GPEDC HLM2 Plenary Session - From Global Goals to Action: Unleashing the Power of Partnerships

The third principle of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation – inclusive partnerships – deals with promoting, monitoring and learning from partnerships and stakeholder engagement. In practice, this means that there is a need to better understand and further improve the effectiveness, quality and impact of partnerships. This requires a change in outlook and behaviour, innovation and the application of learning from earlier experiences.

Khamati Mugalla, East African Trade Union Confederation

Put forward social dialogue as a concrete example of multi-stakeholders’ partnerships and illustrated this point with the work of trade unions with domestic workers in Kenya.

Domestic work is an important area of employment in Kenya, there are a total of 2 million domestic workers in Kenya. This example has a fundamental gender dimension too as an estimated 83% of domestic workers are women. This represents 1 in every 13 female wage earners. Trade unions have, through social dialogue and collective bargaining, fought to raise the living and working conditions of domestic workers. Wages have been raised from 30 USD a month (equal to less 1 USD a day!) to 105 USD. Minimum wage is now ensured in Kenya, accompanied by national social security provisions, providing minimum health coverage. This example has international relevance for the estimated 67 million domestic workers across the world.

This is a very clear example of how trade unions and social dialogue are conducive to the achievement of SDGs. It highlights too the interdependence of the SDGs. As is illustrated by this case on domestic workers, Goal 8 on providing decent to all is narrowly linked to achieving Goal 10, on gender equality.

If you want to deliver SDGs - said Khamati - we have to start “from me and you” in protecting the rights of the most vulnerable like domestic workers.

For more on Trade Unions’ participation in the HLM2, click here