The 25th anniversary of the setting of the Colombo office of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) was a cause for celebration in Colombo recently. There were many emotional moments and revisiting of friends, colleagues and periods of reflection.
The ‘birthday’ party at the ILO premises |
Among those who relished the anniversary, and had much cause to do so was Stanley G. Taylor, the ILO’s first Country Representative in Sri Lanka, who set up the office in 1984.
Mr Taylor also celebrated his 67th birthday on October 31, the eve of the Colombo anniversary event, visiting Sri Lanka with his daughter, Marikit ( a little child then but now a grown-up). He was a special guest at the events and spoke of his experiences and the start-up at the event.
The Sunday Times FT missed interviewing this personality who now resides in Geneva but caught up with him through the technological way – by email.
In this email interview, Mr Taylor, now retired and heavily engaged in English musical theatre on the Geneva stage and an avid collector of old and interesting things including old books, discusses a range of issues on work, family, hartals and nostalgia:
What was Sri Lanka like when you first set up office in Colombo?
Twenty-five years have passed since I went to Sri Lanka to set up the ILO Colombo Office and become its first Director, an assignment which lasted for six extraordinary years. Despite the passing of so many years since then, much of that time remains vivid in my memory.
Stanley Taylor at this month’s event |
I went to Colombo direct from Manila where I had spent the previous four years, and the first thing that struck me then was how much quieter and less congested and polluted it was in Colombo, parts of which seemed quite rural. There were not many cars on the roads and many of them were older models. Bullock carts were still a frequent sight on Colombo’s streets. There were no traffic lights – I seem to remember a first traffic light being installed on Galle Road while I was there.
Infrastructure was not well developed. Roads were in a fairly dilapidated state both in and outside the city. Getting a telephone line was extremely difficult. We had to boil and filter all our drinking water. My garden and the roads around regularly got flooded quite deeply during the rains. I am told that this problem has now been resolved in that area. The power supply seemed to work very well and we did not have the frequent power cuts that we had experienced in Manila. There were wonderful five-star hotels in Colombo such as the Oberoi, the Taj, the Ramada, the Galadari-Meridien, the Hilton, and the Galle Face, as well as in some of the resort areas, but sadly their prices were ridiculously low owing to the fall in tourism because of the troubles which were hitting the tourism industry really badly – so bad for the country since this industry was the second foreign exchange earner after tea.
Security was a problem, with large bombs going off from time to time in very crowded places. In this respect, things only got worse during my years there when the southern insurgency began to flourish, causing a very disturbing cycle of alternating hartals and curfews.
Adding to the problems facing Colombo when we eventually left for Geneva was an outbreak of haemorrhagic dengue fever which seemed to be striking at people of all walks of life, and especially the young.
Visits to Kandy, the cultural triangle, Nuwara Eiya and the Hill Country, and lovely places down south are enduring wonderful memories, and equally enduring memories of a different type are of visits such as to rubber plantation line housing in the south and in the tea plantations, and to factories to observe working conditions in the Export Processing Zones.
Stanley Taylor 25-years ago |
What was the rationale in ILO setting up an office in Sri Lanka?
In early years the ILO’s Asia and Pacific Regional Office had been temporarily established in Colombo, before it moved definitively to Bangkok. After that ILO activities in Sri Lanka were managed from the ILO Office in New Delhi. The Government and social partners in Sri Lanka were highly committed to the principles for which the ILO stands. The representatives of the employers and workers were active in the ILO’s Governing Body, and the Minister of Labour made strong requests to the Director-General for an office in Colombo, to strengthen the role and influence of the ILO in the country and develop a stronger programme of ILO technical cooperation.
Your reflections/recollections about your Sri Lankan assignment?
Being selected to establish and run the ILO Colombo Office was a great honour and challenge. I came to a totally new situation, knowing practically no one, and very little about what was going on. There were so many interested parties, the Ministry and Department of Labour, a range of other government ministries, the Employers’ Federation, numerous trade unions, and academic and training institutions, as well as other organisations and individuals. It was a very daunting experience, but everyone was so kind and helpful, including the UNDP officials of the day and other UN partners, that I soon felt at home and at ease, and the process quickly got under control. I also learned quickly to be cautious so as not to be seen to favour one party or group over another.
From the outset, I was invited as a guest and speaker to many functions and meetings in Colombo and far and wide. Although there was so much work to do, my policy was to accept and travel as much as I could to meet, see and understand, and in turn bring the ILO out to those who were interested in it. I was extremely lucky to be able to recruit a tiny, but exceptionally excellent local ILO staff who quickly took their responsibilities to relieve the pressure.
Three of those recruited during my time are still in the Office providing excellent service, and I am forever thankful to them. It was a great disappointment to me that travel to the North and the East was severely restricted. Only once, when these regions were under the control of the Indian peace-keeping forces, did I manage to visit Nilaveli and Trincomalee.
The ILO’s tripartite constituency and its broad scope, provided me with the opportunity to meet and work with representatives of so many government ministries, departments and agencies, employers and their organisations, trade unions, and academic and training institution - so many interesting people. It was always a very special experience to be able to bring together the representatives of all the politically diverse trade unions together in one ILO meeting.
