Seeking a growth in job opportunities and employment rates in Jordan, The Decent Work Country Program (DWCP) in Jordan, initiated by the International Labor Organization (ILO), aims to enrich Jordanian youth through capacity building and entrepreneurial training, all implemented under three key elements: social dialogue, international labor standards, and gender equality.
Through a new Decent Work Country Program in Jordan (DWCP), the ILO will work closely with tripartite partners to advance the national employment agenda and enhance access to decent work opportunities. Generally speaking, the ILO has outlined two basic yet major objectives of DWCP’s, which are:
- Promoting decent work as a key component of national development strategies.
- Organizing ILO’S knowledge, instruments, advocacy and cooperation to assist tripartite constituents in a results-based framework to advance the Decent Work Agenda within the fields of comparative advantage of the ILO.
DWCPs are the distinct ILO contribution to UN country programs and constitute one main instrument to better integrate regular budget and extra-budgetary technical cooperation.
One of its main goals is to represent the common commitment of the Government, workers’ and employers’ organizations and the ILO to collaborate on specific objectives in the area of employment promotion, rights at work, social protection and social dialogue, using a results-based approach.
Another aim it intends to reach is sufficiently and effectively supporting national initiatives aimed at reducing decent work deficits through strengthening national capacity to mainstream decent work in social and economic policies. These aims are best met through ILO’s four strategic objectives:
- Promote and realize standards, fundamental principles and rights at work;
- Create greater opportunities for women and men to have decent employment and income;
- Enhance the coverage and effectiveness of social protection for all;
- Strengthen tripartism and social dialogue.
The main strategies of the project include:
- Focusing on policy level interventions to create an enabling environment for a child-labor free Jordan. Its main objective is to contribute to the implementation of the upcoming National Framework on Child Labor (NFCL) in Jordan.
- Help support Better Work Jordan, a partnership between the ILO and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) that aimed to improve compliance with Jordanian labor law and international labor standards, and enhance economic performance at the enterprise level.
- Developing the capacity of trade unions to reach out to and empower migrant workers. It will work with factory managers, employers, and recruitment agencies to improve their recruitment and employment practices in line with international labor standards.
- Focusing on the delivery of the Seventh Actuarial Review of the SSC. It will also assess the possibilities for the introduction of new social security benefits, including health insurance coverage and a voluntary second-tier pension scheme.
DWCP has three interlapping priorities that it targets to formalize within the Jordanian labor market:
- Implement decent work opportunities for young Jordanian men and women, primarily expanded by promoting better working conditions, non-discrimination and equal rights at work.
- Strengthen the minimum level of social security that is extended to the most vulnerable groups of society, as part of a more comprehensive social security system in Jordan.
- Enhance job and employment opportunities, with a special focus on youth employment.
To reach its full potential, achieve its end goals, and arrive at sound and evidence-based conclusions, the program will adopt an integrated multimedia outreach and advocacy strategy, advocating for the goals of decent work, tripartism and social dialogue through enhanced information sharing and showcasing of Decent Work Country Program achievements, lessons learned and best practice.
