What are the ILO's key activities ?

Key activities to achieve the objectives and implement policies are based on :

• Need driven technical cooperation at the regional and national level
• Knowledge development e.g. through research, training and related publications
• Policy advocacy and national and international partnerships with international organizations, international and regional banks, development agencies, and stakeholders such as employees' and employers' organizations.

Some of the key activities of the ILO in Social health insurance have been provided through :

• Country support based on technical cooperation, research and policy advocacy to countries which include Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Honduras, Indonesia, Kenya, Laos, Peru, Philippines, Senegal, Tanzania, Thailand, and Yemen.
• Research and development on topical issues, such as evaluation of the financial and demographic impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the costing of universal access to basic health care in the context of low income countries.
• Development of international partnerships to help scale up social protection in health on a worldwide, national and regional level. These create and support international solidarity in financing and developing social protection in health and align with worldwide approaches such as the work of the Commission on Africa, MDGs, and poverty reduction strategies. Examples of international partnerships include the Global Social Trust pre-pilot project such as the one in Ghana and the Consortium on Social Health Insurance of ILO, WHO and GTZ.

The ILO/WHO/GTZ Consortium is based on an Agreement between the three organizations established in 2004. It covers global, regional and local co-operation in the broad area of social health protection and social health insurance. Current activities include technical cooperation with regard to developing and implementing social health protection schemes, such as in Kenya, Indonesia and Yemen. Additionally, the Consortium carries out joint conferences such as the International Conference on Social Health Insurance, December 2005, Berlin, Germany and research projects e.g. the ILO/WHO/OECD Research Project on social health protection, poverty reduction and access to care in cooperation.