Scoping Phase: Decent Work in garment sector supply chains in Asia

The ILO has been working in the garment sector for over a decade, through its flagship Better Work programme with the IFC as well as a series of related initiatives, often involving partnerships with over 30 global brands. Most of the production countries are in Asia. Since 2014 the ILO has worked closely with H&M – under a Public-Private Partnership and with support from Sida – aimed at, inter alia, strengthening respect for the enabling rights such as freedom of association and the effective right to collective bargaining, promoting sound labour relations, and inclusive wage policies. Successful activities in Cambodia were highlighted as part of the Global Deal, and have led to further projects being developed in Ethiopia, Bangladesh and Myanmar. The focus on industrial relations, collective bargaining and wages through these projects are innovative and represent an important model for the development of further interventions targeting the sector. The ILO welcomes the opportunity to collaborate with Sida to take stock of the existing pool of knowledge and experiences of the ILO in this area, to consider connecting points between different approaches and how new strategic integrated models, involving a broad reach of key stakeholders and moving beyond the national level for additional impact, can further advance decent work in global supply chains. The proposed scoping exercise and multi-stakeholder workshop would thus address a need for more knowledge on central issues such as the governance gap, contribute to identify and bring in additional stakeholders into increasingly sustainable approaches to fill that gap, and further emphasize the importance of social dialogue and enabling institutions on national and regional level – both as a goal in itself and as a means to address decent work deficits. As such, it fits very well in the ILO strategy to advance these topics in response to the internal discussions cited above. In addition, the proposed exercises also contributes towards the Strategy for Sweden’s regional development cooperation in Asia and the Pacific region (2016-2021), whose ambition it is to contribute to the strengthened capacity of regional actors to promote greater accountability, increased democratic space and to promote human rights and gender equality in a context of curtailed labour rights. The current proposal seeks a partnership with and support from Sida to: 1) Undertake a scoping exercise to map out challenges to decent work, environmental sustainability, gender equality, sound industrial relations and social dialogue in the garment sector in Asia, 2) Organise a key stakeholder workshop to validate the results of the scoping exercise and present a draft theory of change for the regional programme, and 3) Formulate a regional programme for improvements of decent work, environmental sustainability and gender equality in global supply chains in the garment sector in Asia .

Project symbol

RAS/17/01/SWE

Admin unit

RO-Asia and the Pacific

Start date

01/04/2017

End date

28/02/2018

Total allocation

289089

Total expenditure

Status

Closed

238194

Development Partners

Sweden, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency

Country/Countries

Asia and the Pacific - regional

Outcomes

Advocacy for decent work