PORT OF SPAIN (ILO News) – The Director, Claudia Coenjaerts, and several members of the International Labour Organization’s Decent Work Team and Office for the Caribbean are in Georgetown, Guyana, to support the advancement of the Decent Work Agenda in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals through a new Decent Work Country Programme 2017-2021.

This is the second step following a scoping mission last June and preparatory analytical work shared with the constituents for their assessment. The three-day Workshop (21 – 23 Sep 2016), organised together with the Ministry of Social Protection, will serve as a platform for tripartite consultation on the conception of Guyana’s new Decent Work Country Programme (DWCP), to which the ILO will link its technical assistance as required.

Delegates representing Government, Employers’ and Workers’ organizations will deliberate on strategic outcomes in the areas of Ending Poverty, Achieving Prosperity and Enhancement of Social Dialogue. The aim is to increase decent work conditions in Guyana, both as a means to and an end in sustainable development of the country. The ILO will present good practice, tools and examples of “what works” to make this happen.

Participants have been tasked with analysing the progress achieved under the previous DWCP hence assisting the ILO and its constituents in assessing their joint performance in delivering planned output and in supporting further projects under the new DWCP. On 18 April 2012, Guyana signed its first DWCP which highlighted three key national development frameworks: the National Development Strategy (2000-2012); the Poverty Reduction Strategy (2001); and the Low-Carbon Development Strategy (2009).

Decent Work Country Programmes have been established as the main vehicle for delivery of ILO support to countries. DWCPs have two basic objectives:

1. They promote decent work as a key component of national development strategies.

2. At the same time they organize ILO knowledge, instruments, advocacy and cooperation at the service of tripartite constituents in a results-based framework to advance the Decent Work Agenda within the fields of comparative advantage of the Organization and the United Nations System.

Tripartism and social dialogue are central to the planning and implementation of a coherent and integrated ILO programme of assistance to constituents in member States. (http://www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/program/dwcp/)