The broad objectives of the Centre, as provided for in Article 2 of the ARLAC Agreement and Rules of Procedure of the ARLAC Governing Council include undertaking of studies and research in all aspects of labour administration. The ARLAC Governing Council acknowledges that in as much as there has been little activity in this regard, the Centre’s training programmes should be needs based, and that such needs can only be determined through focused research. It was also noted that training, advisory and research are interrelated and complementary, and that these should accordingly continue to inform the mandate of ARLAC. Labour administration today operates in a very rapidly changing environment characterized by dramatic economic, institutional and political transformations, including changing patterns of production, work organization and employment structures, increased labour migration, delocalization of production sites and the expansion of informal economy, to mention just a few factors. At the same time, governments are under increased pressure both to reduce public spending and to improve public service delivery. Therefore, further studies are needed on an understanding these dynamics in the prevailing context, for example on the relative importance given to each of the various functions of labour administration; the extension of those functions to workers in employment; and the shortage of human and material resources available to the administrations.
The latest ARLAC Strategic Plan (2019-2023) intends to build on the successes achieved during the implementation of the previous Strategic Plan and consolidate the gains achieved over the years. Therefore, a planning process commenced with the production of the guidelines for Strategic Plan Development purposely to provide a step by step approach including the road map completion of the exercise.
The process embedded 3 phases including the process involved consultation with trainees, who attended the tripartite workshops (25-29 June, 2018; 20-24, August 2018; and 03-07, September 2018) who reflected and discussed on the challenges/issues that frequently undermine Labour Administration in Africa. This discussion generated a long list of issues including:
The informality effects on economic development to inform the practitioners, etc.;
The number of own-account workers, employees and employers in the Informal economy;
Effective Dispute Resolution mechanisms;
Institutional Constitutions – best practice and ideal constitution elements;
Social Dialogue structures effectiveness.
One of the key Strategic Priority Areas outlined in the draft ARLAC Strategic Plan (2019-23) for is Research and Knowledge Management. The objective is to undertake studies to assess the impact of ARLAC’s activities on the overall performance of each member country’s labour administration system. In the coming years, the above proposed research areas, will be addressed through the main strategic actions which include to:
Define a formal knowledge strategy for ARLAC;
Work with students to jointly public some of the good research papers/ dissertations findings in journals; and to
Conduct research, studies and surveys to capture impact of ARLAC’s activities.
ARLAC will embrace knowledge management to be in position to help information and knowledge flow to and between the member countries and other stakeholders at the right time (in the right format at the right cost) to create value for the organization.
