Introducing the “Toolkit for Mainstreaming Employment and Decent Work” to the UN Country Team in Egypt, 5 September 2007
Background: The Decent Work Agenda in the International System
At the 2000 United Nations Millennium Summit, employment and decent work were not recognized among the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This omission was rectified in the 2005 UN World Summit, where 150 heads of State and Government “strongly supported fair
globalization and resolved to make the goals of full and productive employment and decent work for all, including for women and young people, a central objective of our relevant national and international policies, as well as our national development strategies, including poverty reduction strategies, as part of our efforts to achieve the MDGs”.
Further endorsement of the Decent Work Agenda came in July 2006, when an ECOSOC Ministerial Declaration called upon the whole multilateral system, including the UN Funds, Programmes and Agencies, the international financial institutions and the World Trade Organization, to mainstream the goals of full and productive employment and decent work for all in their policies, programmes and activities. As follow-up, the UN Chief Executives Board for Coordination (CEB) agreed to develop a “Toolkit for Mainstreaming Employment and Decent Work”. This Toolkit was developed by the ILO, in collaboration with the CEB member organizations. It was fully endorsed at the April 2007 UN CEB session, chaired by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon.
On 17 July 2007, ECOSOC adopted a resolution on “the role of the UN system in providing full and productive employment and decent work for all”, which calls on all UN agencies to collaborate in using, adapting (including to national contexts) and evaluating the application of the Toolkit and to implement a three-phased approach in action plans to promote the goals of full employment and decent work for all, and invites the ILO to assist in these efforts.
The “Toolkit for Mainstreaming Employment and Decent Work”
This Toolkit is designed to be a lens through which agencies can ascertain how their policies, programmes and activities are interlinked with employment and decent work outcomes, and how they can enhance these outcomes. It consists of detailed self-assessment checklists, for each agency to see how its policies, programmes and activities incorporate employment and decent work and to determine where improvements can be made. As such, the Toolkit is an awareness raising tool and a diagnostic questionnaire. Each set of question in the self-assessment checklist is accompanied by three types of toolboxes: how-to tools, knowledge-based tools and good practices. These toolboxes will be filled in by agencies as they identify and select the tools they have for improving employment and decent work outcomes in their own fields of competence.
In its current format, the Toolkit provides a master document that is to be expanded, deepened and tailored according to specific fields of intended application. An interactive website is being constructed to enable all agencies to post of link their relevant tools and to engage in discussions on issues that call for policy synergy, research, data collection, analysis and the joint development of new tools and cooperative action. The Toolkit should contribute to the UN reform goal of system-wide policy coherence.
Introducing the Toolkit to the UN Country Team in Egypt
On 5 September 2007, this Toolkit was presented to Egypt’s UN Country Team by a specialist from ILO Headquarters. The meeting was attended by the Resident Coordinator and brought together representatives from FAO, IOM, UNDP, UNODC, UNIDO and UNIC. ILO representatives from SRO-Cairo, the Regional Office for the Arab States (Beirut) and the Regional Office for Africa (Addis Ababa) were also present, as this is the first time the Toolkit is being introduced at a national level.
An agreement was reached on the subsequent steps for Egypt:
- Individual meetings between the SRO-Cairo Director and the heads of UN agencies in Egypt (September – mid October 2007)
- Special meetings of the UN Resident Coordinator and the SRO-Cairo Director with the heads of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in Egypt (September 2007)
- Workshop to discuss the adaptation of the Toolkit at the national level (November-December 2007)
- Meetings with key national stakeholders
- Use of the adapted Toolkit by UN agencies and national stakeholders in Egypt
The Toolkit is available in print and online
here and
here. Versions are available in English, Spanish, French, Arabic and Portuguese. |
