In an exclusive interview Loretta de Luca, newly appointed director of the International Labour Organisation's Sub-regional Office for North Africa based in Cairo, talks to Fatemah Farag about the challenges ahead Loretta De Luca is not a woman who believes in problems. "Challenges are what I see -- the stimulus for change," she says. It is probably the best attitude to adopt as new director of the International Labour Organisation's (ILO) office in Cairo; Egypt is after all a country struggling with high unemployment, a discrepancy between education and the job market as well as widespread poverty. But De Luca says she sees a country rich in human resources and potential waiting to be tapped. And her mandate, she explains, is not just about the provision of work. "It can't be just any job; work should be provided in a safe, positive environment where workers are valued and enjoy good salaries and equal opportunity," she emphasizes pointing out that the lack of "decent work" has dire implications on worker's families, productivity and quality of work. "Workers should not have to seek multiple jobs -- and this is a specific concern to Egypt," she adds. It is a concept of work, explains De Luca, that does not treat labour as a passive entity but rather encourages workers to take initiative, take on responsibility, feel pride in their work and identify with their work place. "[This perception and the investment in it] is not a luxury," she says adding that a worker "who is well treated is much more committed to his work place and in an increasingly globalised economy this commitment is imperative." The common orthodoxy has been that the competitive edge less developed countries have is cheap labour. But De Luca explains this way of thinking is by all means passé. "There will always be cheaper labour somewhere else. Consider China and elsewhere. [Cheap labour] is not where the competitive edge is. Rather it is in the development of human resources," she says adding that while "Egypt is on the right track although it still has some way to go in developing this competitive advantage." The ILO can assist Egypt in adapting to an increasingly globalised economy by providing programmes such as that which focused on the textiles industry. "In this programme we assist in the creation of a national action plan for this sector aimed at dealing with the impact of free trade [the quotas for textiles will be lifted in January 2006]. Further, tri-partite meetings will be held in Geneva by the ILO at the end of this month to discuss challenges faced by national textile industries in light of the free trade agreements. We will be sending a three-member delegation from Egypt." De Luca is no stranger to Egypt. Not only was she born here, she manned the ILO Cairo office in the late nineties as an employment specialist. She is encouraged on her return to Cairo by what she describes as a "good dialogue between government, employers and workers towards establishing an understanding of common interest." She says she can see the process of improving employment and labour conditions as "moving along clearly. Links are being created between education/training and the job market. I see the beginning of linkages between the Ministry of Education and other key ministries. Also links with business." And that is not all. "Today, people talk openly about unemployment. This was something several years ago that made people uneasy. Identification of challenges is the first step to finding solutions." In fact the ILO is currently undertaking a nation-wide survey of the school to work transition. "This is a very delicate period and understanding it will have long term implications. We are asking some 5,000 people -- including youth, society representatives, employers, men and women, urban and rural -- about their aspiration, life goals, family pressures and preference for wage among other indicators," De Luca explained. The first step, she says, it to get the right figures then "society should act in a positive manner, namely find solutions." And then there is the informal economy which employs a good share of the work force in Egypt. "Both working conditions and production in this economy are very poor. And yet there are simple, cheap solutions such as improving the lighting hence decreasing the amount of mistakes and relieving the eye stress," she points out. At the end of the day, it all seems to come back to investing in "good work". "The easiest thing to do is to cut wages. This is what we call the 'low way' to competitiveness. It results in demotiviation and the loss of your best assets. It is ultimately a trap. But there is a 'high way': investing in the work skills necessary for the modern world means developing analytical skills as opposed to education through memorization. It means teaching people to defend a position that might not be main stream and not have to wait for a supervisor to deal with a problem. That is the kind of thinking that results in inventions. And these are the skills essential to building modern industry." For its part the ILO is involved in various training programmes which incorporate the development of participatory skills. These are but a few of the files on her desk -- the road towards comprehensive labour improvement in Egypt is obviously long and arduous. But De Luca sits back and tells us that she is in love with Mahmoud Mokhtar's Nahdet Masr (Egypt's renaissance) statue. "In Egypt I see powerful cultures behind the potentials of the future. I see an awakening which is slow but sure -- the engine of progress being the development of human resources. Egypt is a wealthy country; it has oil, the Suez Canal and amazing monuments but its real wealth is in a well educated, well trained and well valued people."
