Minister of Labour, Industrial Relations and Employment Creation, Utoni Nujoma has said Namibia has shown readiness to be a part of the Global Accelerator.
On Friday, the last day of a three-day high-level scoping mission from the International Labour Organisation (ILO), Nujoma said all stakeholders and social partners that met with the ILO scoping mission team that was in Namibia, expressed readiness to participate in the Global Accelerator.
The Global Accelerator was launched by the United Nations Secretary-General in September 2021. It aims to increase the level and coordination of efforts to help countries create 400 million decent jobs in both developed and emerging economies, and to extend social protection to half the world’s population who are currently excluded.
“I am pleased to report that the prospect of Namibia’s possible section as a Pathfinder country was met with great enthusiasm in all quarters,” Nujoma said.
He explained that as a Pathfinder country, Namibia would be required to identify entry points for the Global Accelerator project and propose a number of interrelated broad areas that include policy coherence and coordination of employment and social protection, employment creation, inequality and informality.
These areas, the minister said, will be reviewed and supported by an agreed-upon financing strategy.
Confirming Nujoma’s sentiments was the Director of the ILO’s Social Protection Department, Shahrashoub Razavi, who said what they have seen in Namibia during their high-level scoping mission aligns with the aims of the Global Accelerator.
“I see a real residence between the Global Accelerator and the plans and policies that are already in place in Namibia,” said Razavi.
Some of the aims of the Global Accelerator expressed by Razavi were to increase the number of decent jobs and to increase social protection for everyone.
The Global Accelerator is amongst others aimed at addressing problems such as structural unemployment, weak coordination of employment across sectors, inadequate policy coherence, absence of a financing strategy, institutional and capacity constraints, inequality and informality.
Nujoma said Namibia would greatly benefit from this initiative as it would assist the country to achieve concrete identified outcomes that can have a big impact on the well-being of Namibians by lowering the rate of youth unemployment.
“I am of the opinion that the Global Accelerator can enable us to ensure a bright future, especially for our youth,” he said.
Source: The Namibian Press Agency
