convergence will be held besides sharing of similar experiences
from South Africa, Brazil and other countries on following topics:
·
Employment
and Social Protection – a Human Investment
·
Asset
creation – the use of public and private assets
·
Social
Auditing. - transparency and
accountability,
·
Platforms
for Convergence – policy cohesiveness and fiscal space
·
Impact
assessments and empirical analysis
·
Adaptation
to Climate Change
·
Contributing
to the Green Economy through Mitigation
