Country: occupied Palestinian territory Source: International Labour Organization The ILO Regional Director for Arab States reinforced the UN agency’s support to its emergency employment programme and labour market recovery initiatives during a recent visit to the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.RAMALLAH/ GAZA (ILO News) – In a sign of the commitment of the International Labour Organization (ILO) to labour market recovery in the aftermath of the war in Gaza and amid the ongoing conflict in the West Bank, ILO Regional Director for Arab States Ruba Jaradat carried out a visit to the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, the two areas comprising the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), during which she met with key national and UN partners and visited the sites of ILO emergency employment initiatives in Gaza.A key highlight of the visit was field assessments of the ILO’s emergency employment schemes in Gaza, implemented through the Palestinian Employment Fund (PEF). The schemes – part of a wider ILO emergency employment programme spanning the OPT – have been actively providing much-needed income to affected workers while restoring public services and rehabilitating damaged infrastructure.Jaradat visited the sites of initiatives in Gaza, including at the Al-Sahaba Hospital which facilitates maintenance work and medical waste management, the city’s Municipality where rubble removal, street and sewage cleaning, and infrastructure restoration works are taking place, and the Humanitarian Aid Warehouse where the ILO’s digital employment initiative is helping to recruits system engineers working on an innovative database to track humanitarian aid inventories and distribution."The labour market challenges facing Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have never seemed as daunting as they are today. In Gaza, the vast loss of jobs and businesses and the destruction of homes and infrastructure is immense and may seem insurmountable at the moment. But after witnessing first-hand the work that the ILO is doing and the impact of our projects on the ground, I believe that we can make a tangible impact. It was invaluable to hear directly from the workers, and I’m pleased to see that the integration of decent work principles into the ILO’s emergency employment schemes is making a difference to the lives of many,” Jaradat said.Jaradat reaffirmed the ILO’s commitment to placing decent employment at the heart of recovery and reconstruction efforts during discussions with the Palestinian Minister of Labour Enas Attari in Ramallah in the West Bank.The ILO Regional Director also met with worker and employer representatives – including the Chairperson of the Federation of Palestinian Chambers of Commerce, Industry, and Agriculture (FPCCIA) Abdo Idris, and Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) Secretary General Shaher Saed – during which she discussed joint work to support employers and business recovery and empower workers and trade unions.In addition, the ILO Regional Director also held high-level discussions with UN officials, Deputy Special Coordinator and Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator and heads of UN agencies operating in the OPT.“The ILO will continue its vital work to integrate decent work and sustainable employment-rich approaches in recovery efforts while expanding emergency employment and other key recovery initiatives, strengthening institutional frameworks and social protection systems, and reinforcing the nexus between humanitarian, development and peace-building work to rebuild a robust and resilient Palestinian labour market,” Jaradat added.The war in Gaza and the conflict in the West Bank have inflected unprecedented and wide-ranging devastation on the local labour market and the wider Palestinian economy, according to data and analysis jointly developed by the ILO and the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS).As of October 2024, the unemployment rate had surged to an average of 51.1 per cent over the preceding 12 months, and real GDP declined by an average of 32.2 per cent, as compared to the year before.