Better Work Global (Dutch Contribution 2014-17)

The garment industry is characterized by precarious employment relationships, poor working conditions, low wages, with weak industrial relations and law enforcement. Women, many of whom are migrants, represent over 80% of the workforce. There are strong business incentives to upgrade job quality in the industry which, if harnessed, offer an escape route from poverty for millions of workers and their families. Better Work, a partnership of IFC/ILO, brings together national and global constituents with all the actors in the supply chain to meet this challenge. Improving compliance with core labour standards and national labour law and building the capacity of social partners for social dialogue can help ensure that gains from globalized trade are shared more equally. A globally consistent methodology for assessing and improving workplace labour practices was honed during the previous phase of the Programme (July 2009-June 2012) and operations are now spanning 7 countries and engaging over 60 global garment brands, 600 workplaces that employ over 700,000 workers. Based on now tested approaches and lessons learned, a five year vision and strategy has been developed. In the next period, Better Work aims to have a significant and direct impact through its own programmes in the garment sector and a wider, indirect impact through its influence, knowledge sharing and partnerships. In order to reach these goals, Better Work will be implementing a multi-pronged strategy over the next three-year period (July 2012-June 2015). Support to existing country operations will be prioritized, ensuring each engages a critical mass of exporters in the garment sector. The geographical scope of operations will be expanded, particularly in Asian countries. Better Work will adopt a pragmatic approach to growth into closely related industries (e.g. footwear), and the feasibility of offering environmental services at factory level will be piloted. The aim in each case is to build strong stakeholder governance of country operations that demonstrably achieve large scale impacts. The long term financial viability will be secured by fees charged to business which ultimately will meet the costs of all core service delivery. This requires adaptation of the Better Work model to each context and further improvements in efficiency and cost effectiveness. The Programme will also pursue a range of influencing strategies to achieve wider impact. The unique data and lessons from our impact assessment and research programme will be widely shared and used to influence the policies and practices of national and international institutions. Working with international brands, Better Work will promote supply chain business practices which deliver more benefits to workers. In many respects, the impact of the Programme will be achieved by leveraging the comparative and combined strengths of the wider Better Work alliance which includes ILO, IFC, the constituents of government worker, employer and employer organizations and international buyers, in order to support national governments and social partners to improve industrial relations, labour law governance and strengthen tripartite institutions

Project symbol

GLO/14/06/NET

Admin unit

BETTERWORK

Start date

01/01/2014

End date

31/12/2017

Total allocation

2765069

Total expenditure

Status

Closed

2765069

Development Partners

Netherlands, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Country/Countries

Global

Outcomes

Promoting workplace compliance through labour inspection