The ILO has developed a new Development Cooperation Strategy to ensure effective development cooperation for decent work and implementing the SDGs. As part of this new strategy, the ILO is forging partnerships that enhance policy objectives and coherence, including on Decent Work financing. Policy coherence will enable governments to mobilize international, national, public, and private financial flows to achieve their decent work priorities. The ILO also seeks to leverage international financial institutions to shape policy and financing decisions that align with decent work goals. It encourages the integration of international labour standards, social dialogue, and appropriate safeguards into national financing strategies, as well as through the efforts of UN country teams, to ensure a wide range of financing instruments support these objectives. The ILO's efforts are further reinforced by BAPA+40, which aims to drive improved results in development finance and beyond.

In line with its strategy, the ILO has ramped up its efforts to enhance the competencies of its constituents and employees in the realm of financing for development by utilizing a range of approaches, including South-South Cooperation. Given the anticipated escalation of financing for decent work in the developing world and financing for development at the national level, the ILO constituents must possess the necessary skills to participate in these initiatives and discussions meaningfully. With the support of ILO staff, better-prepared ILO constituents and partners can effectively link national financing strategies with the decent work objective through South-South Cooperation.

Key areas of capacity development for constituents include Integrated National Financing Frameworks, UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Frameworks, legislation supporting SDG financing, and the understanding of  different financing mechanisms for decent work. Considering this, the ILO recognizes the need to train its constituents on financing decent work to facilitate analysis and discussions at the national level while also achieving broader capacity-development goals. 

In this sense, it is of paramount importance to develop new services for constituents related to financing decent work to support analysis and debate at the national level and to achieve broader objectives to participate in the mechanisms mentioned above as well as other structured processes in the financing for development agenda.

Financing decent work and south-south cooperation:

The Financing Decent Work (FDW) training programme was designed in 2020 as part of a broader plan of work to engage in the Financing for Development agenda. Building on the results of the courses delivered since 2020 to the ILO constituents and considering important lessons learnt in terms of content, modalities and follow-up, these Clinics aim at reaching targeted group of ILO constituents and other interested stakeholders. 

The Sub-regional Peer Learning Financing Decent Work Clinics will strengthen constituents' competencies to effectively engage in national financing development work in South-South Cooperation and ensure that their decent work priorities are financed. During the clinics, selected constituents from West, South and East Africa regions (tentatively Ghana, Malawi, Rwanda, Zambia, and Kenya) will share good practices on financing decent work, through South-South peer learning, from their respective countries, which will feed into knowledge exchange group work sessions. Selection of countries for the Clinics was conducted based on good work on FDW or INFF progress, potential for SSTC, ILO engagement and the willingness to engage in the dialogue and sharing, as well as prospective participation in the Global Accelerator on Jobs and Social Protection for Just Transitions. Depending on the needs other countries may join the process.

A South-South learning approach

The clinics will adopt a South-South learning approach with participants sharing, learning, and exploring solutions together. Participants will present good practices on successful policies from their countries, focusing on South-South and Triangular cooperation for funding decent work and INFF, thereby supporting knowledge sharing and the creation of a network of practitioners. 

During the 2020-2022, participants gathered and shared good practices on the "Financing Decent Work" that were then documented and shared on the South-South Meeting Point. The goal is to build networks of ILO constituents collaborating on decent work financing across the Global South, promoting decent work through joint efforts and discussions. The clinics aims to equip these networks with the skills to enhance South-South cooperation and support channelling finance towards decent work priorities. This includes taking a proactive role in developing Integrated National Financing Frameworks (INFFs) that reflect decent work objectives, and understanding the diverse funding actors including traditional development partners, international financial institutions, impact investors and local financial actors

Upon completion of the clinic series, participants will have the following:

• Participants learned and shared knowledge on financing for decent work networking with the view to create a SSTC network of FDW practitioners.
• Explored financing mechanisms related to South-South Cooperation that seek to combine domestic and international, public, and private sources of financing, focusing on countries in the Global South.
• Shared their experiences on financing decent work through South-South and Triangular Cooperation methodologies.
• Increased knowledge and understanding of financing strategies (such as INFF) and how Decent Work priorities can be incorporated and mainstreamed and how they can benefit from a South-South and peer learning approach.
• Established inter-country or regional groups to support each other mutually and continue exchange and learning.
• Prepared to participate in or initiate consultations on channelling finance towards decent work outcomes through South-South cooperation.

The virtual clinics will be conducted over a period of 3 weeks and will be structured around 4 building blocks. Each of the three themes will include the following components:

• Self-guided learning on the sub-themes, including case-studies
• One weekly live webinar with facilitators and invited speakers, for each building block.
• South-South forum discussions, and sharing of good practices facilitated by the trainers and tutors
• As part of the Clinic's preparatory work, ILO constituents will go through a technical refresher module and identify their country priorities regarding SDG financing, including Decent Work financing. After the clinics, the newly created partnerships will continue collaborating on integrating the Decent work agenda into their country's financing mechanisms.
• Group work sessions, led by ILO and ITC ILO, will elaborate on, and illustrate SSTC potential, peer learning and follow-up interventions. Selected UN agencies, financing agencies and agencies (such as UN DESA and the UNDP) in charge of the support of national financing processes (such as the Integrated National Financing Frameworks) will be invited to provide technical inputs and introduce their work to ILO constituents to engage ILO constituents into INFF processes and related financing initiatives in the countries.

The clinics are delivered by a team of experts and trainers from ILO and ITCILO. Experts from other UN agencies, development organizations and financial institutions will be invited to collaborate and present their experiences.

The clinics will be conducted in English, French and Spanish

Mailbox for any questions: mmw@itcilo.org 

Activity manager: Ms. Margarita Lalayan, ITC ILO m.lalayan@itcilo.org  

Activity assistant: Ms. Paola Agnello, ITC ILO p.agnello@itcilo.org