CEB Toolkit Application: Argentina
The Toolkit has been adapted to be used at country level to assist UN Country Teams, national constituents and stakeholders, and other development partners to mainstream employment and decent work in national development frameworks. A checklist for use specifically at country-level was developed.
Mainstreaming employment and decent work in the UNDAF
The implementation of the Toolkit in Argentina began in 2008 with a series of training workshops at two different levels: with the UNCT and with individual resident agencies (UNDP, World Bank, UNHCR, ECLAC, IOM, UNAIDS, IMF, PAHO/WHO, FAO, UNICEF, UNFPA, UNESCO). The aim was to familiarise them with the Decent Work Agenda and to secure their buy-in into the Toolkit process.
All agencies were mobilized around the elaboration of the country’s first United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF). As a result, the Toolkit checklist was used for its formulation and led to the inclusion of employment and decent work concerns in 83% of UNDAF effects, 93% of programme outcomes and 75% of outputs. It was also included as a tool for the monitoring and evaluation phase of the UNDAF cycle as a means to check decent work outcomes.
At the same time, seven resident agencies went through the Toolkit checklist individually and completed a self-assessment of their activities with the assistance of the ILO which identified areas to develop in terms of decent work: UNDP, UNESCO, UNICEF, UNHCR, FAO, UNAIDS, World Bank
Implementing the Social Protection Floor
Following the successful inclusion of decent work into Argentina’s UNDAF, the agencies decided to focus on the implementation of the Social Protection Floor Initiative (SPF-I) and developed an inter-agency proposal. Collaborating agencies include the World Bank, UNDP, WHO and UNICEF as well as their counterpart national ministries.
Social Protection Country Brief for Argentina
Working with constituents
Meetings were held with the Ministry of Labour to keep them informed on development in the UN system in relation to the decent work campaign. In addition, meeting were held with representatives of the Workers’ and Employers’ organization to also keep them informed on progress made on mainstreaming with the UN system, to raise their awareness of decent work and to assess possible entry points for them in this process.