Activity 9: Launch events and media campaigns

  1. One of the key country level outputs of the MAP project is the production of country studies - “Decent Work Country Profiles.” Using statistical data and legal information from a wide range of official sources (developed in consultation with national and international legal experts), these documents are designed to provide the latest available figures relating to decent work, and a baseline assessment of progress made in the core aspects of the Decent Work Agenda over the last decade. They also aim to highlight the flaws in the current data, and present a case for improved data collection so that countries can better self-monitor and self-assess progress toward decent work.

    Profiles are published for the benefit of social partners and other stakeholders working in development planning and policymaking, and as such are intended as an advocacy tool for action – at both policy and programmatic levels. They are disseminated to policymakers (Labour ministries and line ministries, especially Ministries of Planning, Economy and Finance), social partners (employers and workers), researchers and practitioners concerned with the measurement of the social and economic development of the country, and for which awareness and understanding of decent work is generally weak.

    Ultimately, it is hoped that the profiles provide a start point of a process whereby decent work indicators are both more widely accepted as measures of social and economic development and more well established in the monitoring and evaluation frameworks of national development plans and policies.

    In order to raise public awareness and support a wider sense of national ownership on decent work, country studies are published and accompanied by active national media campaigns. This activity includes support for the production of posters, banners, radio and television interviews, presence in national media outlets, with the involvement of ILO Department of Communication and Public Information and the Regional Offices, in line with UN-EC Joint Visibility Guidelines. The national launches of the Decent Work Country Profiles, are accompanied by publicity campaigns, used to raise awareness both of the Decent Work Agenda and of the importance to measure progress and gaps in the four dimensions of Decent Work (employment, rights at work, social dialogue, social protection).

    Publicity campaigns bring key messages, such as:

    - Decent Work should be recognised as an integral part of the national development agenda, as progress in the four dimensions of decent work is critical to the achievement of sustained socio-economic development.

    - Decent work country profiles represent an important start point to improve national capacities to assess and monitor progress towards decent work, and to the wider inclusion of decent work objectives into national development plans, and to the integration of decent work indicators into national monitoring and evaluation frameworks.

    - Decent Work Country Profiles should pave the way for more regular and systematic updating of decent work data, as well as other supplementary measures of progress in the labour and social spheres.

     In MAP countries, media materials (snapshot summaries, OpEds, press briefings), are prepared and launch events organized in order to disseminate the main results of the Decent Work Country Profiles - in line with the implementation or revision of the Decent Work Country Programme - and discuss policy implications.

    (i) Snapshot Summaries of the country studies, provided as a package alongside the full Profile, and designed mainly for a non-specialist audience of policymakers and development practitioners and giving an clear overview summary of progress, remaining issues and policy options;

    (ii) Press Release to be aimed particularly at the business and development media, as well as relevant NGOs, donors, and development partners;

    (iii) Opinion Editorials in national newspapers, highlighting the release of the Profile, the key findings, and what this means for national development and policymaking, and including a pursuasive message for the strengthening of decent work data and incorporation of decent work objectives and target indicators into national development plans.

    Launch events have been organized in Ukraine (May 2011), Indonesia (May 2012), Philippines (October 2012), Cambodia (July 2012), Brazil (July 2012), and Zambia (January 2013).

    Snapshot summaries produced for these events are available: Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia (English, Bahasa), NigerPhilippines, Ukraine and Zambia

    In Indonesia and the Philippines the launch of the profiles were given extra visibility by television interviews with the respective ILO Country Directors:

    1. Video - Launch Event of the Indonesia Decent Work Country Profile (Forthcoming)
    2. Video - Launch Event of the Philippines Decent Work Country Profile

    Op-Eds and press releases were featured in the national print media, in both English and local languages:

    1. ‘Decent work’ in Indonesia: What do the indicators say?’ (Jakarta Post, 4 June 2012)
    2. "Decent work in Cambodia - How far have we come?" (Phnom Penh Post, 3 August 2012)
    3. Press release - Launch of the Decent Work Country Profile for Zambia (Lusaka, 31 January 2013)

    For the launch of the Zambia Decent Work Country Profile, the following documents became also available:

    1. Main findings of the Decent Work Country Profile Zambia
    2. Ministry of Labour and Social Security - Measures to Address Decent Work Deficits
    3. Remarks by Mr Martin Clemensson, Director for the ILO Country Office for Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique
    4. Remarks Delivered by The Federation of Free Trade Unions Zambia
    5. Short Documentary - Launch of the DWCP Zambia

    More information will be posted as it becomes available.