High quality research provides important inputs - ILO Director

Ramani Kangaraarachchi

The availability of high quality research provides policy-makers and other decision-makers with important inputs where decisions will be better informed, ALLAY Director Colombo Tine Staermose said.

She was speaking at the launch of two research reports on "Working Poor and Manufacturing Sector" done by ILO Consultant Dr Ramanie Gunetilleke and Colombo University Dean Prof Chandrasiri at the Hotel Intercontinental Colombo yesterday.

Staermose said according to ILO experts who have served in Sri Lanka for several years, there is much good economic data available with equally good potential for analytical research in Sri Lanka.

The knowledge and statistical data analysis on labour market issues underpins the ILOs support to countries in pursuing the decent work agenda at the country level, she said.

Staermose said the Sri Lankan economy although having shown some resiliency during the peak of the global financial crisis last year, is still very dependent on export markets.

Therefore the road out of poverty is through jobs of a certain quality. There is a group often neglected by official unemployment statistics. They are those in the population who actually work, but who nevertheless are not able to pull themselves and their families out of poverty.

Dr Ramanie Gunatilleke making a presentation on her research said the Sri Lankan economy needs to generate enough decent and productive jobs to reduce poverty further. She said education is vital to enhance the earning capacity of poor as education in turn determines jobs.

She said policies that support the ongoing structural transformation of employment, from agriculture to higher value-added services may enable more of the working poor to come out of poverty.