The ILO and Copenhagen +5 - External relations and partnerships

ILO involvement in the promotion and implementation of the social development goals of the Copenhagen Declaration and Programme of Action

ACC Task Force on Employment and Sustainable Livelihoods
ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work and Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention
ILO Tripartite International Consultation

In the Copenhagen Programme of Action, the ILO was given a special role in the field of employment and social development. The actions taken to fulfil this mandate have been regularly monitored and examined in the ILO's Governing Body, particularly in its Committee on Employment and Social Policy. Although the Organization has carried out a significant amount of work in the area of promoting full employment as called for in Commitment 3, it has also contributed important efforts to the accomplishment of the core goals of poverty eradication and social integration.

The ILO's principal actions, pursuant to the Copenhagen Declaration and Programme of Action have been:

Chairing the ACC Task Force on Employment and Sustainable Livelihoods
Adopting the Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work and the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention No. 182
Holding an International Consultation on Follow-up to the Summit.

ACC Task Force on Employment and Sustainable Livelihoods

At the World Summit, the ILO was given the responsibility of playing a leading role in the field of employment generation, and was subsequently called upon by the United Nations Secretary-General to chair the Task Force on Employment and Sustainable Livelihoods, one of three set up by the Administrative Committee on Coordination (ACC), in order to give operational significance to the variuos UN Conferences. Between August 1996 and January 1997, the Task Force undertook a series of comprehensive employment policy reviews in a selected sample of countries with the aim to:

assess policies related to employment and sustainable livelihoods;
provide lessons from experience based on these country reviews; and
demonstrate the feasibility of the UN system working together at the country level in order to identify each country's specific problems and provide policy alternatives for the achievement of full employment and the reduction - and eventual eradication - of poverty.

Seven countries, representative of countries in different regions, of different sizes and at different levels of development, were subject to these employment policy reviews which were undertaken by teams led by the ILO (Chile, Hungary and Nepal), UNDP (Morocco and Zambia), the World Bank (Indonesia) and UNESCO (Mozambique). Despite the significant initial disparities between the selected countries, the exercise allowed the teams to identify a series of recurrent features and issues, which provided a common understanding of the policies required for promoting employment. The conclusions arrived to and the lessons drawn, together with a series of suggested policy guidelines, formed the basis of the Synthesis Report which the ILO prepared and presented to the ACC in April 1997. As a result of this exercise, country employment policy reviews (CEPRs) have now become an integral feature of the ILO means of action and technical advisory services to member States and social partners. Eleven additional reviews have been completed or are ongoing.

ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work and Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention

The Copenhagen Declaration played an important supporting and guiding role in the campaign launched by the ILO for the ratification of core labour standards. Commitment 3 (i) of the Declaration called upon the Member states to "Pursue the goal of ensuring quality jobs, and safeguard the basic rights and interests of workers and to this end, freely promote respect for relevant International Labour Organization conventions, including those on the prohibition of forced and child labour, the freedom of association, the right to organize and bargain collectively, and the principle of non-discrimination".

The Summit's call for promoting and safeguarding the basic rights and interests and workers was attended by the ILO which in June 1998, at the 86^th session of the International Labour Conference, adopted the Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. The Declaration is characterised by two basic elements:

it recognizes that all ILO Members (who are also, with very few exceptions, members of the other organizations of the United Nations system) have by their very acceptance of the ILO Constitution an obligation to respect, realize and promote these rights; and
it provides for a follow-up procedure designed to monitor and encourage countries' efforts to fulfil this obligation and explicitly rules out the use of the Declaration for protectionist purposes. Its adoption thus set in motion a worldwide process of reporting and analysis within the Organization on the effective realization of these rights.

A further key development has been the unanimous adoption by the International Labour Conference in 1999 of the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (No. 182) which reinforces the network of instruments to combat these particularly intolerable practices in the area of child labour, namely, forced labour, sexual exploitation, illicit activity and dangerous work, and supports the work in this area carried out by the International Programme for the Eradication of Child Labour (IPEC).

ILO International Tripartite Consultation

An international tripartite consultation concerning follow-up to the World Summit met in the ILO headquarters on 2-4 November 1999. The International Consultation, which was preceded by a series of tripartite regional consultations held in Bangkok, Budapest, Abidjan, Geneva and Beirut, reviewed and assessed measures undertaken by States to give effect to their commitments under the Copenhagen Declaration and Programme of Action, the ILO's contribution to the World Summit follow-up and the preparations for the Special Session of the General Assembly.

The meeting had before it a background report prepared by the Office entitled, "The International Labour Organization and the promotion of full, productive and freely chosen employment" which outlined various proposed areas of possible further initiatives, including workers' skills and capabilities; job creation in small and medium-sized enterprises and the informal sector; labour market flexibility, employment protection and security; wage determination; employment intensive public works; youth employment; target group programmes and monitoring the situation of vulnerable groups; and the reconciliation of work and family life.

The outcome of the fruitful debate and discussions which took place at this event are reflected in the "Conclusions of the International Consultation on Follow-up to the World Summit for social Development" which, among other recommendations "called upon the ILO to develop, in collaboration with the tripartite partners and the UN system agencies, new operational initiatives to give better effect to the commitments of the Copenhagen Declaration and Programme of Action. These operational activities should be implemented in the framework of an employment strategy with global and national dimensions". These initiatives should include:

the formulation and implementation of country specific comprehensive employment strategies to stimulate employment generation and to improve labour market and employment services;
technical assistance and advisory support for the worldwide ratification and implementation of the ILO's core Conventions as well as the promotion of the Declaration and Convention No. 182;
devising new policies and programmes to meet the challenges of a fast developing knowledge-based economy and society;
supporting members States in designing and extending social safety nets;
recognizing the problems created by the growth of the informal sector, helping member States extend a range of support measures to informal sector workers;
devising new approaches to overcoming growing social exclusion.

Updated by VC. Approved by DO. Last update: 16 June 2000.