ILO regional chief satisfied with Seychelles’ policies and actions

“Seychelles is a country that is blazing the trail in terms of translating policies into concrete actions,” the International Labour Organisation (ILO) assistant director general and regional director for Africa, Cynthia Samuel-Olonjuwon has said.

The ILO regional chief was speaking of her visit here with the press yesterday at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Prior to the press meet, Mrs Samuel-Olonjuwon met President Danny Faure at State House where he accepted to attend the centenary of the ILO next year.

Her visit has been mainly for the official adoption of the Decent Work Country Programme and for preparing for its second phase.

She also seized the opportunity to participate in the validation meeting of the National Labour Migration Policy.

During her mission here, she also met Vice-President Vincent Meriton, the Minister for Employment, Immigration and Civil Status and the Association of Seychelles Employers and the Seychelles Federation of Workers’ Union.

The ILO regional chief congratulated the country through the President for being among the only three countries within the African continent that has achieved gender parity at the highest level of government. The two others being Ethiopia and Rwanda.

“Seychelles is a country that is blazing the trail in terms of translating policies into concrete actions. It is important to acknowledge and appreciate the fact that the Seychelles is the only country in Africa that has been officially designated as a high income economy. This is no mean feat. I also congratulate Seychelles for finalising and adopting the second generation of Decent Work Country Programme,” she said.

Despite all these achievements, the ILO representative also mentioned that Seychelles needs to work on the key issues that would be addressed in the second generation.

“The key focus is to use it as a tool for the implementation of the SDG’s 2030 that the country committed to and most importantly to translate the goal of the national plan. The country has a dynamic economy and needs to learn how to address the new challenges such as effectively manage the migration of workers, issues relating to skills around the country, the capacity of trade unions and the institutional framework,” she said.

How would ILO help Seychelles in achieving the goals? “ILO has been supporting Seychelles and will continue to support the country. We are not a funding agency. The SDG provides the framework of action and we remain available to help. ILO has the technical experiences that can help in translating the goals in concrete actions,” she said.

Antoine Robinson, secretary general of the Seychelles Federation of Workers Union, noted that with the signing of the second phase of the programme, it will allow the union to form more committees at the work place.

“The employees need to be educated and this is something we will focus on. The union works for both Seychellois and foreign workers and want to invite anybody who is being victimised to approach us,” he said.

Veronique Bresson, special advisor at the Ministry of Employment, Entrepreneurship Development & Business Innovation, mentioned that “goals that were not achieved in the first phase was due to lack of human and technical resources. Now we have a new vigour to pursue the work already started. We will also make sure that the monitoring and advisory committee which gather representatives from the government, workers and employers, are active.”

Complements of Seycelles NATION.