§ Mrs. Curtis-ThomasTo ask the Secretary of State for International Development if he will make a statement on the national level workshop in Nicaragua supported by his Department in 2003. [155244]
Mr. Gareth ThomasThe Nicaraguan workshop took place on 3 March 2003. It brought together, for the first time in Nicaragua, Government officials, the private sector, labour organisations, representatives of international certification programmes and retailers. Its aim was to identify possible ways to strengthen the implementation and monitoring of corporate codes of conduct in Nicaragua and thereby improve both the conditions of workers in export industries and the ability of these industries to be competitive internationally.
The workshop made a number of recommendations for action to be taken by the Government, private sector and civil society in Nicaragua: the need to clarify the roles of those involved in monitoring corporate codes of conduct, to improve cooperation between national government officials and international certification programmes, to rationalise monitoring to avoid duplication and conflicting recommendations to factories, and to increase the knowledge of workers of corporate codes of conduct and national labour legislation.
One impact of the workshop was that the women workers association (the Maria Elena Cuadra Movement of Women Workers and Unemployed) integrated the recommendations into its training, advisory and policy work to improve the conditions of workers in the garment industry of the tax free zones.