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West African trade unions hold strategic workshop

26 July 2016
Further to the re-launch conference in October 2015, the Organization of Trade Unions of West Africa (OTUWA) organised a strategic planning workshop with the primary objective of developing a strategic plan to guide OTUWA's engagements, operations and activities in the next five years. The workshop was held from May 11-13, 2016 at Hotel De Bently, Utako, Abuja, Nigeria.

The Organization of Trade Unions of West Africa (OTUWA) was established in 1983 in Conakry, Guinea. It began on a very bright note under the leadership of Comrade Moutari from Niger Republic. OTUWA, unfortunately, ran into crisis when the leadership moved to Côte d'Ivoire. The death of the Secretary General which was followed by the political instability in the country, as well as problems of lack of institutional capacity combined to ground the organisation and making it dormant for a number of years.

West African trade union leaders after months of consultation amongst themselves with the support of the ILO, OATUU and ITUC-Africa on the need to revive OTUWA eventually held a re-launch conference in October 2015. At the conference, two major decisions were taken towards the revival and rebuilding process of OTUWA. One was the relocation of OTUWA headquarters from Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, to Abuja, Nigeria. The second decision was to appoint an Executive Secretary to man the Secretariat. Subsequently, the Executive Committee of OTUWA at its meeting in Dakar in November, 2015, approved the appointment of Comrade John Odah as Executive Secretary of OTUWA.

He assumed office in January 2016 at the new headquarters of OTUWA provided by the NLC on the 2nd Floor of the Paschal Bafyau Labour House, Central Business District, Abuja. The new Secretariat, along with the OTUWA leadership, in the efforts to properly reposition the organisation, decided to organise a strategic planning workshop with the primary objective of developing a strategic plan to guide OTUWA's engagements, operations and activities in the next five years.

Given the above background, the objectives of the strategic planning workshop include the following:

  • To review the state of trade unions in the West African sub-region;
  • To articulate the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) of OTUWA as a sub-regional trade union centre;
  • To develop a strategy of engagement with ECOWAS and other multi-lateral organisations for the benefit of workers within the sub-region;
  • To discuss and develop a financial sustainability plan for OTUWA; and
  • To outline programmes and activities to be captured in a 5-year strategic plan for OTUWA.

Download a PDF of the full report.

 

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