INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANIZATION
	" Poverty anywhere is a threat to prosperity everywhere "

ILO's Activities in the Context of the UN System
 

Within the context of the UN system, the ILO is an active partner in the fight against poverty. From its specific mandate on employment and labour matters, the ILO has contributed significantly to major UN initiatives in this area. During the last five years, the most important UN system initiatives in which the ILO has played a key role are the following:

The World Summit for Social Development

The World Summit for Social Development (WSSD) was held in March 1995 in Copenhagen, pursuant to General Assembly resolution 47/92. It was attended by 117 Heads of State and Government who brought a number of social issues to the forefront of the international political arena and committed themselves to fulfilling the goals of eradicating poverty, achieving full employment and fostering stable, safe and just societies. These aims were encapsulated within the ten commitments of the Copenhagen Declaration and the Programme of Action of the WSSD, endorsed by the General Assembly in resolution 50/161. The second of these commitments calls for the "eradication of poverty in the world, through decisive national actions and international cooperation, as an ethical, social, political and economic imperative of humankind". The third commitment calls for the promotion of the "goal of full employment" as a basic priority of national economic and social policies in order to enable "all men and women to attain secure and sustainable livelihoods through freely chosen productive employment and work".

The ILO played a pivotal role in the preparation of the WSSD, as well as in the Summit itself. Its active involvement and its pre-eminent position in the field of employment generation were key elements behind the UN Secretary-General's decision to call upon the Organization to chair one of the three Task Forces set up by the UN's Administrative Committee on Coordination (ACC) to give operational significance to the Programme of Action adopted by the WSSD. As the lead agency of the Task Force on Full Employment and Sustainable Livelihoods, the ILO spearheaded the fight against poverty through the promotion of full, productive and freely chosen employment. 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 of 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 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 disparities between the selected countries (in terms of size, degree of economic development, culture, etc.), 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 and combatting poverty. The conclusions arrived at and the lessons drawn from the country reviews, 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. Since 1997, the ILO has carried out further employment reviews (CEPRs) in order to provide support to member States to formulate policies and programmes leading towards a state of full employment with full respect for basic workers' rights (commitment 3 of the Copenhagen Declaration). Five developing countries (Brazil, Barbados, Côte d'Ivoire, Kenya and Ukraine) and four industrialized countries (Netherlands, Ireland, Austria and Denmark) have been the subject of these ILO reviews.

The ILO's active involvement in the promotion and implementation of the social development goals contained in the WSSD Declaration and Programme of Action has been highlighted by the General Assembly. In paragraph 25 of its resolution, it "welcomes the contribution on the implementation of the Summit commitments, particularly relating to its activities in promoting expansion of productive employment and reduction of unemployment as part of promoting social development". Moreover, the General Assembly has decided to hold a special session in the year 2000 in order to review and assess the implementation of the outcome of the Summit and to consider further actions and initiatives. Paragraph 38 of the aforementioned General Assembly resolution "invites the International Labour Organization, which, because of its mandate, tripartite structure and expertise has a special role to play in the field of employment and social development, to be actively involved in the preparatory process and the special session, to contribute to the overall review and appraisal of the implementation of the outcome of the Summit and to consider further action and initiatives therein". Such a special session will be held in Geneva from 26 to 30 June 2000, following the 88th Session of the ILO's International Labour Conference.

Further to the work carried out through the ACC Task Force, the ILO will be hosting an international consultation concerning the follow-up to the Summit which will take the form of a high-level tripartite meeting of policy-makers to be held in Geneva over three days in November 1999. Taking the valuable experiences obtained through the country reviews as a point of reference, the meeting will assess the actions taken in relation to the WSSD follow-up as well as the results achieved at the national level, examining the reasons for their success or failure and identifying measures that can be taken to support the policy and institutional reforms that may be necessary to promote the goals of full employment and poverty eradication. It is expected that this event, which will include other international organizations, will contribute significantly to the assessment of progress of the Summit and to the preparation of initiatives.

