ILO's Decent Work Agenda in Asia and the Pacific
ADB's 35th Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors

Speech By
Werner Konrad Blenk
Director, ILO Manila

May 2002,Shanghai

Abstract

Widening inequalities between rich and poor and the high incidence of absolute poverty demand greater attention and more concerted efforts to lift the social floor for all workers. The International Labour Organization articulates its response to the current situation of men and women in the world of work in its Decent Work Agenda, whose primary goal is to "…promote opportunities for women and men to obtain decent and productive work, in conditions of freedom, equity, security and human dignity". The ILO Decent Work Agenda shares several priorities and interests with ADB's Social Protection Strategy. This paper provides an overview of decent work deficits and responses in Asia and the Pacific and offers some observations of the synergies with the ADB's approach. Opportunities for broader coherence and greater collaboration in the international system are currently opening in the wake of an emerging international consensus on the importance of finding more effective ways to bring together social and labour objectives with the dynamics of the global economy.

Introduction

The need for concerted and forceful efforts on lifting the social floor for workers in Asia and the Pacific is clear. In an increasingly globalized economy, inequalities between and within nations are increasingly evident and alarming. Income security, a long standing concern of the ILO remains in the forefront of challenges facing many developing countries. Nearly one-third of the population in developing countries lives on less US$1 a day, 30 percent of adults are illiterate, 30 percent have no access to safe drinking water, and 30 percent of children under the age of five are underweight. Even in some middle income countries, unequal distributions of income leave many workers and their families extremely poor. For those individuals and families, contingencies such as ill health and old age can become potentially catastrophic. Poverty also undermines their participation in community affairs and their voice in political and democratic institutions and processes. The children of today's poor are likely to inherit the legacy of poverty, resulting in the transmission of poverty from one generation to the next. But globalization and open economies and societies have the potential to offer rich opportunities for economic development and growth. The challenge that confronts us is in directing globalization and trade liberalization to ensure that their benefits reach all citizens, including the most vulnerable in society-children, women, the elderly, indigenous peoples, workers in the informal economy-so that we may realize a global economy characterized by the equity, inclusion, and social justice that are required for sustainable development.

While globalization produces common concerns, opportunities and issues, the effects of globalization differ considerably across regions and nations given unique historical, cultural, economic and social contexts. Consequently, the Decent Work Agenda is flexible and dynamic, it must be developed and adapted with sensitivity to the national context and must emerge out of consultation with and participation by the social partners. Of course, Asia is a vast continent, and its diversity does not need to been emphasized. In each sub-region and in each country, particular circumstances require specific analyses of the decent work challenges and responses. The ILO's long standing presence in the region and the relationships it has developed with the governments, employers, and workers at the regional and national levels, together with its expertise in social policy and the world of work, and its record of developing and promoting international labour standards provide a powerful momentum for achieving ILO's primary goal of decent work for all.

ILO's Decent Work Agenda in Asia and the Pacific

Decent Work is the articulation of the primary goal of the ILO; to promote opportunities for all women and men to obtain decent and productive work, in conditions of freedom, equity, security and human dignity. The correlation of interests between the ILO's Decent Work Agenda and the ADB's Social Protection Strategy is considerable: Both of our organizations emphasize the importance of poverty alleviation as a relevant goal for its policies and programs. The ADB defines social protection as the "set of policies and programs designed to reduce poverty and vulnerability by promoting efficient labour markets, diminishing people's exposure to risks, and enhancing their capacity to protect themselves against hazards and the interruption or loss of income". While the ILO uses the term "social protection" to refer to a more specific set of issues related to occupational safety and health, social security and social insurance, the ADB use of the term social protection is fairly broad and makes ILO's Decent Work Agenda the most appropriate comparison for identifying the synergies in our analyses and efforts in Asia, which for the ILO, is covered by four technical teams each corresponding to a sub-region; Central Asia (considered together with Eastern Europe), East Asia, South East Asia and the Pacific, and South Asia, and a more extensive network of country offices.

The goal of Decent Work, in the words of Juan Somavia, the Director-General of the ILO, "…is best expressed through the eyes of people. It is about your job and future prospects; about your working conditions; about balancing work and family life, putting your kids through school or getting them out of child labour. It is about gender equality, equal recognition, and enabling women to make choices and take control of their lives. In the most extreme situations it is about moving from subsistence to existence. For many, it is the primary route out of poverty. ….And everywhere, and for everybody, decent work is about securing human dignity."

