ILO to focus on social security and health care for labourers

New Delhi, May 18 (UNI) The International Labour Organisation is holding a meeting in collaboration with the Ministry of Labour and Employment tomorrow to discuss the issue of providing social security and health care for the aged workers by the member states both in terms of policy and practical feasibility.

The meeting will be inaugurated by Minister for Labour Oscar Fernandes at Vigyan Bhavan here.

The objective of the meeting is to share knowledge and experiences regarding strategies and mechanisms for extending social security, identify good practices and encourage initiatives and responses to emerging challenges. It also includes the aim to foster a consensual approach to issues of extension of coverage.

Representatives of international agencies like WHO, ADB, the World Bank, IMF, UNDP, EC, ASEAN, SAARC, ISSA together with bilateral (donor) agencies and representatives of local institutions active in this field, have also been invited to attend the meeting as observer.

The participating countries will narate their experiences and their papers and PowerPoint presentations will be circulated as reference materials because of time constraint.

The discussions will be focused on two themes -- social income security, not only in the form old-age pensions but also relevant needs for health care.

Thus, the framework will be set for the jointly-selected theme of social health care provision and it's financing. However, it will be of particular importance that the meeting addresses the challenges for extending social security to informal economy workers, and it is envisaged that this may take the form of an additional high-level panel session.

Issues like finance and governance of social security, also in relation to labour migration will be looked into at the meeting.

The meet will also identify a set of policy approaches within which participating countries can pursue effective and progressive extension of social security coverage, in particular to the workers in the informal economy.

This would be done while taking advantage of and integrating initiatives, on behalf of national institutions of social security and those arising from the NGO/grassroots sector, and also of the ILO's capacity to promote dialogue between the social partners to this end.

UNI MCN SP MIR KP1716