“Conference on Employment Growth – On the Way to Recovery”, organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the World Academy of Art and Science was held on July 1,2014 in Sarajevo.
Greeting the conference participants, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Zlatko LagumdĹľija said that the preparations for its holding began a few months ago, immediately after the EU brought into force a document on a new approach towards BiH due to which the content of the conference has been changed.
“Today we will share the best opinions from the world academic community and hold a debate for BiH legislative and the executive power, as well as representatives of international institutions”, added LagumdĹľija.
The aim of the conference is to open a process which will lead to forming a network of people and conclusions to be put into specific proposals for BiH authorities, as well as regional and some other initiatives that would mean a better connection to the European Union.
The Chairman of the Council of Ministers of BiH, Vjekoslav Bevanda emphasized in his address that he is convinced that the conference will fulfil its primary goal. “This conference is an opportunity to, besides active function of all responsible, continue working on new EU policy towards BiH based on economy factors and employment growth, which was promoted on a recently held Prosperity and Employment Forum”, added Bevanda. He reminded that new entity laws on work are currently in making, and with battle for preserving labourer rights in accordance with all international standards.
He said that the basic challenges we are facing when it comes to obstacles in solving unemployment are: “unwanted investing climate, inadequate structure, limited access to sources of financing, especially for micro, small and medium entrepreneurships which are the generators of progress, and a lack of training and skills and an unstable political environment.
“Opening new positions is the safest way to exit crisis and the private sector is the key to employment”, said Bevanda.
The honourable president of the World Academy of Art and Science, academian Ivo Ĺ laus said that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the World Academy of Arts and Science believe that it is necessary to increase employment, because it is the key element for future actions. Considering that the right to employment is one of the basic human rights, as he added, it is important to form such conditions in which it will be enabled for more people to work and have full-time employment.
The Director of the World Academy of Art and Science, Garry Jacobs welcomed the political readiness and the decisiveness of the governments to tackle this issue, particularly having in mind that the situation in BiH is additionally complicated due to the multiple challenges the country is dealing with in the past 20 years.
An expert of the International Labour Organisation, Donato Kiniger Passigli stated that the employment issue is global, not restricted to BiH. He isolated the issue of unemployment of educated youth and emphasized that the ILO will focus on this problem in 2015. For an employment growth, according to him, it is necessary to improve the educational system and synchronise it with the needs of the labour market, enable lifelong learning, various courses and improve youth proactivity when looking for a job.
Peter Sorensen, the Head of the Delegation of the European Union to BiH, participated in the conference, as well as did the representatives of numerous international and national organisations and institutions.
After the plenary address, the conference continued through parallel work sessions:
– Forum on Youth Employment
– Forum on Employment Systems and
– Forum on Employment Financing
One of the most important conclusions of parallel sessions, weather unemployment, generally and especially youth unemployment and educated people unemployment, ordinarily hits the most vulnerable and poor countries of the world, so that BiH is also facing the problem on speeding up the process of opening new positions. This should become a priority for the creators of all politics and institutions at all levels of authority. All structures within the social community dealing with this issue must be in truss and seek for a solution with the objective of efficiently answering to one of the vital problems of today.
Leave a comment