For the ILO, Decent Work is realized through the convergence of its four strategic objectives.

	1. Promoting and realizing standards and fundamental principles and rights at work
	2. Creating greater opportunities for women and men to secure decent employment and income
	3. Enhancing the coverage and effectiveness of social protection for all
	4. Strengthening tripartism and social dialogue

Promoting and realizing standards and fundamental principles and rights at work

The ILO has at the center of its mandate and of the Decent Work Agenda the recognition that all those who work have basic, fundamental rights at work. Since 1919 the ILO has built up a body of International Labour Conventions and Recommendations that contain rules across the entire spectrum of work related issues. The ILO approach is distinctive in the primary importance it places on social issues and social justice. Many labour rights are a matter of fundamental human rights; but they are also important to the goals of economic efficiency, economic growth, and sustainable development. The ILO was founded upon the assumptions that social justice is essential to universal peace, that individuals have the right to share in the wealth they help to generate. Social and economic goals must be achieved together. It is for each country to define what decent work is and how it can be achieved within a particular national context. However, there are basic human rights at work that must be upheld as preconditions to decent work. These are, in particular, embodied in the Organization's Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work: freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining, the elimination of all forms of forced or compulsory labour; the abolition of child labour, the elimination of discrimination in employment and occupation. The Declaration is an Expression of commitment by governments, employers' and workers' organizations to uphold basic human values. All member states by virtue of membership in the organization alone are obligated to respect, promote and realize the principles embodied in the Declaration.

The ILO' s emphasis on principles and rights shares some elements with the ADB's SPS. Perhaps most notable is the organizations' mutual interest in the issues of child protection. Child labour is a serious social, economic and human rights issue, limiting both the potential of individual children to receive an education, enjoy good health and basic freedoms, but also depriving nations of their full human and development potential. Economic systems in which children work and adults are jobless are economic systems gone astray. The ILO estimates that 250 million children are working worldwide and that 61% of them are in Asia where about 1 of every 5 children works. Many children are victims of the worst forms of child labour. These "worst forms" include slavery, bonded labour, drug trafficking, prostitution, pornography, armed conflict and all types of hazardous work that pose serious risks to a child's safety, health and development. The strong link between poverty and child labour is well established; thus, it is not surprising that children engaged in the worst forms of child labour almost invariably come from the poorest and the most vulnerable groups of society.

International concern about the dangers of child labour is evident in the speed with which ILO Convention No. 182 (Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999) calling for immediate action to eliminate the worst forms of child labour was ratified, making it the most quickly ratified convention in the history of the ILO. In fact, in less than 3 years, more than 100 countries have ratified the Convention. The ILO's International Programme for the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) cooperates with a broad array of different groups, including governments, employers' and workers' organizations, NGOs and multilateral agencies such as UNICEF, to finance and implement activities to reach working children, especially those working in hazardous conditions. The IPEC programme takes a comprehensive approach that goes beyond removing children from work, by also providing educational alternatives for children and seeking to improve the economic conditions and opportunities for the parents. It addresses the need for public advocacy and awareness, for collecting reliable data, and for improving national capabilities, legislation and policies. IPEC is now seeking to demonstrate that the worst forms of child labour can be eliminated within a specific timeframe through its Time-Bound Programmes, which provides clear goals, specific targets, and defined time frames to prevent and eliminate a country's worst forms of child labour. The TBP is currently being implemented in Nepal and plans are underway for many other countries in the region including the Philippines. The breadth and depth of the issues identified by both the ADB and the ILO pertaining to child protection reflect a strong convergence of interests between the two organizations.

Beyond the issue of child labour, ILO Conventions and Recommendations provide essential protections for working men and women worldwide. ADB's recognition of the importance of workers' rights is evident in the clear statements in the social protection strategy document of the importance of ensuring that ratified international labour standards be part of the legislative framework of developing member countries. The ILO remains the principal body for setting and dealing with labour standards and continues its efforts to expand and strengthen their role and implementation. The observance of fundamental principles and rights at work is critical in the context of globalization. It strikes at the most inhumane labour practices, such as the worst forms of child labour and forced labour. And by upholding the freedom of association and collective bargaining, it creates the negotiating power necessary to eliminate remaining forms of unacceptable labour practices. It also promotes a balance of power that is necessary for counteracting uneven distributions of gains from economic growth. Finally, observance of the fundamental principles and rights, by contributing to a free labour movement, independent employers' organizations and elimination of discriminatory barriers, will culminate in more transparent and efficient public policies and better social protection.

