Decent work in Arab States

The primary objective of the ILO Regional Office for Arab States is the promotion of decent work throughout the region. Decent work sums up the aspirations of people in their working lives – their aspirations for opportunity and income; rights, voice and recognition; family stability and personal development; and fairness and gender equality. Ultimately these various dimensions of decent work underpin peace in communities and society. Decent work reflects the concerns of governments, workers and employers, who together provide the ILO with its unique tripartite identity.

To reduce the decent work deficit in the Arab region, the ILO implements innovative programmes guided by the four overarching pillars of the Decent Work Agenda: employment creation and enterprise development, social protection, standards and rights at work, and social dialogue. Informed by the ILO Declaration on Social Justice for a Fair Globalization, these programmes look into economic and financial policies in light of the fundamental objective of promoting social justice.

Strategic partnerships with national, regional and international actors are maintained to ensure a more inclusive and participatory approach to programme development. Moreover, to strengthen the regions capacity to survive further financial shocks, the ILO is developing an integrated set of policy interventions aimed at boosting employment, strengthening social protection mechanisms, establishing sound socio-economic policies based on social rights and social dialogue, promoting gender equality and non-discrimination, and focusing on human development and decent work.

The ILOs main vehicle to implement its decent work agenda and to deliver support to countries is the Decent Work Country Programme. DWCPs have two basic objectives: (1) they promote decent work as a key component of national development strategies; and (2) they organize ILO knowledge, instruments, advocacy and cooperation at the service of tripartite constituents in a results-based framework to advance the Decent Work Agenda within the fields of comparative advantage of the Organization.