17 September 2002

At its 27^th World Congress, held in Ottawa, Canada from 2 to 6 September 2002, PSI launched its global campaign for quality public services. PSI is an international trade secretariat and non-governmental organization representing 20 million public sector employees. Through this campaign, PSI will stress the importance of maintaining and improving health, education, water and other public services.

Over 600 delegates from public service unions in Europe, Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean and North America participated in the event. The delegates approved a resolution stating that public services are "an essential and productive force for the achievement of broad social policy goals…quality public services, delivered by quality workers under quality conditions are critical in creating decent societies."

At the national and local levels, public service employees play a vital role as advocates for public services. Similarly, international civil servants have an important voice in supporting the United Nations and other international organizations.

The congress participants passed resolutions on a broad set of issues, including HIV/AIDS in Africa, conflict in the Middle East, human rights and labour rights. For more information about PSI and the World Congress see: www.world-psi.org.

PSI Executive Board supports rights of international civil servants

FICSA’s General Secretary was invited to attend the World Congress. FICSA is an international affiliate of PSI and has observer status on the Executive Board. During the first meeting of the newly elected PSI Executive Board, the FICSA General Secretary explained that international civil servants lacked certain basic rights (e.g. the right of a staff association/union to bring a lawsuit). She asked PSI to support current initiatives to reform the ILO Administrative Tribunal. As a result, the PSI General Secretary will write to the Director-General of the ILO expressing support for an expansion of rights for international civil servants.