Some years ago (December 1990) I explained in UFA’s bulletin that the International Labour Office was about to start a project on occupational safety and health in 21 African countries, where English is understood. The project, funded by the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, was planned to be the first phase in a long-term programme of some 20 years. Apart from being a few years older, we have learned alot about safety and health in Africa.

The programme was accepted for implementation in 1989 at the time when there seemed to be no shortage of funds and the funding commitment for a long period was quite natural. During the five years, however, alot of things happened which obviously influenced the project plans and implementation. For example, Namibia became independent and joined the project; and South Africa has already started to play a key role in safety and health in the southern part of Africa. In addition to the world political changes, and partly caused by them, the Finnish economy and the funds available for technical cooperation radically decreased. This meant a major restructuring of the project. The long-term commitment was also withdrawn. This was disappointing at the time announced, but not necessarily so negative to the project’s implementation.

The new direction included:

concentration on less costly activities, such as emphasis on the information matters, national and local training replacing regional workshops involving expensive travel with national work-shops and activities, establishment of small "mini-projects" run at the country and local levels, looking for other sources of funding and combining efforts with those of other donors;

reduction of expensive manpower, in particular, international experts;

maximum use of national expertise and associate experts, including a DANIDA funded associate expert;

networking of existing expertise, such as the African Trade Union (OATUU) network on occupational safety and health;

less expensive travel, fellowships and missions.

During the five-year period some 6 million USD was used. Selected outputs included:

trainers’ programmes and the development of a totally new training methodology;

more than 100 regional, national and local workshops, seminars, courses and similar occasions;

17 new ILO-CIS National and Collaboration Centres established, trained, equipped and supported;

guidance for drafting new legislation in several countries;

computerized inspection, accident and enter-prise recording systems established;

five volumes of the African Newsletter on Occupational Health and Safety, which pro-vided a detailed account on developments in Africa;

vast amount of training materials including Training of Trainers Package, a comprehensive Industrial Hygiene material, Basic Safety Package, Chemical Safety;

Training for Change, book by

Y. Engestrm;

electronic databases and software, etc.

A full list may be obtained from the International Occupational Safety and Health Information Centre of the ILO.

As a result of the activities, which still continued on a really modest scale in 1997, my feeling is that Africa and, in particular, the occupational safety and health activities there, are much better known. Their status in most countries is higher; and a growing amount of national action is taking place. The ILO has also increased its presence and expertise in Africa. The key donor is now Denmark, but Sweden is coming in with a chemical labelling project in eastern Africa. Finland will hopefully continue at least on a modest level, the multidisciplinary advisory teams of the ILO have three experts in the African region, the trade union activities continue and networking expands encompassing also South Africa. The International Programme for the Elimination of Child Labour is active in Africa and, finally, a Global Programme on Occupa-tional Safety, Health and Environment is being launched by the ILO. This Programme will link occupational safety and health activities in Africa to those in the whole world. A comprehensive project final report is now being prepared and will be published later this year to highlight the lessons learned.

An evaluation mission was carried out by Dr. Matti Lamberg from the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health of Finland and Professor Markku Mattila from the Tampere University of Technology. A summary of their report has been published in the African Newsletter on Occupational Health and Safety.

Latest news from the donor, the Ministry of For-eign Affairs of Finland, indicate that activities will continue in developing countries, in particular in Asia, and on a very modest level in Africa for the years 1998-2000. These will be coordinated with more substantial contributions from Denmark, in particiular for the Southern African (SADC) coun-tries. Details of such future activities are being worked out in 1998.

Engestrm, Y: Training for Change: new ap-proach to instruction and learning in working life. International Labour Office, Geneva 1994. 148 pages.

Lamberg, ME & Mattila, M: Summary of the evaluation of the African Safety and Health Project. African Newsletter, vol 5, no 3, 66-68, December 1995.

African Newsletter, vol 6, no 1, May 1996.

Allergies and work. 24 pages.