Global South-South Development Forum 2012 (Vienna, 19-23 November 2012)

The Decent Work concept was formulated by the ILO’s constituents – governments, employers and workers – as a means to identify the Organization’s major priorities. It is based on the understanding that work is a source of personal dignity, family stability, peace in the community, democracies that deliver for people, and economic growth that expands opportunities for productive jobs and enterprise development. 
In March 2012 the ILO Governing Body adopted an ILO South-South and Triangular Cooperation Strategy in the document: “South–South and triangular cooperation: The way forward”.  Additionally, the 100^th Session of the International Labour Conference (2011) adopted the ILO Programme and Budget for 2012–13, placing particular emphasis on South-South and triangular cooperation (SSTC) as a means of achieving the Organization’s objectives. 

Under the  framework of such  international momentum, and in line with the Programme and Budget approved by the Conference last year, at the request of the Governing Body, the results framework proposed  for the South-South and Triangular Cooperation (SSTC) strategy were: 1)  the ILO has greater institutional awareness and capacity to identify and implement SSTC, with a view to establishing and implementing an initiative on SSTC; 2)  the Decent Work Agenda is advanced through SSTC with the engagement of an increasing number of governments, social partners, UN agencies and non-state actors. 
                                                          
The ILO has been an active participant in the Global South-South Development Expos (GSSD), and hosted the 2010 GSSD at the ILO headquarters. SSTC is guided by the principles of solidarity and non-conditionality. It is based on a fundamental premise that developing countries identify their own needs and address them in part by acquiring new expertise, knowledge and technology from other countries of the global South. Such cooperation may take the form of knowledge sharing and transfer of southern-grown development solutions with the support of the donor community and the multilateral system under innovative triangular and/or public-private partnership (PPP) 
arrangements. SSTC strategies and mechanisms are vital in the context of climate change, which affects job security and the economic empowerment of disadvantaged sectors of society.
The ILO also recognizes the key role that SSTC can play in any future sustainable development framework. The strengthening of national response capacity and coordination mechanisms, as well as the commitment of social partners, is crucial to the sustainability of results and actions. The new development framework that replaces the MDGs in 2015 will have to include a critical social dimension along with environmental and economic concerns. Thus, concrete good practices will be essential to put decent work at the heart of 
the forthcoming international development agenda.

Finally, decent work is a key element that makes economic and social development sustainable, and the ILO’s  commitment to the goals of sustainable development acknowledges the need to enhance social dialogue as a major contributor to its governance. It also recognizes that governments have to reaffirm the goal of decent work for all as central to sustainable development, articulating the linkages between the three pillars: economic, social and environmental.

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(Source: ILO)