IGAD 2nd Ministerial Conference on Labour, Employment, and Labour Migration kicks off in Addis Ababa

Addis Ababa, February 27, 2023 (FBC) – The opening session of the experts meeting of the Second IGAD (Intergovernmental Authority on Development) Ministerial Meeting kicked off today in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The IGAD Second Ministerial Conference on Labour, Employment, and Labour Migration meeting brings Ministers, Experts from the Ministries of Labour and Employment and Ministries of Foreign Affairs of the IGAD Member States and Social partners together.

In her welcoming remark, Fathia Alwan, Director of Health & Social Development at IGAD, stressed IGAD’s various activities, such as The Djibouti Declaration on Labour, Employment and Labour Migration, in order to comprehensively address the challenges related to Labour, Employment and Labour Migration.

“IGAD is grateful to UN-ILO for their sustained technical support & jointly implementing the FPMT project together with IGAD. I am confident that this gathering will adequately review the draft technical documents, provide strategic inputs and propose practical recommendations for the consideration by the Ministers in charge of #Labour and employment at the end of this conference”, she said.

President of Confederation of Ethiopian Trade Unions – CETU, Kassahun Follo, for his part, said, “The combination of political struggles, climate-related crises, as well as violent extremism in the region, halted regional development. This has caused various insecurities, inflation, unemployment, and underemployment.”

Speaking at the opening, ILO Country Director for the Horn of Africa, Alexio Musindo said, “We developed friendship in the last three years – which we no longer have to introduce ourselves as we would have done three years ago. This is one step in bringing the IGAD region closer together on labour, labour migration & employment issues.”