Creating greater opportunities for women and men to secure decent employment and income

Employment generation is central to the success of the Decent Work Agenda. Clearly, without employment growth and ultimately, full employment, improvements in labour conditions are unattainable. The ILO estimates that there are 160 million people openly unemployed. If the underemployed are also included, the number increases to at least 1 billion people worldwide. Out of every 100 workers, six are fully unemployed, and another 16 earn less than US$1 per day. Gender is an important dimension of underemployment and poverty with women more likely to be un or under-employed than men in most countries and more likely to over-represented among the poor. Given such stark statistics of the employment situation, continued analyses of the effects and parameters of globalization, macroeconomic policy, the transformation of production systems and enterprise strategy and human resource development are necessary.

Efficient labour markets are one of the main pillars of the ADB's Social Protection Strategy and correspond most closely to this second strategic objective of Decent Work that calls for the creation of greater opportunities for decent employment and income. Labour market assessments, labour market programs and labor market policies are all components of the ADB's program that find counterparts in the ILO's efforts to promote decent employment. The ILO has a particularly rich experience on labour market issues. It carries out Country Employment Policy Reviews (CEPRs) which review and monitor nation's employment and labour market policy performances. It collects and disseminates labour statistics on the characteristics of the working population and conditions of work and life in nations throughout the world. It prepares at regular intervals, World Employment Reports containing up-to-date analysis of global and regional employment, labour market and income trends. Most recently, it developed its Global agenda for employment identifying dynamic approaches to successful employment policies that integrate economic and social policy.

ADB's attention to active labour market programs, including the promotion of small and medium enterprises and skills development programs also find strong counterparts in ILO's Decent Work Agenda. The ILO has several initiatives well under way in countries covered by the ADB to promote employment and productivity in the informal sector and in small enterprises, which exploit the ILO's wealth of practical experience in enterprise development, conditions of work, micro-credit, informal sector development, regulatory frameworks, and options for organization and representation. Skill development is also a strong focus of the ILO with creative programmes to develop lifelong learning and skill development through policy actions, education and training systems, small enterprises, and facilitating school-to-work transitions. The ILO has built up research and actions to address pervasive inequalities in access to jobs and skills, so that vulnerable groups such as women, younger and older workers, disabled workers and indigenous peoples may also have access to employment opportunities.

Access to decent employment is the surest way to get out of poverty. The ILO's Decent Work Agenda strives for sound and sustainable investment and growth, access to the benefits of the global economy, supportive public policies and an enabling environment for entrepreneurship and enterprise. The Office is considered a leading source of aggregate, up-to-date employment information, analyses and expertise, and is poised to contribute significantly to international and national efforts to build social concerns into the development of employment policy and programmes.

Enhancing the coverage and effectiveness of social protection for all

The third pillar of ILO's Decent Work Agenda focuses on the enhancement of the coverage and effectiveness of social protection. ILO uses the term "social protection" somewhat differently from the ADB to refer to the set of issues, policies and tools relating directly to enhancing the coverage and effectiveness of social security schemes and safe and healthy working conditions. Deficits in social protection are considerable; although systematic data are unavailable, rough estimates suggest that only about 20 percent of workers worldwide enjoy adequate social protection, and in low-income countries, protections for old age, sickness, invalidity, and health care reach only a very tiny proportion of the population. In Asia and the Pacific there is much variation in the extent of social security coverage, but most countries have very limited coverage, for example 8 percent of the labour force in India, 10 percent in Thailand. Occupational safety and health conditions also merit great concern. In Asia and the Pacific alone there are a very high number of fatal occupational accidents per year, and for every one fatal accident, another 750 non-fatal accidents involving temporary or permanent disability occur.

The ILO's Social Protection sector is concerned with a comprehensive set of issues including income security, health and safety at work and the environment, work and family issues, pensions and retirement, international migration and the HIV/AIDS pandemic. At its most basic level, it aims at ensuring that men and women enjoy working conditions that are not only not harmful, but which are as safe as possible, and which respect human dignity, take into account family and social values, allow for adequate compensation in case of lost or reduced income, permit access to adequate social and medical services and respect to the right to free time and rest. It emphasizes the extension of coverage of social protection, the need for good governance, the link between social protection and gender, the affordability of social protection, and the popular participation in social protection schemes.

