OSHAFRICA CONFERENCE 2019: THE SUCCESS NO ONE SAW COMING

The OSHAfrica 2019 Conference has come and gone but the pleasant memories it left everyone with is so difficult to let go of.

The choice for South Africa being a host Country started from a very quiet nomination made by Debbie Myer when we requested for nomination submissions, this stood alongside countries such as Sudan, Zimbabwe and Tunisia which were also put up for hosting nominations. South Africa emerging as the host was a blessing to OSHAfrica because most speakers and delegates were all interested in coming to South Af

rica. The moment the nomination sailed through; the conference planning began with Dr. Thuthula Balfour showing the very positive leadership in putting the conference planning committee together which she co-Chaired with Dr Claire Deacon.

The day one of the conference was amazing, I walked into the hall that was already packed full of people with so much expectations and this was to my utmost amazement. It was fun to see a very energetic dance troop whose performance passed a very clear message on workplace health and safety.

We had very sound keynote addresses from several stakeholder groups which was followed by interesting and very stimulating plenary papers and other very technical papers running across all parallel sessions simultaneously. We were all amazed to the depth of knowledge in the keynote paper presented by Hon. Richard Musukwa, the Zambian Minister for Mines. This was so rich on thoughts and a true representation of the current health and safety situation not just in Mining but across workplaces in Africa. These all put together set a tone for a very successful conference.

One of the key highlights of the OSHAfrica 2019 conference were most importantly the turn out, the number of speakers and non-speakers that flew into Johannesburg just to be a part of this conference, that was a key highlight that will be difficult to remove from the conference success. We had a young lady who flew in all the way from Canada, others from Thailand, The United States of America, Russia, UK, Turkey, Ukraine, Australia and several other countries. We had of course a whole community of Germans where a number of them were coming to Africa for the first time and also Africans from all over the sub-regions represented in this conference.

It was indeed a very successful conference with over 1,200 delegates from 31 countries, 54 international speakers and 40 South African speakers. We had two serving Minsters, the presence of both ILO, WHO and the African Union representation for a three-day conference, I think that was another highlight that was mind-blowing and too quick to forget. Everything was really on-point from planning to implementation.

If you recall, one of the primary focus of OSHAfrica is to bring African Occupational Safety and Health professionals together for collaborative work and sharing of data. That was further strengthened at the course of this conference where most of the delegates across Africa were meeting themselves for the first time and sharing such networking and bonding opportunities, I think that was really good. We saw both African professionals and professionals outside Africa sharing stages together or Charing sessions together, this was further strengthening the OSHAfrica dream. We had a dedicated training class within the conference that was focused on teaching delegates how to write abstracts and research papers, this strongly reinforces the overarching aim of OSHAfrica.

Owing to the fact that it was our maiden conference, the problem of being able to get professionals across the continent and the world at large to gather in Johannesburg was envisaged. But we needed to put forward the right attitude that people could trust, we started our engagement along these lines and many of our members who had existing contacts to great professionals all volunteered their time and resources in contacting these great minds and bringing them all in to Africa. The African Union Development Agency contributed immensely in funding some of the speakers from the continent.

The Occupational Safety and Health professionals across Africa and the rest of the world (we also have members who are non-Africans), should carefully align properly with the OSHAfrican plan for the next three years. A report of the conference was presented Dr Zweli Mkhize, Minister of Health of South Africa and the recommendations in the report will be implemented going forward.  We have a number of projects already put together by the three scientific committees and these are all geared towards improvement in the capacity and capabilities of the African OSH practitioners and translating these gains indirectly into OSH improvement in workplaces across Africa.

The OSHAfrica 2019 conference has set a very high tone which I think we will all follow as a trend. You saw the pitch put together by our colleagues from Kenya towards the hosting of the OSHAfrica 2022 conference. OSHAfrica is full of ideas and the years after will always be better and more innovative than the years before.

Within this conference also, we also had a very successful General Assembly which had been designed to hold within the conference every three years. At the General Assembly, our existing interim board got dissolved to make room for democratically elected Board. This exercise was very peaceful as we now have a new Board of Trustees supported by members to lead OSHAfrica for the next three years. We currently have over 500 members from over 37 African countries and we have new members signing in daily.

Reported By:

Ehi Iden

President, OSHAfrica

ehi@ohsm.com.ng