Minister for Employment and Social Affairs, Mrs Patricia Francourt, addressed the United Nations Country Team Strategic Retreat, 19^th May, 2022,

in Victoria, STC Conference room.

The United Nations Country Team held its Strategic Retreat for 2022 under the theme, Multi-Sector Policy Dialogue between the Government of Seychelles and the United Nations Country Team for Seychelles and Mauritius, at the Seychelles Trading Company Conference room. The objective of the Retreat is for the Government of Seychelles to highlight the response to the Covid-19 pandemic in line with the National Development Strategy, focusing on future cooperation with the United Nations and how the United Nations Agencies can further assist Seychelles in its Covid strategic recovery interventions.

Five key thematic areas were covered as follows; Transformative Economy, Environment Sustainability and Climate change, Human Rights, Law and Order, Health and Social Affairs and finally Education and Culture.

In taking the floor, the Minister for Employment and Social Affairs, Mrs. Patricia Francourt outlined the impact that Covid 19 on the labour market and the families and consequently the strategic interventions of the Government to mitigate its long term effects on the country. First and foremost, the Minister illustrated that one of the priority recovery interventions is to recognise a social dimension strategy towards Covid 19, that is effective, sustainable and inclusive placing people at the centre of our objectives.   The Minister elaborated on how fast we adopted strategic recovery interventions immediately after the re-opening of the International borders. In terms of placing people at the centre of the Ministry’s objectives, in 2021, 2477 jobseekers were registered where mostly women and youths were affected. However, even in the difficult times, 1847 job seekers were placed in employment, 5000 jobs created and 17,000 post applications for employment of migrant workers were registered  which is amazingly higher than pre-covid.

Minister Francourt stressed that the success and progress were due to our hard work and efforts, our quick responses to national campaign of vaccination thus building business confidence as Seychelles being a safe place to be. However, the Minister emphasized that we still have our challenges and the Government will continue to focus on targeted groups such as youths, women, physically challenged people, older workers, informal economy, flexible employment and review of our employment legislative framework and so on. These interventions are in line with Goal eight of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on decent work and economic growth.

The Minister thanked the ILO for its continued support and call on all UN Agencies to continue to support Seychelles as a whole. The Minister also launched a national campaign on contribution of migrant workers in the country which will be conducted later in the year under the partnership of the Southern African Migration Management project (SAMM).

The Retreat was co-chaired by the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Tourism, Minister Sylvestre Radegonde and United Nations Resident Coordinator, Ms. Christine Umutoni.