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WORKING GROUP 2: BUILDING CAPACITIES OF LABOR MINISTRIES
8.
Working Group 2 will follow-up on the efforts of its predecessors in the development
of new mechanisms to increase the capacity of the Ministries of Labor, with a particular focus on
responding to the challenges of globalization and integration and free trade processes, as well as
increasing the efficiency of the policies and actions directed to the promotion of decent work, the
improvement of working conditions, and promotion of the labor principles embodied in the ILO
Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. The central objective of this group is to
develop tools to support ministries of labor -- structure, legal framework, functions, administration,
interaction with the surrounding environment --- for the execution of an active role in the
contemporary world and in the future. In this regard, we grant special importance to the continuation
and deepening of the regional programs for development, strengthening and modernization of labor
administrations, that the ILO, OAS and other organizations design and implement in the hemispheric
area.
9.
The Working Group should consider, in their activities, the input offered by its
predecessors. The cooperation and collaboration among the Ministries of Labor, the OAS, ILO,
ECLAC, PAHO, IDB, CDB, CAF, CABEI and the World Bank have a strategic significance for
obtaining the desired effects, in particular, in developing the capacity of smaller economies and their
institutions. As such, the Working Group will build on the work of its predecessors to achieve
improved collaboration and coordination, especially in the following fields: by exploring the
development of institutional means to structure their efforts to achieve these objectives, by continuing
to exchange best practices, by maintaining an inventory of technical assistance and cooperation
projects and resources and making it available to IACML members, and by identifying, on the basis
of experience, the enabling conditions for sustainable strengthening of institutional capacity.
10.
The Working Group should also give special attention to the Horizontal Cooperation
Project in the area of Labor, being carried out by the Unit for Social Development and Education
(UDSE) of the OAS, based on the critical transfer of consolidated programs and implemented in
collaboration with the Inter-American Agency for Cooperation and Development (IACD) and other
appropriate units of the OAS General Secretariat. Additionally, the Working Group should consider
the results from the USDOL/ILO Project on "Labor Principles and Rights in the context of the XII
IACML”.
11.
The Working Group, in coordination with the ILO, will work to ensure that IACML
members are informed of best practices and available resources to raise public awareness of the ILO
Declaration about Fundamental Principles and Rights of Work and its follow-up, to communicate and
evaluate experiences in the various countries of the Americas with initiatives to eliminate child labor;
and to develop within individual countries indicators of fundamental rights as an aspect of decent
work, to provide benchmarks for reviewing progress, identifying best practices in those areas, and
effectively targeting the resources required to achieve those objectives.