Within the ILO's work on social security and protection is a subset of issues that correspond to those raised by the ADB. Two of the five main components of the ADB's Social Protection Strategy in particular, correspond to ILO's efforts under the Decent Work Agenda. First, the ADB's interest in social insurance programs to reduce the risks of the contingencies of employment finds direct complements in the ILO. As one of the ADB's focuses this component includes the risks and insecurities associated with unemployment, work injury, disability and invalidity, sickness and health, maternity leave, old age, and death of a breadwinner, all of which receive considerable attention from the ILO. The second of the two main components of the ADB Strategy in this area is protection of the informal sector via micro and area-based schemes, which also bear much in common with some of the ILO's work. For example, the ILO's STEP Programme (Strategies and Tools against Social Exclusion and Poverty) is an operational tool for the ILO to promote the extension of innovative social protection measures for the most vulnerable groups and aims to reach workers that are not covered by existing systems. It promotes community initiatives through advocacy, the development of knowledge, and the development of services and technical cooperation projects.

Enhancing the coverage and effectiveness of social protection is critical to the goals of Decent Work. Adequate social protection is a human right and a fundamental element of the viability and acceptability of economic globalization. No employment can be considered as "decent", be it public or private if unsafe or dangerous, if the consequence of its interruption are not addressed, if it does not take into account workers' individual and family circumstances and needs, if it does not bring along opportunities to strengthen the potential of the individuals, and prevent losses in a precious and scarce human resources. Efficient and broad social protection schemes are a critical link between economic and social development.

Strengthening Tripartism and Social Dialogue

The fourth pillar of the ILO's Decent Work Agenda has the objective of strengthening tripartism and social dialogue. This strategic objective is integral to the ILO's Decent Work Agenda. It reflects the great importance the ILO places on participatory processes through social dialogue. Freedom of association and participation ensure that workers' and employers' rights are defended, conflicts are resolved, social equity is valued, and policies are effectively implemented. The ILO's tripartite structure, comprised of governments, employers' organizations and workers, brings together the actors of the real economy. They are found in the enterprise and the workplace and they are ideally situated to assess current needs and challenges. It is through our social partners that the decent Work Agenda finds ownership and participation. To that end, the ILO has continuously engaged in efforts to enhance the legal and practical means for people to organize themselves, to ensure that the poor and the vulnerable also have voice, and to extend and strengthen workers' and employers' organizations, so that social partners may come to the table as equals to negotiate terms and conditions and beyond that, build consensus on the process of development. Upholding the basic human rights of freedom of association and collective bargaining creates the enabling environment for social partners to work together to construct fair labour practices, eliminate discriminatory barriers, ensure equitable distributions of the gains of economic growth, improve and extend social protections, and craft transparent and efficient public policies.

Integrated Responses

The ILO Decent Work Agenda is comprised of the four main sectors, each of which addresses specific aspects of employment. However, the ILO's past experience has also shown the need for and value of integrated cross-sectoral programmes, particularly when addressing the needs of special target groups. The Decent work Agenda provides a strong basis for an integrated approach that covers the entire range of employment issues, from basic rights and democracy, economic and social policies for employment generation and better social protection, and institutional arrangements for ensuring greater participation. The Philippines, as one of the pilot countries for the ILO's Decent Work Agenda, offers a model for the importance and potential of integrated responses. The ILO has worked together with the Philippine government, employers and workers to identify decent work challenges and to develop priorities for responding to those challenges. The resulting Decent Work Action Plan specifies a number of sector-specific responses, but also includes a number of integrated responses that draw together the strengths of each of the sectors to produce a comprehensive and targeted response.

For example, the Philippine government has identified poverty reduction as a top priority, leading to an integrated decent work response to develop and implement a policy and programme of local economic development for a poverty free zone. The ILO integrated response will directly support, through its technical capacity, demonstration projects, applying innovative approaches using decent work framework to address women's and men's many employment concerns and, in a second component, training will be provided to the poverty free zones managers in all areas critical to reducing poverty.

Other examples of integrated responses include programs to enhance the performance of the informal sector, programs for specific target groups such as those for children and their families and communities, for indigenous peoples, or for migrant workers. Integrated responses bear some similarities to the ADB's plans for addressing child protection, in that they provide holistic or comprehensive solutions that focus not only on the child's needs, but the needs of the family and community to provide a more nurturing environment. Integrated responses can ensure greater policy coherence can enhance the potential for success of program objectives, and can open possibilities for greater community participation and ownership.

