Partnerships are a way for the ILO to work closely with member States to jointly promote, implement and extend the outreach of the Decent Work Agenda across the world. The ILO is actively engaged in a growing number of formal partnerships with countries around the world, as well as multilateral organizations, institutions, and private entities. The ILO’s role is to implement technical cooperation programmes that deliver decent work for our tripartite constituents.

Partners are encouraged to provide flexible, un-earmarked and predictable funding. In return the ILO has strengthened its capacity to manage for development results and to deliver value for money.

Public-private partnerships

The ILO has collaborated with the private sector since its foundation in 1919. The Organization’s 2008 Basic principles governing ILO Public-Private Partnerships have led to more than 100 partners taking action with the ILO through 148 innovative partnerships. Our current public-private partners are diverse and range from multinational enterprises to foundations and research institutes.

Public-private partnerships are an innovative and complementary way for the ILO to promote decent work. PPPs can create channels for introducing innovative approaches and reforms into the labour markets and economies of member States. They therefore sits well with the emerging development trends in many parts of the world including the Asia-Pacific region, which needs to be oriented towards social justice and inclusive growth.

South-South and triangular cooperation

Since the 1960s technical cooperation has included various approaches within both bilateral and multilateral relations. In the UN system the concept known as "horizontal cooperation" has brought new development aid profiles and helped enhance the social impact of development.

Traditional international technical cooperation has reached a point where some beneficiary countries have learnt sufficiently from development efforts and have mastered techniques that they can now pass on to other countries to promote this learning process. This is known as South-South cooperation.

Most countries that are now donor countries to the UN system and to the ILO in the past benefited from traditional cooperation.

ILO partnerships in Asia and the Pacific

The ILO’s work in Asia and the Pacific has been strengthened by a growing number of formal partnerships with member States, constituents and private sector entities in the region, a trend that also reflects economic progress and deepening integration. One result of these arrangements is a growing portfolio of technical cooperation projects that make possible additional work in areas where more impact is required, at regional, national or local level. These cover a wide range of work and work-place related issues, including labour law governance, migration, green jobs, youth employment, gender, enterprise development, social dialogue, skills and vocational training.

The ILO presently has formal Partnership Agreements with four member States in Asia and the Pacific:

• Australia - The Australian Government – ILO Partnership Agreement (2010–2015)
• Japan - ILO/Japan Multi-bilateral Programme
• Korea - ILO/Korea Partnership Programme
• Singapore - ILO & Singapore Ministry of Manpower sign partnership agreement to improve labour and workplace practices

In addition to these partnerships, the technical work of ILO in Asia and the Pacific is also supported through project-specific funding from a number of member States worldwide and multi-lateral organizations such as the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank Group, including the International Finance Corporation and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and other parts of the UN system.