The head of the International Labour Organisation's Pacific arm says there's general agreement among government ministers, employers and workers in Vanuatu at the body's biggest regional meeting on a plan to increase access to what's called decent work.
Trevor Riordan says the term applies to work that's freely chosen, productive, free from harassment and fairly paid.
Ministers from Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and Vanuatu are attending the Port Vila meeting, which began yesterday.
Mr Riordan says he's hoping for a high level of political commitment from them to the plan's four priority areas - international labour standards, employment, social protection and institutional strength - as the meeting wraps up today.
"What we're hoping for is that the ministers that are here, they will say that they understand the issues, that jobs and decent work are absolutely at the heart of their national agenda and that they will commit themselves within government to allocate resources to the decent work country programme plus the fact in government to work very hard with the ministers of finance and the Prime Minister and others to convince them also to give greater support to these labour and social issues."
Trevor Riordan of the ILO.
