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ADB, ILO Strengthen Partnership for Workers' Welfare in Asia

SHANGHAI, People's Republic of China (9 May): The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) formally agreed today to strengthen cooperation to maximize the use of scarce resources and their development impact.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed here by Myoung-Ho Shin, ADB Vice-President (Operations 1) and Yasuyuki Nodera, Regional Director, ILO Asia-Pacific Region on the eve of ADB's 35th Annual Meeting of Board of Governors.

ADB and ILO will collaborate in the following areas:

• The exchange of documentation, studies, research and best practices to promote cooperation and complementarity in operations.
• Consultations on ADB country strategies and assistance plans. ILO technical staff will participate in some ADB country poverty analysis or country strategy and program preparatory missions, contributing advice and labor market assessments, to ensure that ADB's portfolio supports inclusive, employment generating development patterns, and enhances workers' welfare.
• ILO will facilitate ADB's participation in developing a cooperative framework among counterpart ministries, employers, workers' organizations, civil society partners, and development institutions in countries where ADB plans a social protection intervention.
• ILO will help implement ADB-funded lending and non-lending activities in areas relating to its competence and capacity, such as regional, advisory, and project preparatory technical assistance.
• ILO will assist ADB's project design and review missions through interagency consultations and engagement of ILO experts by ADB.

ILO and ADB will hold a senior consultation meeting at least once a year on issues of strategic importance to review regularly the implementation of their programs. In addition, staff will maintain regular consultations on activities of common interest.

Since 1999, interaction between ADB and the ILO has intensified in four main areas: strategic consultations in preparing ADB's Social Protection Strategy; regional technical assistance on improving the role of labor standards in selected developing member countries; training on emerging issues in social protection and social safety nets; and project technical assistance and lending activities.

ADB and ILO have complementary roles and a mutual interest in intensifying cooperation in their shared thematic and geographical areas and in establishing working procedures in the Asian and Pacific region. ADB is a regional development bank for Asia and the Pacific with the overarching objective of poverty reduction. ILO is a specialised agency of the United Nations system committed to attaining social justice through the promotion of decent work in terms of labor standards, employment, social protection, social dialogue, and crosscutting gender issues. ADB's Board of Directors endorsed the development of the ADB-ILO MOU on 13 September 2001, date of the approval of the ADB Social Protection Strategy.

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