Sida supports ILO’s work across the Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus (2022-2025)

News | 22 September 2022
With the aim of contributing to the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the ILO’s 2019 Centenary Declaration for the Future of Work and the 2021 Global Call to Action for a human-centred recovery from the COVID-19 crisis that is inclusive, sustainable and resilient, as well as to Sweden’s global development cooperation objectives, one cross-cutting area of the new agreement between Sida and the ILO (2022-2025) focuses on the conflict perspective and the Humanitarian-Peace-Development Nexus (HPDN).  

The ILO has been responding to conflicts and disasters since its foundation in 1919 to promote stability and social justice through decent work for all, a commitment which was reaffirmed with the adoption of the ILO’s Recommendation No. 205 on employment and decent work for peace and resilience in 2017. The Decent Work Agenda is an essential element of the HDPN. A three-fold approach to a crisis – implemented in collaboration with Member States, tripartite constituents, and international and national partners, and with the direct involvement of local populations and stakeholders – aims to ensure that humanitarian response respects decent work principles and is embedded into long-term sustainable socio-economic development in an inclusive and rights-based manner, while analysing and addressing the underlying factors of fragility that threaten peace and make the society and economy particularly vulnerable to external shocks in the first place.

The Sida-ILO partnership further contributes to reinforcing the work of the ILO across the HDPN. This cross-cutting area consists of one global and one operational component, which are closely interlinked and feed into and contribute to each other in equipping ILO staff and constituents to deal with specific demands in fragile settings.

Under the global component, innovative guidance tools and capacity development initiatives tailor-made for promoting decent work across the HDPN are developed in several technical areas. These areas include transition to formality, social protection, employment policies, employment intensive investment, vocational training and skills, gender equality and non-discrimination, and a just transition towards environmentally sustainable economies.

Under the operational component, the guidance will be piloted in selected countries and thus support ILO engagement in crisis settings ensuring delivery of immediate results while addressing root causes of those crises for a longer term and more sustainable development that takes into full consideration conflict-sensitive, peace-responsive and disaster resilient approaches at country-level, across the different policy areas of the ILO.

The following are key pillars of the global and operational components:
  • Capacity strengthening of ILO staff in headquarters and field offices as well as constituents and partners at global and country level to work across the HDPN, particularly trough conflict-sensitive and peace-responsive approaches in fragile, conflict and disaster settings.
  • Knowledge management and dissemination, by building knowledge on decent work contribution to the HDPN and participating to various events such as the Geneva Peace Week and the Stockholm Forum on Peace and Development
  • Partnerships of various forms, including with constituents, other UN agencies, Interpeace, International Financial Institutions and adherence to the DAC recommendations on the Nexus. The ILO collaborates with other UN and non-UN humanitarian, development and peacebuilding actors involved in crisis and conflict response to address the root causes of fragility and conflict related to decent work deficits, with the aim of promoting sustainable development, peace and resilience.
At the global and country-level, the programme is also implemented in close partnership and synergy with the other three cross-cutting areas of the Sida-ILO partnership as well as in collaboration with other technical areas and ILO constituents, with the aim of contributing to and achieving collective outcomes.

The ILO is grateful for the support of Sida on the Humanitarian-Development-Peace and looks forward to collaborating and exchanging experiences and good practices on a global and country level.