- Lassine Boire, the Director of the National Social Provident Institute (INPS), has disclosed that at least one third of sub-Saharan workers have become victims of contacts with chemical substances at work annually. Of the world's 340,000 chemical substances deaths annually, sub-Saharan workers constitute 100,000.
Boire made the expose at the start of a three-day meeting of experts on occupational hazards and diseases in sub-Saharan Africa in the Malian capital Bamako.
The meeting draws experts from 12 African countries - Benin, Burundi, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Central African Republic, Congo, Mali, Niger, Chad, Togo, Gabon and Senegal - are attending the meeting. Also in attendance are the development partners.
Most of the participants are directors of Social Security Funds, industrial physicians and representatives of professional workers and employers associations are attending the Bamako meeting whose opening ceremony was chaired by Ahmadou Yeri Diop, the Director of Social Security Fund in Senegal.
Its main aims, among others, is to discuss better management of occupational hazards and diseases in sub-Saharan Africa.
Participants are also discussing the International Labour Organisation's (ILO) guidelines on the management systems of security, health and management of industrial diseases.
The Bamako session will make a follow up of a Dakar meeting initiated by the Inter-African Association for the Prevention of Occupational Risks. In this regard, they will discuss the funding, audit, activities and communication campaign strategies.
afrol News - It is called "financial inclusion", and it is a key government policy in Rwanda. The goal is that, by 2020, 90 percent of the population is to have and actively use bank accounts. And in only four years, financial inclusion has doubled in Rwanda.
afrol News - The UN's humanitarian agencies now warn about a devastating famine in Sudan and especially in South Sudan, where the situation is said to be "imploding". Relief officials are appealing to donors to urgently fund life-saving activities in the two countries.
afrol News - Fear is spreading all over West Africa after the health ministry in Guinea confirmed the first Ebola outbreak in this part of Africa. According to official numbers, at least 86 are infected and 59 are dead as a result of this very contagious disease.
afrol News - It is already a crime being homosexual in Ethiopia, but parliament is now making sure the anti-gay laws will be applied in practical life. No pardoning of gays will be allowed in future, but activist fear this only is a signal of further repression being prepared.
afrol News / Africa Renewal - Ethiopia's ambitious plan to build a US$ 4.2 billion dam in the Benishangul-Gumuz region, 40 km from its border with Sudan, is expected to provide 6,000 megawatts of electricity, enough for its population plus some excess it can sell to neighbouring countries.
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