1. About the ILO
2. Topics
3. Regions
4. Meetings and events
5. Programmes and projects
6. Publications
7. Labour standards
8. Statistics and databases

Major Programme 145. Interdepartmental Activities

Summary of 1998-99 proposals and comparison with previous biennium (including funds from other sources)

145.1. In the Programme and Budget for the biennium 1996-97 this major programme consisted only of the Programme Flexibility Reserve, with resources amounting to some $1.24 million. Three activities of an interdepartmental nature are included for the biennium 1998-99, including the Reserve, at a reduced resource level of $480,000; provision for a major project to improve ILO databases, with resources amounting to $960,000; and provision for an ILO Social Forum, costed at some $198,000. The inclusion of these three activities leads to an increase of some $398,000 in the resource level for the major programme.

Programme Flexibility Reserve

145.2. It is proposed to retain this Reserve, with a reduced level of resources, amounting to $480,000. This reserve will cover several work items of a technical nature, which could include meetings, research leading to publication, information dissemination and public information activities, and technical advisory services. In the biennium 1998-99, one possible use of this Reserve, among others, is to finance research and other work which may be needed to support the discussions in the Working Party of the Governing Body on the Social Implications of Trade Liberalization.

145.3. Following the practice established in earlier biennia, proposals for expenditure from the Programme Flexibility Reserve will be submitted to the Programme, Financial and Administrative Committee of the Governing Body for approval, in accordance with article 15 of the Financial Regulations.

ILO Social Forum

145.4. In order to give further impetus to ILO action to promote fundamental workers’ rights, it is envisaged to convene an ILO Social Forum in the course of the biennium 1998-99. This Forum would focus on the promotion of the observance of international labour standards concerning workers’ rights by increased cooperation between all the actors in civil society, including particularly government agencies, employers’ and workers’ organizations. It is envisaged that non-governmental organizations and parliamentarians engaged in work relating to the promotion of human rights and social justice would also participate in the Forum. Discussions in the Forum would concern follow-up action by the ILO to the Declaration of the World Social Summit as regards the core ILO Conventions on freedom of association, forced labour, child labour and non-discrimination.

Enhancing the usefulness to constituents of ILO databases

145.5. There are five major flagship databases produced by the ILO for its constituents. They include CISDOC (occupational safety and health bibliographic information); LABORDOC (bibliographical information on labour and social issues); LABORSTA (global labour statistics); ILOLEX (ILO Conventions and Recommendations and freedom of association cases); NATLEX (national laws on labour and social topics). Four of them earn a substantial revenue for the ILO and the fifth (NATLEX) will soon be offered for sale. These databases are available in print or CD-ROM, via commercial on-line services and to a limited extent on the World Wide Web. Work is needed to improve the electronic versions of the databases.

145.6. In addition to earning revenue for the ILO these products are important to the image of the Organization. They suffer from limitations in terms of content and particularly in ease of access and use. Policies regarding their marketing and pricing need to be made more consistent.

145.7. The content of most of these databases needs revision to make them more user-friendly and more directly useful. The ability to “customize” the information in them to meet particular market needs is desirable. There is a need to improve the information in these databases, to add to it where it is relatively easy to do so, delete what is not of interest and make all this information available in a more attractive and user-friendly form than it is now. In order to determine clear specifications for the required editorial revision, it is intended to launch marketing studies in the current biennium. Among the first steps in this work, it is becoming essential to put LABORSTA onto a CD-ROM and give users direct access to hard data in this suite of databases, to provide full text access for some of the databases or for parts of them, and to add Spanish to some CISDOC products.

145.8. It is the presentation and accessibility of the data that is most in need of an overhaul. Different data management and interface softwares are outdated and user-unfriendly, requiring different techniques to be accessed. The user who wants information from several of these databases faces many obstacles. Unfriendliness of use is the most constant complaint of users. Ideally there would be a single point of entry to all of them so that a user inquiring about unemployment and wage rates, laws governing labour and safety and health hazards, in a particular country, would access this information with plain language queries, receive the information requested without realizing that several different databases provided this information.

145.9. The marketing and pricing of these products requires that the ILO should determine if it should market these products itself, or pay others to do so, or adopt some combination of these two alternatives taking account of the relevant marketing and economic criteria. It needs to be decided how to price these products: Who should receive them free? Who should pay for them? Should access to the information on the Web be fee-based?

145.10. The objective of this project is to ensure that information prepared by the ILO in relation to the core areas of its mandate is easy to access and easy to use. This objective will be achieved by activities to:

improve and revise the content of the five databases in the light of what is known to need revising and the results of marketing studies;

determine common interface standards so that access to all of these databases is through a single point of entry and in a friendly environment;

determine marketing policies for electronic products; and

increase revenues from these products.

145.11. In addition, by setting hardware and software standards this project will generate better information about the markets for ILO products and provide the standards and guidance for the development of other databases.