Mr. Chairman, Mr. President, IFAD, honourable delegates, ladies and gentlemen,

It is a great pleasure for me to speak on behalf of the ILO at this 25th Session of the IFAD Governing Council. I would like to start by thanking IFAD for having invited the ILO to attend this meeting. I should like to take this opportunity to congratulate IFAD for the excellent work it has done in the field of poverty reduction.

Poverty alleviation is a goal which is shared by the ILO, along with IFAD and other international agencies. One instrument which is very important in fighting poverty and yet is not mentioned often is employment. Of course IFAD's strategies of poverty reduction does include this tool. Also, the statement made yesterday by FAO did mention the importance of livelihoods and jobs in our fight against poverty. And I would like to elaborate a little on this.

Although employment is an important instrument in making growth pro-poor, it is not enough. And that is why the ILO is using the concept of Decent Work which includes productive and remunerative jobs with adequate protection, and undertaken in an environment of dignity (through participation and dialogue) and rights.

Last year the ILO prepared its Global employment agenda (GEA) and organized the Global Employment Forum to discuss the Agenda. It devotes attention to the importance of any employment-focussed development agenda for achieving the international development goal of reducing poverty by half by 2015. The Agenda calls for the incorporation of employment criterion in the allocation of public investment resources, with a view to facilitating the creation of poverty-reducing jobs.

We are following that up with an analysis of employment and labour market variables that contribute to poverty reduction. We are also trying to contribute to the country level efforts on the PRSP process in selected countries - collaborating with the World Bank.

In Africa, we are working at the policy level through the Jobs for Africa (JFA) programme. The basic strategy is to influence investment for achieving pro-poor growth - through the creation of poverty-reducing jobs.

At the level of programmes, ILO's work in several fields is aimed at contributing to the objective of poverty reduction: promotion of labour based approaches in infrastructure, cooperative development, micro finance and micro enterprise development, skill development for the poor. In a number of crisis and post-crisis institutions, the ILO is helping develop reconstruction programmes focussing on rebuilding livelihoods. Gender promotion is a cross-cutting theme in all these areas. We also have specific gender-focussed programmes, e.g., promotion of more and better jobs for women, and the capacity building programmes on gender, poverty and employment.

In conclusion, the ILO remains committed to the International Development Goal of reducing poverty by half by 2015, and to working with IFAD and other agencies in achieving that goal.