ECOSOC high-level segment, 1999

As part of the intergovernmental process leading to the special session of the General Assembly in the year 2000, the high-level segment of ECOSOC (Geneva, July 1999) will be dedicated to the theme "The role of employment and work in poverty eradication and the empowerment and advancement of women". The ILO has been designated as the lead agency of the Task Force, composed of the World Bank, IFAD and UNDP, and will be responsible for drafting the principal report which will be discussed at the high-level segment. The major thrust of this report, which will take the ACC statement on poverty eradication as its point of departure, will be to demonstrate the role of employment creation in poverty eradication. Its four major guiding themes will be: macro-economic policies and poverty eradication; mechanisms of poverty generation; the role of public policy; and rights as a normative framework for poverty eradication.

International Year for the Eradication of Poverty

In December 1993, General Assembly resolution 48/183 proclaimed 1996 as the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty (IYEP), "recognizing that poverty is a complex and multi-dimensional problem with origins in both the national and international domains, and that its eradication in all countries, in particular developing countries, has become one of the priority development objectives for the 1990s in order to promote sustainable development".

The ILO's contribution to the IYEP centred around its involvement in the follow-up to the WSSD. Similarly, it published two important works dealing with this issue: "Successes in Anti-Poverty", a monograph on effective policies for poverty eradication in the 1990s and beyond; and "Statistics on Poverty and Income Distribution". Another major publication was the expanded and updated edition of "The incidence of poverty in developing countries: An ILO compendium of data", which includes statistics on the incidence of poverty in the developing world at the rural, urban, national and regional levels. The ILO's contribution was further enhanced through its participation in the JUNIC Task Force on Information Activities for the IYEP. Finally, the ILO was also actively involved in the brainstorming workshop on poverty eradication convened by the Consultative Committee on Programme and Operational Questions (CCPOQ). The workshop, which was held on 21-23 February 1996 at the ILO Training Centre in Turin, Italy, generated a number of useful ideas for practical and operational UN system inter-agency collaboration in the area of poverty eradication.

First United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty

At its fifty-first session, held on 11 February 1997, the General Assembly adopted resolution 51/178 entitled "First United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty" which, amongst other provisions, resolved that the theme for the Decade (1997-2006) would be "Eradicating poverty is an ethical, social, political and economic imperative of humankind" (para. 3). In September 1998, the Secretary-General presented a report to the fifty-third session of the General Assembly (A/53/329) which assesses the progress made in the implementation of measures, themes, recommendations and activities related to the Decade and puts forward a number of proposals in order to achieve a better coordination of actions taken by the UN system with respect to this theme.

This report describes the ILO's role in helping to establish "an enabling environment for poverty alleviation through employment-intensive growth at the macro and sectoral levels, as well as on specific target groups" (para.106). In this sense it highlights the policy advice services provided by the Organization, in cooperation with the UNDP in Tunisia, Egypt and Uzbekistan. The report also highlights the implementation, again together with the UNDP, of the Programme on Employment Generation for Poverty Reduction, better known as "Jobs for Africa". Finally, the report pays special attention to the Organization's Employment-Intensive Programme (EIP) aimed at maximizing employment generation through public investments. Since 1986, a total of $208 million has been allocated to the programme, or $17.3 million per year. The EIP, which has been operational in over 35 developing countries, has promoted private sector development (small- and medium-sized local contractors), and it has also helped to improve working conditions in the infrastructure and construction sectors. Overall, it promotes concrete programmes which seek to reduce poverty directly through the increased use of high labour content technologies and indirectly through the emphasis placed on investing in productivity-enhancing infrastructure.

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For further information, please contact the Development Policies Department (POLDEV)
at Tel: +41.22.799.6436, Fax: +41.22.799.6867, or E-Mail: poldev@ilo.org