ADDIS ABABA, Dec 2 (AFP) - African countries must improve its working conditions, while its performance was being undermined by rising labour costs mainly due to the AIDS pandemic, a labour conference was told on Tuesday.
Speaking at the opening session of the 10th ILO African Regional conference, held in Addis Ababa, International Labour Organisation Director-General Juan Somavia told gelegates "work is at the heart of the economic, political and social concerns of people."
"So, let us make decent work (conditions) in all countries. That is the new organizing factor for globalisation that works for us all."
An ILO report released at the four-day conference, said Africa's macro-economic performance was being undermined by rising labour costs associated to sickness, mainly the AIDS pandemic ravaging the continent and shortage of skilled labour.
"Moreover, the work-force of the future is weakened as children are taken out of school to help and care for sick relatives, to raise income for the family or because they have lost one or both parents to AIDS," the report said.
In sub-Saharan Africa around 27 million people are infected with HIV out of an estimated global tally of 40 million, according to UN estimates.
Around 2.3 million Africans will have died from AIDS during 2003, and at least three million more Africans will have become infected.
Somavia told the conference, aimed at examining strategies for hauling millions of people out of poverty and creating jobs in Africa, the world's poorest continent, that globalisation was not stopping unemployment and poverty.
He told some 400 delegates from 53 African countries that three out of four Africans were surviving on less than two dollars a day, while around 90 percent of the workforce in many African countries work in the informal economy without social protection.
"With HIV/AIDS continuing its devastating death-march across Africa, decent work approach is crucial," he said.
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