Better Work Bangladesh (SECO contribution)

The Better Work Bangladesh programme (“BWB” or “the programme”), a partnership between the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), aims to contribute to improving the life of the workers, their families and their communities, and increase the competitiveness of the ready-made garment sector in Bangladesh. BWB will aim at building capacity at the factory and national structural levels, so that stakeholders will be able to identify, prevent, and address relevant problems through the most appropriate and effective means (tripartite, bipartite, individually). In practical terms this means that BWB will oper-ate on two levels: 1) Factory-level: build in-factory capacity to improve working conditions and es-tablish management systems in participating factories; 2) National structural level: assist in building constituent capacity to achieve structural, sustainable change in labour administration, industrial relations and social dialogue systems. BWB’s strategy is articulated around three main objectives: 1) Establish necessary management, consultative, coordination, knowledge, and communication structures to ensure effective and effi-cient programme operations; 2) Improve compliance with international core labour standards and national labour law and competitiveness in participating factories; 3) Establish and implement ap-propriate mechanisms to ensure accountability, coordination, and viability of BWB.

Project symbol

BGD/14/51/SWI

Admin unit

CO-Dhaka

Start date

11/03/2014

End date

30/06/2017

Total allocation

526652

Total expenditure

Status

Closed

526477

Development Partners

Switzerland, State Secretariat for Economic Affairs

Country/Countries

Bangladesh

Outcomes

Promoting workplace compliance through labour inspection