Japan is a founding member State of the ILO, and a valued partner in promoting the Decent Work Agenda, and has ratified 49 Conventions, including 6 Fundamental, 3 Governance and 40 Technical Conventions. Japan holds one of the ten permanent government seats on the ILO Governing Body as a State of Chief Industrial Importance. Since opening in 1919, the ILO-Japan office in Tokyo has facilitated the partnership between ILO and Japan.
Children access clean water in the Philippines
Japan’s strategic contributions to the ILO
Japan funds the ILO through:
Assessed contributions paid by all ILO member States by virtue of their membership, which constitute the ILO’s core funding or regular budget. Japan contributed US$ 177.8 million between 2018 and 2022.
Voluntary, non-core funding contributions provided as earmarked funds for priority programmes and projects in addition to assessed contributions. Between 2018 and 2022, Japan contributed US$ 50.9 million.
Japan’s overall voluntary contributions to the ILO, 2018-22 (US$ 228.7M)
The Japan-ILO partnership
Japan has a long-standing relationship with the ILO in the field of development cooperation, establishing itself as a key partner in the promotion of social justice and decent work. Japan supports the ILO´s mandate by contributing to both its core budget and its development cooperation programmes.
The ILO works closely with the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW), as its governmental constituent. The collaboration aims primarily at supporting a fair globalization, poverty reduction, occupational safety and health, international labour standards and social dialogue. The MHLW provides strategic funding to implement development, research and crisis-response programmes chiefly through a multi-bilateral programme and a lightly-earmarked funding facility to build Social Safety Nets in Asia and the Pacific. The Ministry further supports the work of the ILO’s International Training Centre in strengthening of the capacity of the world of work’s actors.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs provides further support in the area of prevention and response to crisis and fragility, both directly and through the UN Trust Fund for Human Security. The cooperation extends primarily to livelihood-oriented emergency response to both humanitarian crises and natural disasters. The ILO also collaborates with the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) for technical interventions at the local level.
Japan contributes proactively to the peace, stability and prosperity of the international community. The priority areas within Japanese development assistance are:
Poverty reduction and quality growth: education, health and population, water and sanitation, agriculture and rural development, infrastructures and ICT.
Peace building and humanitarian assistance
Resilient international community: environment, energy, climate change and disaster risk reduction
Gender equality and human security. Japan’s development cooperation strives to address these priority areas to achieve quality growth through the development of infrastructure and human resources.
