A SWOT ANALYSIS OF OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH

AND SAFETY (OHS) LEGISLATION OF LOW- AND

MIDDLE- INCOME COUNTRIES (LMICs)

Ncube France [PhD Public Health, MSc SHE, PGDTE, BSc (Hons) Public Health, BSc
Psy, Dipl. Env. Health]
Kanda Artwell: MSc WREM, BSc (Hons) Chem, PGDipl. WSS, Dipl. Sci. Ed.
Presentation Outline

 Introduction

 Methodology

 Results – Legislative issues

– Administrative concerns

 Discussion and conclusions

Introduction
 The provision of sound OHS services to workers is a key
global agenda in terms of SDG 8, C161 & C155
 20-50 % of workers in industrialised countries have access
to adequate OHS services whilst in developing countries
it is only 5-10% (LaDou et al., 2003; Lucchini & London,
2014).
 In some countries, e.g. Tanzania, < 5% of the workforce
has access to OHS services (Mrema et al., 2015).
 Lack of adequate OSH services contributes to high work-
related injuries [LaDou et al., 2003; Mrema et al., 2015)
Introduction
 This review determined the strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities and threats (SWOT) of OHS laws of low-and
middle income countries.
 Proposals for improvements and additional laws were
made to strengthen the legal framework to meet global
expectations on safety and health promotion.
 Methodology
 We conducted a literature search of OHS legislation of
eighteen (18) LMICs.
 In the PubMed and free search we used various combinations
of the terms: Act, Regulation, Factories, Hazardous Substances,
Works, Compensation, Scheme, mining, pneumoconiosis,
Public Health, Occupational Health and Safety, Agriculture.
 We included ten (10) countries that we managed to obtain at
least three (3) current OHS legislation online and/or from
government printers.
 These were: Botswana, Ghana, India, Kenya, Malawi, South-
Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
 The OHS laws were subjected to a pre-designed review criteria
that comprised elements of legislative and administrative
content.
Review Criteria
Results: Legislative content
▪ OHS rights absent in constitutions of reviewed countries.
Act No. 20 of 2013 (Constitution of Zw) & Act No. 106
(Constitution of SA) expressly state environmental rights
for everyone:
ZW: clean environment & access to environmental information

SA: environment not harmful to their health or wellbeing

▪ Right to refuse to work in unsafe workplaces absent in

OHS laws except Uganda OSHA No. 9, SA Mine Health
and Safety Act No 29 & Ghana Labour Act No. 651.
Results: Legislative content
▪ It may be helpful to include OHS rights in the
constitutions’ Bill of Rights & in the OHS laws.
Results: Legislative content
▪ Despite employing a huge workforce (over 70%) and
experiencing such high injury frequency rates, we found very
few Acts addressing OHS concerns of agricultural workers.

▪ The few concerned Acts narrowly considered mainly

chemical hazards.

▪ Thus the few available laws need to be configured to detail

other hazards,

▪ Such as, dust, vibrations and noise from, for instance,

powered farming equipment such as tractors, chain and
hand saws, and mowers.
Results: Legislative content
▪ OHS laws missed emphasis on setting national standards
on hazards like dust and vibrations.
▪ Exposure limits, for example: Threshold Limit Values (TLV)
and Time Weighted Averages (TWA) are not prescribed,
▪ Yet they should form the core yardstick of an
occupational health surveillance programme.
▪ Hazard profiling, audits and risk assessments are rarely
contained in the laws, as is the legal requirement for
employers to submit such reports to regulatory
authorities.
Results: Legislative content
▪ Rather, OHS laws merely put strong emphasis on worker
medical examinations and provision of protective
clothing.

▪ Yet, these are the lowest priority options in the hierarchy

of control of occupational hazards.

▪ We recommend widening their scope in order to harness

higher priority preventive measures in the hierarchy,

▪ Such as elimination, substitution and engineering which

can make the work environment fit for safe work.
Results: Legislative content
▪ The funding mechanisms for OHS services were not
embedded in the OSH laws.

▪ If this omission is not corrected, some employers

may underfund their organisational OHS services.

▪ Still, OHS Acts did not harness the international best

practices on accident and injury prevention such as
ISO 45001 (formerly OSHAS 18001)
Results: Legislative content
▪ OHS laws commonly lacked provisions for setting up
workplace safety and health committees.

▪ Where provided, there were rarely legal requirements on

how often (at minimum) they should hold meetings and
provide documentary proof such as reports and minutes.

▪ Thus, such committees may exist in theory but

practically be dysfunctional.
Results: Legislative content
▪ It may be helpful to incorporate provisions on minimum
frequency of committee meetings and submission of
documentary proof to the employer and regulatory
authorities.

