CMNT_TITLE

1. The Committee notes the Government's report for the period ending June 1998. It also notes the statistical information concerning the number of applications for employment received and the number of persons placed in employment and requests the Government to provide as full and complete statistical information as possible on the situation and the trends of the active population, employment, underemployment and unemployment. The Committee hopes that in this regard the implementation of the various technical cooperation programmes to promote employment will make it possible to improve the collection and analysis of the necessary statistical information to draw up and implement employment policy. It requests the Government to indicate in its next report any progress which may have been achieved in this regard.

2. The Committee notes with interest the description of the technical cooperation projects which are being implemented in the areas of vocational training and the promotion of employment and requests the Government to indicate the results obtained from these projects. In particular, please specify to what extent the UNDP/ILO vocational training project to reduce poverty is contributing to the sustainable insertion of beneficiaries in employment. Please indicate the impact on employment of the implementation, since 1992, of the UNDP/ILO road infrastructure development programme (Part V of the report form).

3. The Committee notes that the employment promotion project, which benefits from a loan by the Asian Development Bank, envisages the creation of six employment promotion centres. Please provide information on the establishment of these centres as well as the nature and volume of their activities.

4. The Committee notes the legislative provisions which form the basis for an active policy to promote full, productive and freely chosen employment. It recalls in this regard that the measures to be taken in matters of employment policy should be decided on and kept under review, within the framework of a coordinated economic and social policy, and in consultation with the representatives of the persons concerned, in accordance with Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention. With reference to its previous requests, the Committee hopes that the next report will contain information on the measures taken or envisaged to ensure that the representatives of employers and workers as well as the representatives of other sectors of the active population, such as persons employed in the rural or informal sectors, are consulted on the employment policy, "with a view to taking fully into account their experiences and views and securing their full cooperation in formulating and enlisting support for such policies".