The primary goal of the ILO is to promote opportunities for women and men to obtain decent and productive work, Decent Work is at the heart of the ILO’s strategies for economic and social progress and is central to efforts to reduce poverty, and a means for achieving equitable, inclusive and sustainable development. In resonance with the ILO’s Decent Work agenda, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the UN adopted a Ministerial Declaration on full and productive employment and decent work. ILO recognizes that it is the world of work that holds the key to progressive and lasting eradication of poverty. From its inception, the ILO has focused upon employment and considers decent work as employment that occurs in conditions of freedom, equity, security and human dignity.
The global winds of change have had an impact on the countries of South Asia to which they are responding by reforming and liberalizing their economies. Policy initiatives in the past few years have resulted in economic growth in varying degrees in all countries. However, despite progress on certain social indicators, by and large, there is no denying the fact that economic growth has not led to a corresponding increase in jobs. Therefore, translating economic gains into productive employment is a priority. With the high incidence of ‘working poor’ and large informal sectors, coupled with an increasing casualization of labour, high youth unemployment, stagnant agriculture sectors and outdated labour laws, the quality dimensions also result in several challenges. As such, employment promotion – both quantity-wise and quality-wise - clearly needs urgent attention.
There is a growing realization among South Asian countries that the lack of decent employment opportunities could have an impact on their long-term growth potential. This has led to introspections on reasons for the growth-employment opportunities disconnect and the need to provide decent and sustainable livelihoods. Some strategic issues which are being focused upon include:
- the need to make economic growth more employment intensive;
- identification of sectors with potential for quality jobs creation;
- improvement in the quantity and quality aspects of jobs in micro and small enterprises;
- mechanisms available or which need to be created to address mismatches between the demand and supply of skills in the formal and informal economies as well as for those migrating for jobs;
- the need to effectively look at core labour standards and basic ILO values and principles like social dialogue, voice, tripartism and equity in the informal parts of the economies;
- ensure that appropriate social protection mechanisms are in place;
- strategies to ensure that growth is made more socially inclusive;
- equal opportunities for all women and men who want to work to have access to decent and sustainable livelihoods and minimizing the divides that exist.
And the larger questions which are being kept in view are:
- to what extent is decent and productive employment central to macro socio-economic policies and the overall coherence in policies at the macro level?
- how is decent employment reflected in financial, trade and other policies?
- are the implementation and delivery mechanisms strong enough in cases where policies and programmes are in place?
These challenges require strategies based on sound macro-economic policies which envisage generation of productive and gainful employment, with decent working conditions as a critical strategy element. As such, employment promotion in the subregion remains a focus area of ILO’s work and a priority in the Decent Work Country Programmes, adopted jointly by the ILO and tripartite constituents, in the countries of this subregion.