ILO-ITC and DECP workshop on 'The effective employers' organization' held in Ethiopia

From 6-9 May, the basic training on 'The effective employers' organization' was given to Board, staff and members of the Ethiopian Employers Federation (EEF).  Tutors for this workshop were Arnout de Koster of ITC/ILO, Francis Sanzouango of  ILO Geneva and Jan Karel Bout of DECP who gave presentations and lead the discussions on Good governance, the process of Lobbying, Services for members and Membership strategies. In view of the financial crisis,  ILO economist Lawrence Egulu gave a presentation on the economic challenges facing Africa and Ethiopia.  
During the training, it became clear that the time was insufficient to run the full training programme, but also, more importantly, that the level of the audience and their interest required more focus on strategy and less on technical implementation. The programme hence focused mainly on the most important lines for future development of EEF around the four major challenges/weaknesses of EEF they identified in the benchmarking exercise: increase membership; improve lobbying; build services and create a professional secretariat.  
At the end of the workshop, action plans were made, a.o. to create a website and monthly newsletter and to work on improvement of membership.   
The workshop was evaluated positively by the 25 participants (2 which were female). Also the comments of the participants were generally very positive. Most importantly, awareness was raised on the role of EO's and how its functioning can be improved.