Scale up efforts to fight poverty, Sadc urged

Labour and Social Services Mr Lancaster Museka said the region was also facing rampant child labour and the HIV and Aids pandemic.
He was speaking while officially opening a three-day workshop on the development of Employment and Labour Policies and Strategies.

“Sadc is one of the most promising developing regions that has embraced the International Labour Organisation Decent Work Agenda as an arch stone to address challenges of poverty, high levels of unemployment, inequality, child labour and HIV and Aids pandemic,” Mr Museka said.

“It is the realisation of the urgent need to scale up efforts to eradicate these challenges that has led Sadc to develop harmonised and common approaches.”
Mr Museka said the workshop would enable senior officials from Sadc to re-examine working documents adopted by labour ministers in Namibia in April.

“It is pleasing to note that since this meeting, a lot of progress has been registered in the refinement of the monitoring and evaluation tools of the various Sadc codes for child labour, social security, HIV and Aids, occupational health and safety,” he said.

Mr Museka said the workshop would be an opportunity to discuss and lay the foundation for discussion for the forthcoming 2012 Employment and Labour Sector meeting of Ministers and Social partners to be held in Angola.

Although Sadc is well endowed with human capital and vast natural resources, he said, it still remains with various social and economic challenges.
The challenges include labour migration, low labour standards, low productivity and lack of access to social services by the majority.

It is estimated that the majority of people in the Sadc region live below US$1 per day and over 40 percent of the population lives in abject poverty.
The workshop is being attended by regional labour experts, consultants, ILO officials, trade unionists, Government officials, workers and employers from the region.