110th Session of the International Labour Conference (2022)

Speaking in the plenary discussion of the reports of the Director-General and the Chairperson of the Governing Body

Dates

The plenary sittings of the Conference devoted to the discussion of the Reports of the Director-General and of the Chairperson of the Governing Body will take place from Monday, 6 June to Thursday, 9 June. Delegates can deliver their statements in person or through pre-recorded statements. Intervening live through videoconferencing would also be possible, but not advisable due to possible connectivity issues.

Who can speak in the plenary

The Conference has detailed rules on the right to address its plenary, in particular during the discussion of the Reports of the Director-General and of the Chairperson of the Governing Body for which it is necessary to register in advance.

Delegates must be accredited either as regular delegates or as “advisers and substitute delegates” acting on behalf of regular delegates, and Ministers as “Ministers attending the Conference”. Delegates accredited only as “advisers” are normally not entitled to speak in plenary. Please refer to the Explanatory note on credentials for national delegations.

All invited observers will participate remotely.

How to register for speaking in plenary
  • All requests for speaking in the plenary must be sent in advance by email to plenaryspeeches@ilo.org, indicating the name, country, group (whether government, employer or worker delegate, invited international organization), and contact information of the speaker, including phone number.
  • Registration will open on 12 May and close on Tuesday 7 June at 18:00 CEST. Requests will be dealt with in the order received.
  • Speakers will be notified beforehand by email of the sitting and the approximate time at which the President will give them the floor.
Please note that this concerns registration only for those wishing to take the floor in plenary during the discussion of the Reports of the Chairperson of the Governing Body and of the Director General. Requests to speak in the committees during the debates or in Plenary during the adoption of Committee reports must be addressed to the secretariats of the committees.

Time limit for speeches

Four minutes maximum, as indicated in the Operational arrangements, to allow for as many speakers as possible to take the floor. This time limit will be strictly applied to all statements, whether delivered in person or pre-recorded.

The four-minute time allowance corresponds to approximately two typewritten double-spaced A4 pages (or around 500 words), read at a speed that allows accurate simultaneous interpretation.
It is therefore strongly recommended that delegates reduce courtesies to a minimum and enter into the substantive elements of their statements without delay.

Furthermore, all delegates are registered to speak in plenary are requested to send the text version of their speech, whether delivered live in person or through a pre-recorded video, to the same email address (plenaryspeeches@ilo.org) at least 24 hours before they are scheduled to speak.

It is important that the text version clearly indicates:

a) the name of the speaker;

b) name of the delegation;

c) and marked “Check against delivery”.

It should be noted that the interpretation of proceedings serves to facilitate communication and does not constitute an authentic or verbatim record of the proceedings.

Format of pre-recorded statements and related technical information

Delegates intending to deliver their statements through a pre-recorded video message are requested to take note of the following specifications:
  • Video messages must be sent at least 48 hours before the scheduled speaking time, together with the text version of the speech
  • Technical specifications:
a) format: MP4

b) Video codec: H264 (no more than 5 MBps)

c) Aspect ratio: 16:9 (horizontal, not vertical)
  • As there might be difficulties in emailing large files directly, speakers may wish to use wetransfer (wetransfer.com ), which is a free application, when sending their videos to plenaryspeeches@ilo.org.
  • The following information should appear on the subject line of the email: “name of speaker - country – video”. It is important to note, however, that for technical reasons, the name and title of the speaker should be indicated only in the email, and not inserted in the video itself. These will be added by ILO video technicians.
  • If the video statement is delivered in any language other than the seven ILO working languages (Arabic, Chinese, German, English, French, Russian and Spanish), the video message should be subtitled in one of the three official languages (English, French or Spanish).