Job Creation Remains a Challenge in SADC

Alvine Kapitako

4 April 2011

Windhoek — Despite improvements in Southern Africa’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2010 compared to 2009, job creation and poverty reduction remain limited.

Charles Dan, a re-presentative of ILO expressed this view last week at a meeting in Windhoek of Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) ministers responsible for labour.

He said that GDP for Southern Africa as a whole has improved in 2010, up from negative one per cent in 2009 to 3.7 percent in 2010. “Of all of Africa’s sub regions, the global crisis hit Southern Africa hardest,” said Dan. He said the real test of recovery should not be whether the economy in aggregate is back on track but whether there are concrete signs of improvement in the labour market.

To confront the consequences of the global crisis, many countries have placed employment creation at the centre of their national economic and social recovery policies, through the adoption of Decent Work Country Programmes, in line with the Global Jobs Pact, Dan said.

“We need to target employment creation as an objective of our macroeconomic policies. Full employment should become a key macroeconomic object alongside low inflation and sound fiscal accounts.” He stressed the need for investment in Africa’s workforce skills, saying skills and employment policies should be viewed together.

“The future and prosperity of any country or region depends ultimately on the number of persons-women and men in employment and how productive they are at work,” he said. He said estimates for European countries show that a one per cent increase in training days leads to a three per cent increase in productivity.

“But, in sub-Saharan Africa, only one-fifth of boys and girls of secondary-school age attend school,” Dan said. He told the SADC ministers that everywhere where young people lack skills, they find it hard to access the labour market.

In order to address the vicious circle of low education and skills and low productivity, Dan suggested, “a strong partnership between government, employers and workers is essential for an effective and enduring bond between the world of learning and the world of work.”

Social dialogue and collective bargaining at the enterprise, sector and national levels are also very effective in creating incentives for investment in skills and knowledge, he said, adding that the crucial role of sound labour market information systems should not be taken for granted.

“They generate, update and disseminate strategic information on current and future skill needs, in order to make this continuous flow of timely information available to education and training institutions, private market trainers, employers, trade unions and young people.”

Dan said skills policies should form part of a broad set of policies that are conducive to high rates of growth and investment, including investment in health care and social protection.

Dan stressed: “We should focus on education and training because skills are the foundation of decent work. But skills by themselves do not automatically lead to more and better jobs.” He also said only about 10 per cent of the labour force in Africa, mainly those in the formal economy, is covered by social security schemes.

He added that the large part of those excluded is found in the formal economy and amongst the poor and vulnerable populations. “Social protection is not a luxury. It is an investment in productivity and it is Africa’s new tripartite development journey,” he noted.

Officially opening the meeting on Thursday, Prime Minister, Nahas Angula said SADC should be further developed and be strengthened into a regional economic community that is renowned for excellent political and economic stability and leadership.

“I want to urge all of us to develop ethical norms against social evils such as corruption, bribery and fraud, regardless of our level of seniority or power, so that history will record the sharing of resources in our region in fair and equitable manner,” Angula said.

The objective of the meeting that ended Friday was to look at the possibilities of job creation, policies in SADC that would facilitate the relationship between all stakeholders that would facilitate investment, ensuring compliance of ILO conversions and recommendations, and to consider which country would represent SADC in various ILO bodies, amongst others.

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