• Undersecretary Dione and Assistant Secretary Alex Avila from the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE);
• Assistant Secretary Alex Avila from DOLE;
• Distinguished government officials from NEDA;
• Dr Aubrey Taguba of the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS)
• Our constituents representing government, workers’ and employers’ organizations;
• Our colleague, Mr Phu Huynh, from the ILO Decent Work Team in Bangkok;
• Ladies and gentlemen, good morning!

It is my great pleasure to open this consultation among tripartite constituents on the draft report for the 2019 Voluntary National Review (VNR) of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

I would like to thank the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) and the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) for generously sharing their time for this special consultation on the draft VNR report.

Let me also acknowledge the usual excellent collaboration with the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), for convening this consultation and for the continuing joint effort to help promote our common goals of achieving social justice and promoting decent work.

I would like to take this opportunity to greet our tripartite partners a Happy 100th Anniversary of the International Labour Organization! This is a celebration of achievements of the government, employers and workers, the real ILO. It is also a celebration of tripartism and social dialogue as foundations of the ILO’s approach to advancing social justice and promoting decent work.

As part of the ILO Centenary celebration this year, the Global Commission on the Future of Work issued a landmark report and proposed A HUMAN-CENTRED AGENDA for the future of work, with a rights-based approach that puts people and the work they do at the center of economic and social policy and business practices.

The agenda focused around investing in people’s capabilities to enable people to acquire skills, reskill and upskill and support them through the various transitions they will face over their life course; institutions of work to revitalize collective agreements, contracts, relations, inspection systems, and other elements as building blocks of a just society; and decent and sustainable work, including shaping rules and incentives so as to align economic and social policy and business practice with this agenda .

The human-centred agenda provides the opportunity to create decent work, to facilitate the transition from the informal to formal economy, and to end working poverty.

It also offers the means to boost labour productivity, create incentives that help shift towards a more sustainable and equitable form of value creation, restores investment in the real economy to produce the goods, infrastructure and services that both create jobs and improve living standards and encourages innovation and economic diversification.

These recommendations are important contribution towards the Sustainable Development Goals as they stress several times the importance for future generations and the future of humanity.

We are therefore very proud of the fact that full and productive employment and decent work are at the heart of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 SDGs. In addition to the specific goal #8 of promoting “sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all,” decent work is featured in many of the other SDGs.

In adopting the SDGs, in particular SDG 8, the international community has put job creation at the heart of economic policy-making and development plans - economic growth that generates decent work opportunities will lead to inclusive and poverty-reducing growth.

Likewise, the 2030 Agenda and the Future of Work are synergetic as they both look at mapping challenges and solutions in the same timeline, which the ILO aims to support through the implementation of the Decent Work County Programme (DWCP) and the United Nations Partnership Framework for Sustainable Development (UN PFSD).

Thus, it is very timely to have you all here today not only to review the implementation SDGs but also explore synergies and brainstorm on innovative strategies to support and achieve the goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda.

In particular, this consultation aims to include the tripartite partners in the national dialogue process to track progress in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda in the Philippines.
The review is expected to identify achievements, critical success factors as well as challenges and gaps in order to inform policy choices.

With that said, it is my hope that we will continue to work more closely towards bringing significant impact on the lives of workers and thereby contribute to a truly inclusive development in the Philippines.

Finally, I wish you all a productive and successful consultation, and continued collaboration towards a meaningful and successful implementation of the SDGs.

Thank you!