Ghana will host the first edition of the Africa Conference on Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) from Monday October 29 to Wednesday October 31, 2018 in Accra.
The conference which would be hosted by the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations with technical partnership from Occupational Health and Safety for Africa (OHSA) aims at bringing together key stakeholders in occupational health and safety to share experiences, research and offer solutions related to work in the African setting.
The conference would be held under the theme “Safe and Healthy Work Culture for Sustainable Development “with participants from Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt, Cote D’Ivoire and other African countries as well as Europe.
It would be opened by the President, Nana Addo Dankwah Akuffo-Addo and chaired by the Okyenhene, Osagyefuo Nana Amoatia Ofori Panin.
Speakers at the conference would include Mr Ignatius Baffour-Awuah, Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, Linda Reinstein, President of Asbestos Disease Awareness Organisation (ADAO), USA, Mr Amed Bamba, ISSA Liaison Officer for West Africa, Mr Alan Stevens, Head of Global Engagement and Partnerships, IOSH, UK.
The rest are Mr Dennis Zulu, Country Director, ILO, Dr Dennis Addo, Founder and CEO of Claron Health International, Mr Elhi Iden, CEO, Occupational Health and Safety Managers, Nigeria, Mr Paul Kuunang, CEO, Sheq Solutions,Dr Hanan Mohammed, Dibrugah University, India and Dr Hugo Schmidt, Lab Manager, University of Cambridge, Singapore among others.
It would have in attendance, authorities in charge of Labour and Employment in the Region, labour experts, health, safety and environment experts and international, inter-regional and local organisations whose work relate to the corresponding fields.
A key feature of the conference would be the National Launch of Vision Zero Campaign which is a global campaign, launched by the International Social Security Association (ISSA) in Singapore at the XXI World Safety and Health Congress in 2017 with the Africa launch in Cote D’Ivoire in April 2018.
Ghana would become the third African country after Cote D’Ivoire and Nigeria to launch this global campaign that has seen over 1950 companies and trainers sign up.
Ms Emilly Akumah, a Technical Advisor to the OSH Africa Secretariat in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) said the conference would be organised to provide a forum to examine the latest trends in OSH and also to promote health, Safety and well-being in Ghana and Africa.
She said there would be industry specific Technical Sessions to discuss OSH issues specific to different sectors, National OSH Dialogues, Exhibitions on Health, Safety, Well-being and Security and Technical visits to good practice enterprises.
This, according to her, would provide useful insight into good occupational health practices in Ghana and the whole of Africa.
The conference would be a very important milestone in bridging gaps between rapidly changing world of work in Africa and the corresponding challenges versus solutions in bringing about a healthy balance.
She said while Ghana and other African countries were turning onto the path of industrialisation, there was the need for an OSH document to guarantee the safety of people who would work in the industries adding that, is one of the key issues that should have been addressed before industrialising.
“If you want to industrialise, you need to have a culture where people pay attention to safe working environment and before that can happen, we need the right structures at the regulatory level before it even translate to industries” she added
Source: GNA