▪ The laws richly stressed OHS training it for workers, but

were silent on specialised training for capacitating
safety committees.

▪ Although public health encompasses OSH issues in

practice, these were not adequately handled in the
Results: Legislative content
▪ For example, the duties of employers and employees in
work environments were not provided.

▪ We propose that such duties be clearly defined in the

public health Acts as they are the mother Acts
governing all health related issues.

▪ The functions of the health ministries did not contain OHS

issues.

▪ We suggest inclusion of an additional function in the

public health Acts on promoting prevention of injuries
Results: Legislative content
▪ Most laws did not require organisations to have at least
three OHS expert categories.

▪ the bulk of the reviewed OHS laws were not gender

sensitive.

▪ The terms: he, him and himself were used to refer to a

worker as if female workers were not covered by these
Acts.

▪ The same terms were used refer to inspectors, engineers,

competent persons, medical officers of health,
Results: Legislative content
▪ Terms such as chairman rather than chairperson were
used to refer heads of certain boards.

▪ Such an approach appears to wrongly convey a

message that women were still not eligible for such
responsibilities.

▪ Moreover, complainants, owners and occupiers of

buildings, contractors, clients, patients, parents and
adults were treated using the same gender-biased
terminology, as if one needed to be a male person to
Results: Legislative content
▪ In most Acts even ministers (legislators), secretaries of
the Act’s enforcing ministries and commissioners were
also referred to as he or him.

▪ Some titles of the Acts appeared more biased to males.

For example, the Ghana Workmen’s Compensation Law
of 1987 may need a unisex title such as Workers
Compensation Law.

▪ Uganda OHS laws were gender sensitive: used the terms

chairperson rather than chairman, and himself/herself,
him /her instead of just he/ himself.
Results: Administrative concerns
▪ OHS legislations are fragmented among various
government departments

▪ Such fragmentation may result in duplication of roles,

overlaps and contradictions among the laws, lack of
coordination and waste of scarce resources among
administering departments.

▪ E.g. in the public health Acts and the factories Acts,

inspectors have the same right to enter for the purposes
of inspection, any premises or vessel and this includes
factories. Clearly, this represents duplication of roles.
Results: Administrative concerns
▪ There are contradictions in certain legislation of some
reviewed countries which demonstrates a quest for
supremacy of OHS laws over one another.

▪ For example, Zimbabwe’s Acts [PHA, Pneumoconios Act,

Mines and Minerals Act] contain the statement, “where
the Act shall contradict with any other Act, this Act shall
prevail”.

▪ This raises sobering concerns as to which Act is really

superior to the other as the documents do not show to
which Acts they are superior.
Results: Administrative concerns
▪ Existing OHS legislations in low and middle income
countries place heavy emphasis on fines and penalties
for their contravention.

▪ None of them had provisions for specified incentives to

those who comply.

▪ For example, possible incentives may entail reduction of

tax bands for compliant organisations and the
introduction of awards for excellence in safety provision.
Results: Administrative concerns
▪ The small fines which vary from country to country
appear slightly deterrent only to individuals but not to
medium and large organisations which can easily
budget for the penalties.

▪ Costly and deterrent fines may be required in order to

deter current and future perpetrators of unsafe and
undesirable OHS practices.

▪ Fines for breaking OHS laws in most LMICs are joined the
other state funds without any specific requirement that
exists for their use in OHS issues.
Results: Administrative concerns
▪ Resultantly, these laws are not self-sustaining.

▪ This scenario may complicate issues, particularly for

resource-constrained low-income countries.

▪ Possible improvements may entail amending these laws

to specify how funds gathered in the enforcement of the
OSH laws are to be used preferably in the dimension of
OSH provision and promotion.
Discussion and conclusions
▪ The ILO and WHO’s expectations on OHS laws are largely
yet to be codified into national laws of LMICs.

▪ The countries appear to be using outdated, fragmented

and non-deterrent legislation which needs to be gender-
sensitive and strengthened in tandem with international
best practices of OHS.

▪ There are some limitations in the present study

Discussion and conclusions
▪ The eligibility criteria used required that enrolled countries
have at least three (3) OHS laws available online or
obtainable from other sources such as government printers.

▪ We were unable to get OHS legislation of some countries.

Since, the unenrolled countries may have OHS laws entirely
different in terms of strengths and shortcomings when
compared to reviewed nations, our study results may not
apply to such countries.

▪ More transparency and easier access to public documents

may richly benefit further work on improving policies and
harmonising what is today a complicated puzzle.
Discussion and conclusions
▪ A lot has not been answered by previous literature and
the current study.

▪ For example, significant uncertainty still remains

concerning what is not working and needs to be
improved in international health with regards to
occupational exposure and safety.

▪ Therefore further work is extremely needed to generate

such knowledge and supportive evidence.