The baseline study and sectoral assessment aims to capture the working conditions, including compliance to the fundamental principles and rights at work, in the agriculture, mining, and fishing sectors, to help guide the Project in its strategy and implementation of interventions that improve and promote labour laws compliance, occupational safety and health and gender equality.

Findings of the baseline study and sectoral assessment will also serve as basis for Project partners’ development of tripartite Strategic Compliance Plans in the target sectors. The development of tripartite Strategic Compliance Plans will also help the Project in supporting project partners’ priorities, improving working condition in these sectors and broaden access to markets requiring compliance with labour standards.

Director Khalid Hassan, of ILO Country Office for the Philippines, shared that the results of the baseline survey and sectoral assessment will be critical for measuring progress and achievement of the target outcomes under the project, and emphasized the significance to review the process to make the baseline study and sectoral assessment more responsive to the tripartite partners, and to the rural sectors in general.

Forty-four participants (24 females, 20 males) coming from government, employers, and workers’ groups attended, including those represented in the regional Industry Tripartite Councils (ITCs) of the Project’s target sectors of banana, tuna and mining, attended the Inception Workshop to discuss and explore strategies on the different areas of the conduct of the baseline study and sectoral assessment such as data collection, timelines, tools, target sites, and topics for the survey.

Partners suggested to cover specific tiers of the supply chain  - from extraction in mining,  catching/fishing up to packaging in the fishing (specific in tuna) supply chain, and  planting up packing fresh bananas for export.

Project partners also acknowledged the importance of identifying specific decent work deficits faced by women workers and generating information from employers on their programmes in strengthening compliance to buyer requirements and soliciting recommendations to promote on ease of compliance to relevant regulations. These decent work deficits will help the Project and the Partners in designing specific strategies and interventions that will address the needs and gaps of the workers, particularly women workers, in the target sectors.