Establishment of a consultation framework for WAPES African Regional Ministers in charge of Employment and Vocational Training: AASEP’s President obtains Gabon’s support.
As part of his activities on the sidelines of the 112th International Labour Conference (ILC) in Geneva, the Gabonese Minister of Labour and the Fight against Unemployment, Mr. Adrien M’Guema MBA, accompanied by some of his close collaborators, received, this Tuesday June 11, 2024, a delegation from the African Association of Public Employment Services (AASEP) led by its President, Mr. Ibrahim Ag Nock, Managing Director of ANPE Mali. The meeting took place at the headquarters of the International Labour Office (ILO) in Geneva.
In addition to the President of AASEP, the meeting was also attended by the Honorary President of WAPES, Mr Camille Mouté à Bidias, Director General of Cameroon’s National Employment Fund (FNE), and their counterparts from Gabon, Mr Puanne Paulin Moussounda, Benin, Mr Amegbedji Urbain Stanislas, as well as representatives from Chad, Senegal and Congo Brazzaville.
The purpose of the meeting was to officially introduce WAPES and its sub-Saharan African branch, AASEP, and to solicit the support and accompaniment of the Gabonese government in its efforts to lobby its peers in the region to set up a consultation framework for ministers in charge of labor, employment and vocational training.
Following introductory remarks by the Director General of Gabon’s Pôle national de promotion d’emploi (PNPE), Mr. Puanne Paulin Moussounda, the President of AASEP, Mr. Ibrahim Ag Nock, took the floor. Ibrahim Ag Nock took the floor to set the meeting in context, notably at the end of the enlarged Executive Committee meeting held here in Geneva on June 7, and the important resolutions it led to, including the creation of an AASEP Permanent Secretariat in Conakry, and the meeting of ministers in charge of employment and vocational training that AASEP hopes to organize very soon in Libreville, Gabon, thanks to the support and leadership of the Minister and the Gabonese government.
The President briefly presented to the Minister the three flagship projects of Mali’s term as AASEP President: the Boulevard Africain d’Intermédiation (BAI), the Centre Africain de Formation des Conseillers Emploi (CAFCE) and the Programme de Développement de l’Emploi Vert.
The Minister promised to take a particular interest in the progress of these various projects, with a view to making them a reality.
It was then the turn of the Honorary President to outline the history of WAPES, from its creation here at the ILO in 1988 to that of AASEP in 1999 in Ouagadougou. He recalled the various and multiple attempts made to bring together and create a genuine synergy of action between all the players involved in meeting the challenge of fighting unemployment.
In response, Minister Adrien thanked the President of AASEP and his delegation for their availability, and for the work already being done by the PES in the region to promote employment and combat unemployment. He reaffirmed his personal availability, that of his department and that of the entire Gabonese government to support and accompany AASEP’s initiatives. As soon as possible, he will put his technical teams to work on the project, so as not to lose any time on the road to achieving the desired objective.
The meeting ended with a family photo and interviews with the press.
Source : Sidibé B.N/ANPE Mali
