Vision Zero Fund

Based on ILO estimates 2.78 million workers die every year from work-related injuries and diseases. An additional 160 million workers suffer from work-related diseases and 313 million workers from non-fatal injuries per year. The damage to companies and economies is significant.

In economic terms, the ILO estimates that almost 4 per cent of the world's annual GDP is lost as a consequence of work-related injuries and diseases.

Against this background, the Vision Zero Fund (VZF), an initiative of the Group of Seven (G7) countries, aims at preventing work-related deaths, injuries and diseases in sectors operating in or aspiring to join global supply chains (GSCs). VZF’s main objective is to increase collective public and private action aimed at fostering and enhancing concrete occupational safety and health (OSH) prevention activities in businesses operating in low and middle income countries.

The Vision Zero Fund will help prevent and reduce the unacceptable number of workplace-related deaths, injuries and diseases. Gaining access to global supply chains can be an important part of strategies for poverty reduction. The Fund will help to make this route safer."

ILO Director-General Guy Ryder at the G7 announcement of the Vision Zero Fund

The VZF targets specific sectors and countries. The initial focus of VZF projects is on the garment and agri-food value chains. Current pilot countries include Ethiopia, Madagascar and Myanmar and operations in Lao PDR and Tunisia will start in 2018.

A worker picking litchis in Madagascar
The VZF is a multi-donor trust fund, and welcomes contributions from governments, intergovernmental or nongovernmental organizations, and from private sources including companies, foundations and individuals. Current donors include the European Commission, Germany, France, Sweden, Norway and the United States. Siemens recently became the first private sector donor to join the Fund.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) administers and implements the Fund’s projects, which allows it to benefit in terms of strategic coherence from the ILO’s leading global role in the area of occupational safety and health. In particular, the VZF directly benefits from the tools developed following two years of joint ILO-EU research on OSH in global supply chains. The VZF projects contribute to the Global Action for Prevention on Occupational Safety and Health (OSH-GAP) Flagship Programme and the ILO Programme of Action 2017-2021 on Decent Work in Global Supply Chains.