Include employment creation in national development plans to achieve MDGs, says Janneh

Addis Ababa 24 April 2007 - United Nations Under Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa, Abdoulie Janneh, today in Addis Ababa called on African countries to include employment creation in their national development programmes to translate the decent work agenda into action to fight poverty and achieve the MDGs.

In a statement to the 11 th African Regional Meeting of the International Labour Organization on “Decent Work in Africa”, Mr. Janneh said he was seriously concerned that “economic growth in Africa is not yet job-rich”

Economic growth in Africa “is unequally-distributed and benefits a small segment of the population, leaving out the poor majority, especially women and youth,” he said.

Where jobs exist, said Janneh, the wages paid cannot, in themselves, lift large numbers of people out of poverty. He, therefore, called for increased attention to the informal sector which accounts for the majority of jobs in many African countries, and where wages are about 44 percent less than in the formal sector.

Mr. Janneh said the decent work agenda would enable social partners to focus on the concerns of millions of ordinary Africans who are confronted daily with problems of finding and keeping productive work, receiving fair incomes, and the challenges of equal opportunity, social protection and social exclusion.

He said, however, that the required actions to implement the decent work agenda were not limited to the national and regional levels. “The Doha Round of international trade talks must be resumed in earnest so as to live up to its developmental promise which is of critical importance to Africa,” he said.

Improvements in trade, aid and financing for development will enhance the ability of African countries to better exploit the benefits of globalization while minimizing its risks, he said.

Mr. Janneh also touched on the issues of brain drain, structural transformation and diversification of African economies and decent work in post-conflict African countries.