Esther Busser

Exposé von Esther Busser:

How can Trade Deliver Decent Work?
The role of trade policies in ILO Decent Work Country Programmes

Abstract

Decent Work Country Programmes (DWCPs) are growing in number and are a reflection of the ILO policy priorities at the national level. At the same time these programmes are relatively new and have not been subject to in depth research. The increasing attention for policy coherence at the national and international level should play an important role in such national development strategies and therefore this research with an in depth analysis of the DWCPs and the coherence between trade and employment policies would greatly contribute to enhanced employment outcomes of these programmes. At the same time there is a growing demand for the need of policy space for governments to address the employment challenge. The research would therefore contribute to provide insights for such discussions and to provide concrete analysis and recommendations for governments that are in the process of negotiating trade agreements on the one hand and designing DWCPs on the other. With the in depth focus on policy advice more analysis and clarity will also be provided on the role and effectiveness of policy advice in development policy making processes and the role of different stakeholders therein.

Outline

The ILO has embarked on a large number of Decent Work Country Programmes, with the objective to deliver on decent work, including the creation of full and productive employment. Decent Work Country Programmes have been established as the main vehicle for delivery of ILO support to countries. DWCPs have two basic objectives. They promote decent work as a key component of national development strategies. At the same time they organise ILO knowledge, instruments, advocacy and cooperation at the service of tripartite constituents in a results-based framework to advance the Decent Work Agenda.

However, the objective to create full and productive employment is partly influenced by a country’s industrial strategy and as part of this a country’s trade and industrial policy framework. These trade policies are in turn determined by trade agreements and trade liberalization. Therefore, trade agreements and trade liberalization should be carefully negotiated and fit into the overall industrial policy and decent work strategic policy framework that governments are developing.

The research will provide an assessment of the ILO mandate (the Global Employment Agenda (GEA) and the 2008 ILO Declaration on Social Justice for a Fair Globalization) on trade policy issues and within this framework will look at the ILO DWCPs, the employment objectives of these programmes, and at how the programmes have integrated trade policy issues into their objectives. The research will further analyse the results of this inclusion or exclusion as well as the role of the ILO constituents, in particular trade unions, in the inclusion of trade policies.  And finally the research will analyse the role and use of policy advice on trade issues in the area of decent work.

The first part of the research will compare different development paradigms, in particular the trade liberalization paradigm versus  the nationalist paradigm. Both paradigms will be described and analysed, including their impact on the creation of productive employment. The analysis will focus in particular on trade policies and industrial policies within these paradigms. The research will provide the background for the use of such policies, which differ from one country to the other, and provide examples, based on existing literature and research, of how such policies have been used in the past. It will also identify and analyse some current examples of industrial strategies and asses how successful the paradigms are. The research will in particular look at current positive evidence from the nationalist paradigm, while taking into account the stage of development the country is in. With respect to industrial policy the analysis will also take into account literature on the value chain and selective upgrading strategies.

The second part of the research will take the nationalist paradigm as a basis and will make the link between the nationalist paradigm, the decent work agenda and policy advice. The research will describe and analyse the ILO mandate on trade and decent work and whether trade and industrial policies have been included in the policy framework that forms the basis of Decent Work Country Programmes.

The third part will analyse a number of country programmes in greater detail, through case studies. Three DWCPs will be selected to provide a more in depth analysis of the inclusion of trade policies in the DWCP policy framework. This analysis will in particular look at ongoing trade negotiations and recently concluded trade negotiations and analyse which policy instruments have been or will be restricted. The analysis will further provide an insight in how these restrictions will affect the creation of full and productive employment and how specific DWCP objectives will be affected by the commitments in trade agreements.

The fourth part of the research will look at the role of policy advice. Starting with a prescriptive part on what policy advice on trade should be given by the ILO, followed by an analytical part on the limits of ILO advice, the capacity of governments to absorb the advice and the role of trade unions. The case studies are also expected to provide further insights on the nature and use of policy advice. The role of policy advice will be further explored through a more in depth analysis of advice in relation to policy processes.

The last part of the research will provide conclusions as well as a set of recommendations for improving policy coherence in Decent Work Country Programmes.