Vietnam acknowledges ILO’s contribution on occupational safety and health

They are Tsuyoshi Kawakami, senior specialist in occupational safety and health from the Decent Work Team for Asia and the Pacific and Nguyen Hoang Ha, senior programme officer from ILO Country Office for Vietnam.

They were presented with the medals in recognition of their contributions to the cause of labour, invalids and social affairs, especially, in the field of occupational safety and health (OSH) – one of the key components in the Decent Work Country Programme (2006-2010).

The ILO has supported both the Vietnamese government and social partners to promote better OSH standards and working conditions in Vietnam through various technical cooperation projects relating to the integrated labour inspection, capacity building for OSH training and effective implementation of national OSH programmes.

Practical experiences from the ILO designed WIND (“Work Improvement in neighbourhood development” for agricultural households), WISCON (Work Improvement in small construction sites)and WISE (Work Improvement in small enterprises)programmes have been scaled up and replicated throughout the country using local resources.

In addition, with the ILO technical advice, the National OSH Programmes were formulated and implemented with an aim to enhancing OSH efforts, especially promoting a preventive culture at enterprises, focusing on small- and- medium enterprises in the informal economyand in the agriculture sector. ILO OSH management system has been promoted as a key to enhance further productivity and improve working conditions and health standards in those enterprises

Vietnam is highly appreciated by the ILO as a good example on OSH in Asia and has recently been selected by ASEAN as the coordinator for the national OSH programmes.