Programme Director, Mr. Sipho Ndebele, Acting Deputy Director-General for Labour Policy and Industrial Relations;

Acting Executive Director of NEDLAC, Mrs. Nobuntu Sibisi;

Director of the ILO Pretoria Office, Mr. Alexio Musindo;

Acting Chief Executive Officer of Productivity South Africa -   Ms. Amelia Naidoo

Distinguished representatives of the SADC region and other African regions joining us today – from Namibia, Lesotho, Zambia, Botswana, Ethiopia, Mauritius, Ghana and beyond;

Leaders and representatives of organised business, organised labour and the community constituency;

Representatives of government departments, regional bodies and our social partners;

Our panelists, moderators and scene-setters for the day;

Distinguished guests, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen,

Good morning,  

I reflect on the powerful opening remarks of the previous speakers; I am struck by how clearly they have set the stage and captured the true weight of our deliberations today.

The representative from NEDLAC reminded us that "many lives depend on the decisions that will be taken today".

I agree whole-heartedly with her and believe that this must be the core concern driving our efforts—the critical nexus between policy, budget/finance, and impact. This policy-budget-impact nexus is the essential pathway through which high-level legislative and policy frameworks are backed by dedicated financial resources to translate commitments into tangible, positive improvements in the daily lives, dignity, and well-being of our citizens.

Furthermore, our colleague from the ILO rightly placed immense emphasis on the role of "social dialogue". I strongly agree with his perspective; indeed, if we are to achieve robust, evidence-based policymaking, social dialogue must be at the very center of that process. It is only through systematic social dialogue that we can surface crucial grassroots knowledge—such as the lived realities of the shop floor and the constraints facing small and medium enterprises—to ensure that our policies are built on objective, real-world evidence and local needs rather than top-down assumptions.

It is a privilege to stand before you this morning at the opening of this important Symposium, convened jointly by NEDLAC, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and Productivity South Africa. I want to thank NEDLAC, ILO and Productivity SA for bringing together, under one roof, the institutions and individuals who carry the responsibility of translating social dialogue from principle into practice across our region.

This gathering could not be timelier as Southern Africa stands at a point where the choices we make about productivity, employment and inclusion will shape the wellbeing of our people for a generation. The theme of this Symposium – Advancing Productivity and Decent Work through Social Dialogue in Southern Africa – speaks directly to that responsibility, and it is in that spirit that I offer these opening remarks.

September is our Heritage Month, which we proudly celebrate in South Africa. This is a season of deep reflection on our rich cultural identities, which the African Union's Agenda 2063 actively seeks to strengthen through the "African renaissance" and pan-African ideals, preserving our collective cultural heritage to foster continental pride and pan-Africanism.

However, we must also recognise that the truest preservation of our heritage and the dignity of our people lies in our ability to protect their rights and secure their well-being in the modern workplace. The struggle for social justice, decent work, and the eradication of poverty is not separate from our heritage; indeed, it is an ongoing commitment to building "The Africa We Want". A prosperous continent based on inclusive growth and sustainable development, aiming at a high standard of living, quality of life, and well-being for all our citizens.

Let me begin with a proposition that is simple to state but not always easy to act on: productivity is not a technical statistic reserved for economists. It is the foundation on which decent jobs are created, on which businesses remain competitive in an unforgiving global economy, on which household incomes rise, and on which the promise of social justice becomes real rather than rhetorical.

Across our region, we continue to confront stubborn unemployment, particularly among young people; persistent skills mismatches; high levels of informality; and the disruptive but also opportunity-laden forces of digitalisation and the green transition.

These are not separate problems to be solved in isolation, as they are different faces of the same underlying challenge. Our economies are not yet generating enough productive, decent work fast enough, or inclusively enough.

Therefore, productivity growth is how we change that trajectory. When workers, firms and sectors become more productive, the gains can fund higher wages, finance further investment, strengthen the tax base that pays for public services, and improve the competitiveness of our industries in regional and global markets, and create jobs.

In shaping this trajectory, we do not operate in a vacuum. Rather, our efforts to advance productivity and decent work should be firmly anchored in and promoted by the African Union and United Nations legislative and normative frameworks.

At the continental level, the African Union provides a clear mandate through Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want. Its First Ten-Year Implementation Plan establishes concrete targets, including graduating at least 20 percent of informal economy ventures into the formal economy, extending social insurance coverage to at least 20 percent of workers in the informal economy and rural labour force, reducing underemployment, and cutting poverty levels.

Furthermore, our strategies are deeply aligned with the AU's Ouagadougou Plus10 Declaration and Plan of Action on Employment, Poverty Eradication and Inclusive Development, which mandates the prioritization of inclusive labour market governance, youth and women's employment, social protection, and regional partnership.

