Trade unions are important partners and actors of the development work and debates. Striving for decent work, better livelihoods and environmental sustainability, they are in the forefront of the struggle for the eradication of poverty and social development around the world.
Working hand in hand with Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in the Better Aid Platform and the Open Forum on CSO Development Effectiveness, , trade unions have been active players in the the aid and development effectiveness debates that rose around the Paris Declaration and Accra Agenda for Action processes. In the preparation for the upcoming High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness that will take place in November 2011 in Busan, South Korea, trade unions support the position of the Better Aid Platform as outlined in the paper CSOs on the Road to Busan: Key Messages and Proposals. . To fully represent the labour perspective in this debate, ITUC has drafted a more detailed statement, elaborated in the paper Towards a comprehensive paradigm for decent work and development effectiveness published in the Development Papers series of the Trade Union Development Cooperation Network (TUDCN).
In relation to the questions of aid and development effectiveness, trade unions call in the first place for the change in the development paradigm from one built around the narrow neo-liberal concept of economic growth and market governance to a more comprehensive one based on the ideas and values of social justice, fair redistribution and gender equality, leading to a balanced social and economic progress towards decent livelihoods for all.
Having in mind the objective of eradication of poverty, trade unions advocate placing the Decent Work Agenda of the International Labour Organisation at the heart of all development work with specific targets and actions build around its four pillars: employment, core labour standards, social dialogue and social protection.
Appreciating the progress and commitments made in the Accra Agenda for Action, trade unions stress the importance of full and coherent delivery of the promises, particularly in the domains of democratic ownership, mutual accountability, ending policy conditionality, untying aid, results-based management and policy coherence with decent work, core labour standards, gender equality and environmental sustainability being cross-cutting objectives for all criteria.
With the appreciation and support for the multi-stakeholder approaches to policy-making and implementation in the domain of development cooperation, trade unions advocate for the Busan Outcome Document to fully take into consideration The Istanbul CSO Development Effectiveness Principles, ,the result of the work of the CSO platforms, as well as the Trade Union Principles on Development Effectiveness, , a set of principles developed in a year and a half-long process of consultations with trade unions at the regional and global level, led by the TUDCN .
More on the perspective of trade unions on the issues of aid and development effectiveness can be found in the Towards a comprehensive paradigm for decent work and development effectiveness document and in the TUDCN section at the ITUC website.
