Reprinted from Caribbean Net News
caribbeannetnews.com

Fifteenth COHSOD meeting opens in Guyana with focus on education and labour

Saturday, October 21, 2006

by: Gordon French
Caribbean Net News Guyana Correspondent
Email: gordon@caribbeannetnews.com

GEORGETOWN, Guyana: Representatives from throughout the region are in Guyana for the fifteenth meeting of the Council for Human and Social Development (COHSOD), where focus will be placed on education and labour, especially with the implementation of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME).

The three-day meeting opened here on Thursday under the theme, “Investing in human resources with equity, with special refrence to education and labour”.

Delivering the feature address, Deputy Director, of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Subregional Office for the Caribbean, Mary Read, made an appeal for the participants to focus on employment-promoting macro-economic policies.

She outlined a number of issues originating from the Tripartite Caribbean Employment Forum and the adoption of the “Tripartite Declaration and Plan of Action for realising the Decent Work Agenda in the Caribbean” by that Forum.

Read outlined the need for people to benefit from economic growth, social inclusion, and strengthening participatory democracy.

She added that although the Caribbean has experienced modest growth since 2000, there has not been an equal increase in employment.

Read posited that open unemployment rates remain in double-digit figures for the region as a whole, while women’s unemployment rates continue to be higher and often substantially so, when compared to unemployment rates for men.

Unemployment among youth is sometimes twice or three times higher than the national average, Read stated.

She noted that a major issue of concern is the general decline in productivity and the erosion of competitiveness in the Caribbean, especially in the global environment of today.

“Caribbean countries need to take major policy decisions, individually and collectively, in order to adapt to the unfolding realities of rapid liberalisation and global competition. The policies need to address forcefully both the economic and social challenges so as to sustain and improve economic growth and promote full and productive employment and decent work,” Read said.

She charged participants to adopt employment-promoting macro-economic policies that foster conditions conducive to increased trade, investment, competitiveness and job opportunities

Read alluded that there is wide spread agreement that the populations of the countries of the Caribbean are much more highly educated than in the past. But, she noted that this has not translated itself into a better, more productive and competitive workforce.

“Most employers heartily agree that the persons coming out of the formal education system are less qualified and less employable today than in the past. They require more basic skills training before becoming effective in the workplace. As one employer put it, the formal education system is teaching a generation of students how to pass exams,” Read stated.

Read alluded that Treaties, Articles, Declarations and Charters speak to the need for comprehensive and coherent policies and actions that transcend the separations between Finance, Trade, Investments, Labour and Employment.

Almost all ILO member States in the English- and Dutch-speaking Caribbean have ratified the ILO’s 8 core Labour Conventions under the Declaration of Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.

St Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines still have to ratify the ILO Convention on the minimum age for entry into employment, while Suriname still has to ratify three of the 8 core Conventions, namely the ILO Conventions on Minimum age, equal remuneration and on
the elimination of discrimination in employment and occupation.

As regards growth rates in the region, Read noted that during the period 2000-2004, most countries, except Belize and Trinidad and Tobago, experienced modest economic growth.
The labour force participation rates during the past ten years have increased very slightly to 61.5%.

“This rate, however, is still low compared to the world and Latin America, which enjoy labour force participation rates of around 66%,” Read said.

The COHSOD meeting will conclude on Saturday.

Chancellor of the University of the West Indies, Sir George Alleyne who is the United Nations Special Envoy to the Caribbean on HIV/AIDS and Chair of the Caribbean Commission on Health and Development is expected to deliver a presentation on the priorities for health and development in the Caribbean.

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