Governments

Through individual factory improvements, Better Work creates a ripple effect across national industries, impacting millions of lives. Partnering with national government bodies, who have the power to enact laws that protect and uphold rights, is the only way to achieve sustainable impact.

Harnessing the expertise of the ILO and IFC, we work closely with governments to understand industry needs and goals and identify how the Better Work programme can help advance them, including by supporting the development of long-term strategies for sustainable and inclusive growth of the sector. We work across ministries to improve social dialogue, inform national level policy debates on labour issues through our data and evidence, improve working conditions and support a strong economy.

We reinforce the capacity of labour administrations and share data with labour inspectors to help design strategic compliance plans and better understand industry dynamics, including through a labour inspector secondee capacity building programme. In certain country programmes, we carry out joint activities with labour inspectors at the workplace, such as joint compliance assessments.

Harnessing trade and investments is essential to promoting decent work through policy and institutional reform by constituents at the zonal, sector, national and global levels.

Better Work is a means by which Member States can demonstrate progress in implementing national laws and ratified ILO conventions, which are included in supplier requirements in some markets, and important trade regimes, such as GSP+. In some cases, for example Bangladesh and Egypt, such incentives have encouraged States to adopt ILO’s recommendations on labour law reform and align with ILO Core Conventions. Better Work supports governments in their commitments towards the sector under existing and new trade agreements, while providing an entry point for ILO and IFC policy advice.

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