Helping Protect Armenians’ Rights Together

Successive governments in Armenia have initiated reforms that have weakened institutions vital for ensuring the promotion and enforcement of labour laws. This has left workers vulnerable, a large informal sector and little awareness of the link between working conditions and productivity. The current government has taken some steps to strengthen relevant institutions, but much remains to be done to build an effective compliance system. The ILO recognizes that there is a direct link between 1) high performing labour market institutions (labour inspectorate, courts, and workers and employers organizations), 2) the protection of labour rights and 3) the rule of law. Therefore, building strategic, efficient and effective labour market institutions is fundamentally important to achieve compliance at the workplace. The ILO will provide tailored advice and tools to nudge labour market institutions to build a strategic compliance system, going beyond the traditional enforcement model. Focus will be placed on the mining and services sector given their economic importance, the specific OSH problems in the former and the diversity and size of the latter. Helping Protect Armenian’s Rights Together will be possible if the ILO, though a process of social dialogue, supports the development of labour market institutions, addressing a lack of government capacity to enforce and promote labour laws and standards, at sectoral and national level. Once such support is provided then the government, the social and other partners are capacitated to enter into a constructive dialogue and possess the technical knowledge and abilities for developing and implementing the necessary policy reforms. This will lead to labour market institutions that are effectively able to play their respective roles in a system of strategic compliance, eventually contributing to improving the government’s enforcement and promotion of labour laws and standards that are consistent with international labour standards, especially in the mining and services sectors. This will have enabled the ILO and USDOL to help protect Armenians’ rights together.

Project symbol

ARM/20/01/USA

Admin unit

DWT/CO-Moscow

Start date

12/11/2020

End date

31/12/2025

Total allocation

1702612

Total expenditure

Status

Active

1702612

Development Partners

USA, Department of Labor, Bureau for International Labor Affairs

Country/Countries

Armenia

Outcomes

Outcome 2: Strong, representative and influential tripartite constituents and effective social dialogue