A search through available library materials and project reports provided the means to develop a list of all the ILO technical assistance projects in the country starting with the very first in 1951 concerning handicrafts and small scale industries.
Some 60 ILO projects from then until 1984 covered a wide range of subjects including also the development and strengthening of cooperatives and training; manpower surveys, labour market information and planning including the Dudley Sears report in 1971; employment services; vocational, technical and apprenticeship training and the establishment of training institutes; management and supervisory training; vocational rehabilitation; labour-management relations and personnel management; occupational safety and health; management training and support to the port of Colombo; hotel and catering training; population and family welfare; workers’ education; support to the Employers’ Federation and the Institute of Personnel management ; labour migration; labour relations, and more.
A major focus of ILO technical assistance for us was institution building and the training of trainers. In fact many training and development institutions were set up and/or strengthened with ILO support. A few examples include the National Institute of Business Management (NIBM), the Ceylon Hotel School, the Institute for Construction Industry Training and Development, the National Design Centre, the Ports Training Facility of the Sri Lanka Ports Authority, the Institute for Occupational Health and Environmental Protection, as well as major vocational, technical and apprenticeship training institutes in Colombo and elsewhere.
At the time one was very conscious, especially from reading the newspapers, of a resistance to the need for foreign consultants. Bearing this in mind, the ILO still brought in experts to transfer skills and know-how, working with local consultants where possible and training local trainers. One of the biggest problems which prolonged the need for expatriates was the steady drain away of trained local personnel. An example was an interesting project with the NIBM which involved a twinning arrangement with University College Dublin to upgrade the computer training programme to meet the developing needs of Sri Lankan business, but once the trainers and trainees had their qualifications upgraded to meet UCD standards, it was very difficult to retain them at the NIBM.
Once the Colombo Office was sufficiently operational, responsibility for ILO activities in the Maldives was transferred to it from the ILO Office in New Delhi.
This added exciting new dimensions to our work. Meanwhile with the increasing impact of the JVP insurgency, many UN agency activities throughout Sri Lanka were grinding to a halt.
It is a reflection of the nature of the ILO with its broad base of constituents and partners of different political persuasions that the ILO was able to keep its programmes going during those difficult times.
By the time of my departure, the ILO’s programmes of assistance in both Sri Lanka and the Maldives had grown by leaps and bounds, and the ILO was by far the biggest spender of UNDP project financing among all the UN agencies in both countries.
Returning 19 years later, how does it feel? Also has the country changed a lot from 1984?
I left Colombo in mid 1990, but made one quick return visit only to the Office on an official ILO mission less than a year later. This was my first trip back since then – after 18 years. Somehow I expected to see more modern infrastructure in Colombo than was apparent.
The city looks much the same but there is so much more of it. It is very crowded and congested now with lots of traffic and modern cars, and traffic lights everywhere. I even saw a new Aston Martin. During my whole visit I saw only two bullock carts. Much of the green space seems to have disappeared with houses built in what used to be gardens; and small shops and businesses have mushroomed along all the roads covering a much wider area than before.
The old corner house we lived in just off Jawatha Road has been extended, modernized and built upwards with a second floor, and a second driveway has been built on the other side to accommodate large cars. There are nice new places to shop in Colombo, and more goods available, but this aspect has not expanded to the extent that I had imagined it would.
We went back to Habarana, Sigiriya and Dambulla, and stayed at the Habarana Village now enlarged and renamed as Cinnamon Lodge. The roads were all nicely paved and with white lines now. The driving style was just the same but maybe even more frightening for the outsider, especially at night and since the speeds were faster. Driving down the centre of the road at speed facing oncoming cars head-on and swerving aside at the last possible moment is still hard to bear for someone not used to it, but now the chances of mowing something down on the roadside seem to have been lessened mainly because of improved visibility through better road surfaces and the fact that most drivers now seem thankfully to dip their headlights.
The growth of the towns all over and particularly around Sigiriya was very noticeable. We also took a trip down south to the Heritance at Ahungalla, which we remember as the Triton. It is still beautiful but also much larger now. We went to and beyond Galle. The expansion was similar, but the very visible reminders of the Tsunami disaster were terribly saddening.
The atmosphere of peace seems to pervade nicely now that the war is over.
We were able to go to Minneriya and travel in the jungle and see the wild elephants and other wildlife, a wonderful experience which was out of bounds before.
There are still military and police checkpoints, but now they are better equipped and the personnel have more confidence, which in turn gives the traveller more confidence. With peace, one notices a much heavier military presence in Colombo than before.
I was sad not to be able to take pictures around the old Taprobane hotel, especially of the clock tower and the old passenger ship terminal.
The kind courtesy and wonderful hospitality of those whom we met and who looked after us has certainly not changed. Coming back to Colombo, especially with my daughter who was such a young child at the time, was a deeply moving experience.
We were thrilled to see the old places again. Quite a few of the people I knew and had dealings with are no more for one reason or another, and that is very sad, yet there were so many old friends, colleagues, partners and nice people that I had worked with, who came to the ILO Colombo’s 25th Anniversary celebration. I was so happy for that, and wish there had been more time to spend with each of them. |
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