Partnerships

Full and productive employment and decent work for all constitute a global goal and a Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target, endorsed by the UN World Summit of 2005 and the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). The ILO promotes and supports the mainstreaming of the Decent Work Agenda throughout the multilateral system. To this end, the ILO has been forging and strengthening partnerships with UN programmes and agencies, international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, donor agencies, regional organizations, NGOs and academia.

In the Caribbean, the ILO Decent Work Team and Office for the Caribbean has established strategic alliances with regional organizations, such as the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS). These alliances are guided by formal agreements _ the CARICOM-ILO Agreement was initiated in 1982 while the OECS-ILO Memorandum of Understanding commenced in 2008.

Through the ILO Decent Work Team and Office for the Caribbean Office, the ILO participates in five UN Country Teams (UNCTs) in the Caribbean. The Office works closely with UN agencies and contributes to the United Nations Development Assistance Frameworks (UNDAFs). The UNDAFs provides a collective, coherent and integrated United Nations system response to national priorities and needs within the framework of the MDGs and other UN commitments.

Partnerships forged with organizations in the region include:

CARICAD AND OECS

A pilot project to develop and implement a labour market information system (LMIS) in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is being initiated by the Labour Department of the Ministry of Urban Development, Labour, Culture and Electoral Affairs with support provided by the ILO Office for the Caribbean and the Caribbean Centre for Development Administration (CARICAD). The pilot project will be rolled out to the other OECS countries with the support of the OECS Secretariat and other potential donors.

PAHO-EU
The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) HIV Caribbean Office and ILO are partnering to deliver a five-year European Union funded project on HIV/AIDS aimed at strengthening the integration of the British and Dutch Overseas Territories in the regional response to HIV/AIDS carried out with the Pan-Caribbean Partnership against HIV/AIDS (PANCAP). The territories involved in the project are Anguilla, Aruba, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Montserrat, Bonaire, Curacao, St Maarten, Saba, St Eustatius and the Turks and Caicos Islands. The ILO is coordinating the implementation of the workplace component of the project so as to achieve enhanced prevention efforts to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS in the territories through workplace policies and programmes.

UWI (Mona, St Augustine and Cave Hill)
The ILO delivers lectures at the University of the West Indies (UWI) on international labour standards related to occupational safety and health, and HIV/AIDS as part of the MSc programme in Occupational and Environmental Safety and Health at both Mona, Jamaica and St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago campuses. The ILO also delivers lectures in the Statistical and Actuarial Tools in Social Security Course at the Cave Hill School of Business, Barbados.

The ILO has partnered with the UWI Mona School of Business to offer a training programme for employers' organizations, under the Caribbean Academy for the Management of Employers' Organizations (CAMEO).

CARICOM-Office of Trade Negotiations
The ILO Office for the Caribbean has published two guides on the CARIFORUM-European Community (EC) Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) for use by Caribbean employers' and workers' organizations to foster a better understanding of the provisions of the EPA and in particular the social and labour dimensions of the Agreement. The Guides were developed following the hosting of a series of training workshops on the EPA in the Bahamas, Grenada and Trinidad and Tobago, held in collaboration with the Office of Trade Negotiations (OTN) of the CARICOM Secretariat.

CARICOM-PANCAP-UNAIDS
The ILO Recommendation concerning HIV and AIDS and the World of Work, 2010 (No 200), is being promoted as a framework for the development of a workplace policy at the level of the CARICOM Secretariat as well as for use throughout the region, in collaboration with UNAIDS and the Pan Caribbean Partnership on HIV/AIDS (PANCAP). The ILO Recommendation is the first universal human rights instrument dealing with HIV/AIDS which promotes equal protection to workers (based on real or perceived HIV status) as it relates to prevention, treatment and care, among others.