Integrated and Multilateral Initiatives

In a globalizing economy, the development process requires ever greater policy and programme coherence within the international system. The Director General of the ILO has laid out the problems clearly: As more economic activity shifts to the global economy, national frameworks that ensure common standards and equalize the distribution of opportunities and rewards are increasingly being sidestepped. As a result, patterns of development are unequal and international disparities in income are increasing. In order to achieve a more equitable system of distribution, economic and social goals must be integrated. While some instruments and institutions are in place, the need for a stronger and more effective multilateral system is clear. Together the international community must develop more effective ways of bringing together social and labour objectives with the dynamics of the global economy. The different international and national organizations and systems bring perspectives that can enrich efforts to craft systems and processes of development in which everyone participates and benefits. The ILO's tripartite structure provides a strong position from which we can contribute to the discussion, analysis of, and responses to the social and economic dimensions of globalization. The Director General has issued strong calls for building new alliances and international fora for building consensus about goals and policies; for developing new international instruments that promote social goals within the global economy; and for developing a multilateral initiative to construct more integrated approaches in which the ILO is prepared to participate. Such potential collaborative approaches can include inter-organizational efforts to pool knowledge and undertake joint research; analytical frameworks for international policy development; and policy packages at the national level, encompassing international and macroeconomic issues, as well as development, poverty reduction and decent work.

The ILO has already taken part in or led new initiatives to create alliances and international forums for building consensus about goals and policies. Recently, the ILO launched a top-level commission comprising President, politicians, academics, social experts and a Nobel Economics laureate, which will address the social dimensions of globalization. The World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization will promote international dialogue to generate ideas for making globalization more inclusive and to identify how to harness the process of globalization as a resource to reduce poverty and unemployment, and to foster growth and sustainable development.

Another important initiative to forge partnerships is found in the Global Compact, which brings together companies, United Nations organizations, international labour, NGOs and other parties to foster partnerships and to build a global economy based on a core set of universal values on human rights, labour and environmental concerns.

Clearly, both the need and the potential are great for stronger cooperation under the overarching concern of poverty alleviation. A comparison of the ADB's Social Protection Strategy and the ILO's Decent Work Agenda indicate a number of common interests and values: the need to address poverty and vulnerability, the importance of sound economic policies, the significance of good governance and sustainability, the value of integrated and consensus-driven programmes, and the importance attached to human rights.

The ADB and the ILO are of course already well on the way to developing greater cooperation. Today the ADB and ILO are signing a historic Memorandum of Understanding, which will facilitate collaboration between the Bank and the ILO on matters of mutual interest and prompts the two organization to establish an operational framework and practical modalities for cooperation on development issues. It also provides for the exchange of information and mutual representation at meetings and conferences. Of course, the ILO and ADB have a long history of cooperation, most recently with the ILO providing technical support and advice on strengthening the role of labour standards in ADB's Social Protection Strategy to fulfil the Strategy's requirement that ADB interventions comply with national legislation and international core labour standards. Our past cooperation and our signing today of the MOU are significant milestones which take our collaboration forward, paving the way for stronger relations and partnerships between the ILO and international financial institutions such as the ADB.

Conclusions

In recent decades, many Asian countries have successfully created jobs and reduced poverty. But the financial crisis reversed some of those gains, especially in East and South-East Asian countries that were more exposed to the turbulence of global markets. Over 20 million workers are estimated to have lost their jobs in these countries and more fell into poverty. Other countries that were less affected by the crisis nevertheless have still been plagued by high levels of unemployment, underemployment and poverty. Today, Asia is home to almost two-thirds of the world's poor. The ILO's main priority in the region is to generate productive employment and alleviate poverty, through promoting decent work for women and men-work carried out in freedom, equity, security and with human dignity. The importance of social goals as well as economic goals in development has always been central to the ILO's mandate, and today its significance is increasingly recognized by a broader range of international organizations. In a globalized economy, the need for international cooperation and collaboration to ensure that globalization delivers on social as well as economic goals is greater than ever. Synergies between the ADB's Social Protection Strategy and the ILO's Decent Work Agenda provide ample opportunity to pursuing mutual interests in partnership with each other.