ILO praises Zimbabwe

By Peter Matambanadzo
THE International Labour Organisation has praised Zimbabwe for speedily implementing its recommendations on the need for legislative reforms, strengthening of national institutions and social dialogue, training on freedom of association and collective bargaining and reinforcement of the rule of law among other issues.
The recommendations of the ILO Commission of Inquiry in a report entitled “Truth, reconciliation and justice in Zimbabwe” were made last year and Government pledged to fully implement them.
In an interview yesterday on the sidelines of an International Labour Standards and Judicial Independence and Ethics workshop, International Labour Standards director, Ms Cleopatra Doumbia-Henry, said the ILO was pleased with the progress Zimbabwe was making in implementing the rccommendations.
“I am very impressed by what I feel is ownership of the process engaged. Zimbabwe has fully co-operated with ILO and is implementing the recommendations. We wish to see Zimbabwe being a best practice country for ILO,” Ms Henry said.
She said Zimbabwe had also ratified 26 ILO conventions, including the eight fundamental conventions and three of the governance conventions.
“We are pleased and will continue to work closely with Zimbabwe and continue supporting the country through our technical assistance,” she said.
She said the ILO had already held high level roundtable discussions on international labour standards and national law and practices, a workshop for freedom of association and collective bargaining in the public sector and another training workshop on international labour standards for law enforcement agencies.
“We are doing activities for different stakeholders and they are well attended by senior officials.
“This shows how the Zimbabwean Government is committed to implementing the recommendations by the commission of inquiry,” Ms Henry said.
She, however, noted that Zimbabwe needed to address weak enforcement of labour legislation and the issue of large number of children working in the informal mining sector as well as trafficking of children to neighbouring countries.
She pledged that ILO would continue supporting Zimbabwe to ensure that such issues were addressed.
ILO is a United Nations agency devoted to advancing opportunities for women and men to obtain decent and productive work in conditions of freedom equity, security and human dignity.
Its focus is to promote rights at work, encourage decent employment opportunities, enhance social protection and strengthen dialogue in handling work related issues.
It also seeks to foster co-operation between Governments, employers and workers’ organisations in fostering social and economic progress.