Development Cooperation and Workers' Organizations

Development Cooperation

ILO Development Cooperation is a key means of action to deliver decent work and social justice. For the ILO, development cooperation is essential to ensure support to its constituents in achieving decent work results and social justice, especially at the country level. The world of work is confronted with multiple decent work challenges. The decent work deficit is largely expressed in the absence of sufficient employment opportunities, inadequate social protection, the denial of rights at work and shortcomings in social dialogue. These failings provide a measure of the gap between the world that we work in, and the hopes people have for a better life. Addressing these challenges require effective development cooperation, guided by the principles of country ownership, a focus on results, inclusive partnerships, transparency, and mutual accountability. In this sense, these challenges also present opportunities for a more coherent and integrated development cooperation approach for delivering decent work results and social justice.

Development Cooperation and Workers’ Organizations

Social partners are integral to the success of ILO development cooperation. ILO development cooperation is founded on tripartism and social dialogue.

In this sense, the effective participation of workers organization in ILO development cooperation is essential. This ensures that ILO development cooperation services are relevant and responsive to constituents’ needs, are nationally owned and driven, and are efficient and effective, producing results that are sustainable and impactful. 

The ILO Development Cooperation Strategy and Implementation Plan (2020-25) recognises the role of social dialogue in development cooperation, and calls for strengthening constituents’ ownership of needs driven Decent Work Country programmes (DWCPs), development cooperation and projects with a specific deliverable on updating and enhancement of organizational processes, guidance, and tools for DWCPs, development cooperation programmes and projects to ensure participation and ownership of constituents, including through social dialogue, in their design, implementation and evaluation. Thus, ILO development cooperation offers Workers Organizations an opportunity to participate in all stages of the development cooperation cycle, from project design through to implementation, monitoring and evaluation.

Development Cooperation and ACTRAV (ACTRAV Role, expertise and list of ongoing projects)

The involvement of social partners in designing, implementing, and evaluating the ILO's development cooperation projects and programmes is essential for ensuring that these development cooperation services respond to constituents’ needs. However, this requires requisite capacities for effective engagement. ACTRAV has a major role to play in building the institutional capacities of workers’ organizations to ensure that they can fulfil this function, both through their active participation in development cooperation and in policy advocacy work. ACTRAV Specialists in Workers’ Activities are available in field offices and at Headquarters to support the involvement of workers organizations in DC project design, appraisal, implementation and monitoring and evaluation and to mobilize resources for DC projects, as appropriate. A list of on-going ACTRAV lead DC projects are provided on the link below.

Ongoing ACTRAV development cooperation projects

• Promoting Workers Rights and Gender Equality at Work in Africa
• Decent Work in Trade and Investment Agreements: Role and Actions of Trade Unions in Africa – Supported by Finland, Trade Union Solidarity Centre of Finland (SASK)
• Interregional exchange on trade union engagement in UNSDCFs: a south-south cooperation initiative between small island states in Asia-Pacific and the Caribbean
• RBSA dedicated programme: Enhanced capacity of workers’ organizations to promote inclusive and effective governance of work and policy coherence through an integrated approach