Asia Pacific Group Needs to Achieve Greater Coordination on Labour and Employment Issues Globally

INVC,,

Geneva ,,

Mallikarjun Kharge, Labour and Employment Minister, Government of India, exhorted the global community to come forward with more focused and coordinated policies in the process of economic recovery by creating more employment opportunities, skill upgradation, enhancing social protection and providing decent working conditions. He emphasised the need for Asian and Pacific countries to achieve greater coordination and putting across our common view point on labour and employment issues at the global forum. The minister was addressing delegates from Asia-Pacific region at the sidelines of ILO General Assembly being held in Geneva and being attended by 170 countries.

Shri Kharge said that Asia Pacific Group (ASPAG) is an important platform to discuss the issues of common interest of our region. He mentioned that we all know that the economic slowdown has severely affected labour market across the world. The response to counter the adverse impact of slowdown has been prompt and a host of measures were taken to bring back the economic equilibrium. However the problem confronting the world of work has been of far greater magnitude. Countries across the world have taken targeted measures to check loss of employment, increase employment opportunities, improve working conditions and enhance social security. Being home to the majority of the workforce in the world these issues are significantly relevant to our region. We have large workforce in informal economy, we are both the source and the destination for the migrant workers, and we have a large share of workers who are under vulnerable categories.

Given the vulnerabilities of the labour force in our region, situation in the labour market calls for the more focused and coordinated policies in the process of recovery by targeting generation of more employment opportunities, skill upgradation, enhancing social protection and providing decent working conditions.

He expressed satisfaction that ASPAG as a group has effectively put forth the labour market issues concerning our region in the forum like ILO. He expressed the hope that as a group ASPAG would continue to raise effectively the relevant issues concerning labour and employment at ILO keeping in view the common interests and priorities of our region. We should continue to raise the issue of increased technical cooperation programmes of ILO in the region considering the diverse nature of large workforce he added.

Shri Kharge said that there is enormous potential for ASPAG countries to learn from each other. India has adopted some innovative and quick policy responses to the economic slowdown and these experiences provide replicable model for evolving a policy measure for a more stable and sustainable growth and are particularly effective during the time of crisis. There are many such policies being followed in India. He made a particular reference to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Programme (NREGA) that guarantees wage employment at an unprecedented scale and a unique and ambitious national health insurance scheme called Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojan (RSBY) which provides health protection for the low income households.

He emphasised the need for ASPAG group to achieve greater coordination and putting across its common view point on labour and employment issues at the global forum.