The 9TH African Union Ordinary Session on Labour and Social Affairs opened in Addis Ababa last Tuesday to plan ahead for the biennial forum of  Labour Ministers and Social partners scheduled for next year.

The objective of the conference is to provide a forum for ministers and social partners to share experiences and learn from each other on ongoing programmes and activities on labour and employment in Africa.

It would also provide opportunity for stakeholders to review progress made in labour and employment issues, particularly those contained in the 4th Biennial Follow-up Report on the implementation of the Ouagadougou Declaration and Plan of Action.

Speaking at the opening of a 4-day conference, Nigeria’s Dr Olawale Maiyegun, AU Commission’s Director of Social Affairs, said the session was taking place during a historic period considered as a watershed year for Africa, which marks 50 years of OAU, later renamed the AU.

“ The 50th OAU/AU anniversary which is being observed and organised under the theme: “Pan Africanism and African Renaissance’’, is providing us with opportunities to take stock of the key milestones of the past 50 years.

“And also to project into the future on how well we have provided decent jobs, social protection for our people, particularly the youth and women and how we tackled poverty in the last 50 years,’’ he asid.

“It is also an opportunity for us to project into the next 50 years that is by 2063, will our narrative still be poverty or we would have eradicated poverty,’’ Maiyegun said.

The Tide source reports that the conference with a theme “Enhancing the Capacity of the Labour Market Institutions in Africa to meet the Current and Future Challenges’’ is chaired by Namibia.

Maiyegun said the LSAC session would consider the 4th Biennial Follow-up Report on the implementation of the Ouagadougou Declaration and Plan of Action; the Draft Youth and Women Employment Pact, as requested by the 17th Ordinary Session of the Summit of Heads of States and Government in Malabo in July 2011.

He said the delegates would also consider the Social Protection Plan for the Informal Economy and Rural Workers; Communication and Implementation Strategy; and the Intra African Technical Cooperation Platform.

“The session will also work on the preparation of the Special Session of the LSAC which will take place in 2014, and deliberate on the review of the Rules of Procedures of the LSAC.

“The meeting will be briefed on the progress made on the AU Labour Market Information Systems Harmonisation and Coordination Framework, including the recommendation of the 5th Joint AUC–ECA Conference of Ministers in charge of Finance, Economy, and Development Planning.

A briefing will also be done on the AU initiative on the establishment of an African Institute for Remittances (AIR).

Reports that the Ordinary Session of the AU Labour and Social Affairs Commission (LSAC) is convened every two years and it is organised on the tripartite principle basis, which provides a policy forum to governmental authorities, and representatives of workers and employer organisations within the AU member states.

The conference is expected to make concrete proposals on how to strengthen the capacity of existing institutions and regulations to meet current and future challenges in relations to inclusive economic growth, youth’s empowerment, labour market governance and accelerated implementation of social protection for workers.

The conference which had gone into a close session is also expected to elect new bureau members with representatives from the Regional Economic Communities.

Reports say that Labour ministers and experts from the AU member states, Social partner organisations, representatives of Regional economic Communities, the UN, NGOs, Civil Society Organisations and other labour professionals are participating in the conference.