World Day for Safety and Health at Work

Today the attention of the global community is turned onto the world day for safety and health at work. The subject is at the core of global production, trade and economics because the occupational safety and health (OSH) of the worker is a driving force in productivity. If workers’ health and safety are not competently safeguarded, global enterprise would collapse in the hands of technology and the value of innovation to human wellbeing would be diminished.

The theme for this year’s World Day on Safety and Health at Work-2025 is “Revolutionizing Health and Safety: the role of AI and digitization at work. This thoughtful ethos immediately invokes the buzz of Artificial Intelligence and its impact on the workplace. It underscores the speedy transition of the digital economy in the world of work and its implication on the welfare of the worker. What are the prospects of AI on workers safety and health? To what extent are national systems, especially those at high risk end of the technology divide, prepared to deal with the good bad and ugly of Artificial intelligence? How are we managing knowledge economy to harness dividends through competent policies and efficient ergonomic practices? Will the huge informal economy of sub-Saharan Africa be left behind because of inadequate investments in appropriate formalization?

A revolution connotes a radical obstruction to business as usual in a many that drives change by resetting the status quo for the better. AI is a versatile tool for efficient productivity, yet its long term impact on humans raises conflicting perspectives. At the minimum, we all agree that the usefulness of Artificial Intelligence is conditioned on the ingredients of trust in r mistrust with which technology developers drive control. At this point when we are only scrapping the surface of what full-blown generative AI can do to and for humanity, we need to set adequate expectations indicators of trust on the tech developers accessing huge global resources for the enterprise. Can we trust them? Will generative AI dumb and dump the human brain? What did the experience of COVID-19 teach us when shut-downs clamped down human activities at the workplace? Do we have popular dependable data on how it affected the brain efficiency of the hard working factory hand in Sub-Saharan Africa?

Today many children face the risk of poor neuro-social development because the convenience of screen technology and the digital lifestyle seems to be speedily replacing the direct human-to-human interaction in a manner that is affecting their social skills including speech and communication, empathy and togetherness, and even the need to build trust through direct relationships. Many children don’t seem to appreciate the need to physically, rather than digitally, engage with other humans and their environment.

Of course there are many gains made in child development through technology and digital tools. What is clear is the need of mechanisms to enhance efficient synergies that keep humans in control and not leave child development to digital autonomy. A number of Medical Doctors, including some working in public hospitals in Ghana are seeing regular cases of developmental deficits in children who are spending more screen time with digital tools than with their families and environment. This is not a healthy development and must be addressed effectively before it’s too late.

As we mark this global milestone on a matter that relates well with existential threats humans face at the workplace, it is incumbent on policy makers and implementers to shift gears so we can wisely harness the gains of AI and digitization but not at the expense of good occupational safety and health.

By Emmanuel Kwame Mensah, Cross-Cutting Excellence (CCE)