(GB.347/POL/3: Mid-term review of the ILO Development

Cooperation Strategy (2020–25), 17th March 2023)

Chair,

1. I speak on behalf of ASPAG. We thank the Office for preparing the document.

2. Effective development cooperation is a crucial driving force for the ILO to tackle toady’s challenges and contribute to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. ASPAG attaches great importance to ILO’s Development Cooperation Strategy (2020-25) in advancing decent work and social justice through supporting its constituents.

3. ASPAG commends the efforts made by the Office in implementing the Strategy through its implementation Plan. In the past three difficult years and challenging circumstances of the Pandemic, conflict and climate change, the development cooperation context witnessed drastic change. It is not an easy task for the Office to achieve such mid-way results.

4. ASPAG appreciates the progress achieved in strengthening constituents’ ownership and capacity regarding engagement with UN programming and partnerships at the country level and outcomes from SSTC in targeted policy areas. In particular, we notice the important role of the SSTC development initiatives in strengthening constituents’ capacity to promote access to decent work. We support the Office to further strengthen its development cooperation function including SSTC, and make every effort to enhance the quality services to constituents in terms of capacity building, knowledge dissemination and experience sharing.

5. ASPAG is happy to see that the partnerships for policy coherence and financing of policies have been forged, with the Global Accelerator at the core. We also see the merits to build a closer collaboration between ILO and international financial institutions.

6. Considering that voluntary contributions accounted for almost half of the total budget for the ILO, we request the Office to make more concrete efforts to expand voluntary funding sources, including leveraging the potential of the establishment of Global Coalition for Social Justice to mobilize more lightly earmarked and unearmarked contributions. Meanwhile, ASPAG encourages the Office to strengthen the collaboration with member states and build the linkage with national development initiatives to enhance resource mobilization. We also support the Office to pursue direct inter-agency funding partnerships with UN secretariat, funds, programmes and other specialized UN agencies for South-South cooperation.

7. ASPAG notes that key elements of the Strategy are reflected in the P&B Proposals for 2024-25, with focus on multilateral coherence and financing, expanded partnerships and development cooperation in support of the policy outcomes. In particular, we welcome an estimated 80 million increase of the extra-budgetary resources in the next biennium as indicated in DG’s P&B proposal. ASPAG request the Office to pay closer attention to areas such as employment promotion, social protection, skills development and occupational safety and health which are identified as priorities of our region in the implementation of the Strategy and the P&B for the next biennium.

8.Chair, as outlined in the report effective development cooperation must be guided by the principles of country ownership, a focus on results, inclusive partnerships, transparency and mutual accountability. Accordingly, countries in Asian and the Pacific region, which account for 60% of the world’s working population, should be given full consideration in allocating development cooperation resources. We request more targeted supports including capacity-building for ratification and implementation of Conventions to be provided for developing countries.

9. ASPAG asks the Office to constantly increase its organizational performance, improve transparency, monitoring, reporting and accountability on the use of resources and results achieved, and enhance communication with development cooperation partners, particularly on the design, implementation, evaluation and knowledge dissemination of the development cooperation projects. We encourage the Office to fully utilize the newly-established internal system to track progress, tackle problems, learning experiences and lessons in implementing the Strategy.

10. Looking ahead, we have three years to go before the ending of the Strategy. ASPAG stands ready to work closely with the Office and all other stakeholders in strengthening ILO’s development cooperation, contributing to 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and Decent Work Agenda.

11. With what have been said, we support the draft decision points presented by the Office.

Thank you, Chair!