Labour administration reforms and innovations: Effciency and outreach

The purpose of the workshop was to achieve synergy between academia, labour practitioners and ILO specialist to enhance the ILO knowledge base and to elaborate practical tools that could be used in technical cooperation activities in the labour administration field.

Mr Moussa Oumarou, Director of the ILO Governance and Tripartism Department (GOVERNANCE), opened the workshop and Mgr Michaela Marksová, Minister of Labour and Social Affairs of the Czech Republic, welcomed the participants. Mr Ludek Rychly, GOVERNANCE Senior Labour Administration and Specialist, introduced the workshop's programme and themes:
  • Reforms of labour administration
  • Information and communication technologies: Benefits, challenges and applications in labour administration
  • Performance management in labour administration
  • Labour administration challenges and innovations in developing countries: Findings from the field
  • Data, statistics, research: Impact on policy making
  • Informal economy and unregistered work
  • Tools for technical cooperation
Read the Opening Statement by Mr Moussa Oumarou, Director of GOVERNANCE

National labour administration systems have a crucial role in conception and implementation of national labour policies, but the effectiveness of labour administration institutions is not to be taken for granted. Many governments have thus recently taken efforts to modernize their labour administration systems and increase their performance by implementing various types of administrative reforms such as improving planning and coordination, introducing performance management schemes or using new technologies, especially in management processes and in providing services to the public.

Some of them have also taken measures to reach out to the informal sector, which is largely beyond the scope of labour administration in many parts of the world. In addition, many labour administration bodies have strengthened their cooperation with social partners and built partnerships with non-governmental organizations. Extended reliance on the private sector, especially in terms of contracting and quality control, is a notable development and one that also presents specific challenges.

At the same time, many labour administrations in both developed and developing countries have been trying to increase compliance with labour laws. This is a complex matter as compliance is determined not only by the effectiveness of labour inspection services, but also other factors such as quality of labour legislation, quality and speed of judicial proceedings, awareness of employers and workers of their right and obligations and also the quality of industrial relations, especially at the workplace level.

Participants at the workshop
The project was organized by the ILO in partnership with Sheffield University and with the participation of researchers from: University of Colombo, Sri Lanka; Cape Town University, South Africa; Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic; Göttingen University, Germany; Texas University, Austin, United Sates; Vanderbild University, Nashville, United States; University Lyon1, France; Cardiff University, United Kingdom; VV Giri National Institute of Labour, India; Research Institute of Labour and Social Affairs, Czech Republic.