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Special Initiatives

The WHO/ILO Joint Effort on Occupational Health and Safety in Africa

Background

Update 2 – Areas of Collaboration - Summary

Update 3 – Meeting on the Informal Sector in Francophone Countries

A WHO/ILO planning meeting on occupational health and safety (OHS) for the African Region was held in Harare, 7-8 March 2001 to follow the urgent need for strengthening OHS in the African Region, responding to the hazardous work environments and the huge burden of occupational injuries and diseases. WHO and ILO collaborate in this effort to be more effective and because workplace health and safety efforts take place under both Ministry of Health and Ministry of Labour in many countries. 

WHO and ILO agreed upon the following general objective:  The WHO/ILO Joint Effort on Occupational Health and Safety in Africa will improve conditions and environment of work in Africa, thus reducing the burden of occupational diseases and injuries, through intensified co-ordination of occupational health and safety activities. 

The Joint Effort also aims at showing that occupational health is closely intertwined with the elimination of social instability for families and societies.

The outcome of the meeting included strategies and areas of collaboration, as well as a plan of action.

1. Strategy - WHO and ILO agreed to achieve the following objectives: 

   • maintenance and promotion of workers’ health and working capacity

   • improvement of working environment and work to become conducive to safety and health

   • development of work organisations and working cultures favourable to healthy and safe working conditions and environments.

2. Areas of collaboration focus on the following:

   • Capacity building focused on human resource development

   • National policies, programmes and legislation

   • Information, research and awareness raising

   • Promotion of OHS in particularly hazardous occupations, vulnerable groups (including informal sector workers and children) and in newly transferred technologies

3. The Plan of action of Phase 1 focuses on the four areas of collaboration.

For more details access: www.sheafrica.info 

As part of the WHO/ILO Joint Effort on Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) in Africa, a meeting was held in Abidjan, 28-30 May 2001. The meeting was designed to act as a platform for strengthening the network of institutions and agencies in the African countries, bringing them closer together. There was particular emphasis on developing pilot projects on OHS in the informal sector in the cities of Central and West Africa.

The Objectives of the meeting and the expected outcomes were:

• To define strategic lines of action to protect the health and safety of workers in the informal sector in African countries.
• To devise national OHS action plans for workers in the informal sector.
• To identify a network of potential centres of excellence in Africa and elsewhere.

Participants came from Central and West African countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali and Niger.  In addition there were:

• Representatives from WHO/AFRO and WHO HQ;
• Representative from the ILO/EMAO in Abidjan;
• Representatives from French-speaking training and research centres in the field of occupational health and safety (Benin, France and Switzerland).

The first part of the meeting focused on the activities of WHO/AFRO and the experiences of participant countries in the OHS field, with country participants presenting summaries of the national occupational health and safety situation, and programmes. A summary of these presentations is available in the meeting report. The second part related to the identification of strategic lines of action in the informal sector, followed by the drawing-up of a model action plan. The third and final part consisted of papers from experts from French-speaking occupational health centres and discussions on potential training centres and a distance learning network.

Three speakers took the floor during the opening ceremony: the WHO representative in Côte d’Ivoire, the representative of the ILO Regional Director for Africa and the Minister for Public Health in Côte d’Ivoire.

Dr Mame Thierno Aby Sy, WHO representative in Côte D’Ivoire, said that jobs carried out in unhealthy conditions could be a factor in mortality, disease, accidents, disability and psychological distress. In the face of growing poverty, vulnerable groups - children, women and the elderly - were seeking refuge in the informal sector, where there was no formal health and safety protection. He stressed the need to bring occupational health under the umbrella of primary care and health promotion in general. The health sector in Africa was in a state of crisis, and support was needed from the international community for research, training and multi-sectoral measures in the OHS field. Mr Toudjida Andemel representing the ILO Regional Director for Africa noted the importance of the continuing partnership between WHO and ILO, aimed at establishing a framework for promoting occupational health and safety.

After the opening ceremony, Ms E. Anikpo N’Tame, Director, Sustainable Development and Healthy Environments, WHO/AFRO, gave a thumbnail sketch of OHS in Africa. Despite the high incidence of work-related accidents and disease, and the growing hazards facing the workforce, this sector remained the poor relation when it came to health development policy in Africa. At the same time, the institutions were not responding adequately to the rapid expansion of the informal sector, in which vulnerable sections of the population were seeking refuge. She stressed the need to give priority to occupational health programmes, and mentioned the increased co-operation between WHO and ILO on protecting the health and safety of workers.

The following points emerged from the various contributions.

• The existence in each country of institutions responsible for OHS issues;
• The importance of the informal sector in terms of job numbers and contribution to GDP;
• The inadequacy of legislation in the sector;
• The absence or inadequacy of action by the OHS authorities in the informal sector;
• The need for policies on OHS;
• The need to build partnerships between the various players involved in OHS;
• The desirability of strengthening occupational health structures and co-ordinating their activities;
• The need to bring occupational health within the ambit of primary health care.

It became clear from the discussions that the lack of provision for the informal sector was a very real problem needing to be tackled. In order to move the discussions forward and allow an action plan to be formulated, the list of issues was summarized and the following five strategic focuses adopted:

1. Data on the informal sector
2. Legislative and regulatory provisions
3. Health and safety services
4. Bolstering national capacities
5. The response capability of the informal sector.

The aim, in the case of each of the strategic focuses, was to draw up a two-year action plan comprising an overall objective, the outcomes expected, the activities to be carried out in order to produce those outcomes, the duration of the activities and, finally, the resources needed.

The presentation of the model action plan by the secretariat prompted discussions on the need to define the remit of health committees in the informal sector and the need to lobby hard for staff specializing in occupational health in each country.

Prof. Benjamin Fayomi introduced the various French-speaking occupational health centres in Africa and elsewhere and described their spheres of activity. In Africa, there were centres in Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria. He also gave details of the FORST programme, which links universities in Senegal, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso and Benin with McGill University, Canada. The programme utilised an Internet network to provide a virtual classroom for occupational health training and operational research for government officials, employers and workers. Prof. Fayomi stressed the need for South-South and North-South co-ordination and co-operation, with a focal point in each country.

Following a debate on the strategic and practical aspects of delivering occupational health services and on the recommendations to be made to WHO and ILO, the main points to emerge were as follows:

The need for the WHO/ILO to:

• lend technical and financial support to countries for carrying out activities;
• step up co-operation between WHO and ILO in order to support countries more effectively;
• foster collaboration between institutes and promote South-South and North-South exchanges.

The need for individual countries to:

• bring pressure to bear to ensure that OHS were given priority by health departments and in national training plans;
• establish focal points for gathering and distributing information on the informal sector.

The need for specialized centres to:

• create a network linking them to the national authorities.

Link:

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