There is, if I may say, a plethora of legislative framework that should guide our path such as the Abidjan Declaration on Shaping the Future of Work in Africa, which serves as the foundational guiding framework for promoting social justice and decent work on the continent, and the AU's Social Protection Plan for Informal Economy and Rural Workers.

Critically, we must also champion the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, which explicitly calls upon member states to support the economic activities of women in the informal sector and establish systems of social insurance to protect them.

At the global level, the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development places decent work at the heart of global development under SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth). Specifically, Target 8.3 urges member states to promote development-oriented policies that support productive activities, decent job creation, entrepreneurship, and formalization, monitored directly by tracking the proportion of informal employment.

These global goals are operationalized through the ILO Centenary Declaration for the Future of Work and ILO Recommendation No. 204 concerning the Transition from the Informal to the Formal Economy, which outlines principles to address the diversity of informality through policy coherence, balanced incentives, and compliance.

Additionally, the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work and the Declaration on Social Justice for a Fair Globalization remind us that social justice is inseparable from the fundamental rights of freedom of association and collective bargaining.

But productivity growth on its own guarantees none of this. Left unmanaged, productivity gains can just as easily concentrate in fewer hands, displace workers without a plan for their transition, or widen the very inequalities we are trying to close.

The direction those gains take, towards shared prosperity or towards exclusion, is determined not by economics alone, but by the institutions and processes through which decisions about work are made.

This is precisely where social dialogue becomes indispensable. It is why NEDLAC, as a statutory institution built on the participation of government, organised labour, organised business and the community constituency, has such a critical role to play, and why institutions like it are being built and strengthened across different African regions.

Indeed, both the AU and UN frameworks explicitly identify social dialogue as the primary vehicle for achieving their development and decent work objectives, acknowledging that the transition to a formal and productive economy can best be facilitated through an integrated strategy, policy coherence, institutional coordination, and active social dialogue.

Social dialogue does three things that no single actor, acting alone, can achieve.

• First, it builds legitimacy. Productivity strategies that are designed and imposed from above, without the buy-in of workers and employers who must live with their consequences, rarely survive contact with implementation. Strategies negotiated through dialogue carry the weight of shared ownership.
• Second, it surfaces grassroots knowledge. Social dialogue brings to light the knowledge that policymakers alone do not have—the lived reality of the shop floor, the constraints facing small and medium enterprises, and the aspirations and anxieties of young workers entering the labour market.
• Third, it manages trade-offs fairly. Every productivity intervention involves trade-offs—between speed and inclusion, between automation and employment, between short-term cost and long-term capability. Social dialogue is the mechanism through which those trade-offs are negotiated, rather than simply imposed on the party with the least power at the table.

Under ILO Convention No. 144 (Tripartite Consultation), we are reminded that systematic consultation among tripartite partners is essential to ensure that policies reflect local realities and needs. Government's role in this is not to stand apart from the process, but to be an active and consistent partner within it, setting an enabling policy framework, investing in skills and infrastructure, and, critically, protecting and resourcing the institutions of social dialogue so that they can do this work credibly and continuously, not only when it is convenient.

I am encouraged that this Symposium has drawn participants from across Africa. The challenges I have described do not respect borders. Our labour markets, value chains and, increasingly, our workers move across regions. A young person's prospects in one country are shaped by policy choices, investment patterns and skills systems well beyond that country's borders.

This is why cooperation on productivity and social dialogue is not a nicety, it is a necessity. Peer learning between our national economic and social councils and equivalent institutions, shared approaches to labour market data, and coordinated positions on issues such as the green transition and digitalisation will make each of our national efforts stronger. I trust that today's panels, covering country experiences, institutional models, enterprise-level transitions and regional cooperation on data and accountability, will generate the kind of practical, honest exchange that turns this ambition into a concrete programme of work.

In closing ladies and gentlemen, the questions before us today are not academic. They concern real people, workers seeking dignity and security in their jobs, young people seeking a first foothold in the labour market, and businesses seeking to remain viable and competitive in a changing world.

How we answer these questions, and whether we answer them together, will determine whether the productivity gains of the coming decade translate into decent work and shared prosperity, or into deeper division.

I want to commend NEDLAC, ILO and PSA for creating this platform, and I want to encourage every delegate in this room to engage today not as a representative of a single interest, but as a partner in a shared regional project.

Government, for its part, remains committed to strengthening the institutions of social dialogue and to working with all of you to ensure that productivity, competitiveness and decent work advance together, not at one another's expense.

I wish you a productive and constructive Symposium.

I thank you.

 ​

​​