ILO's development cooperation strategy, 2020-25

• The strategy lacks a clear vision for improvement and does not effectively outline desired impacts beyond activity completion. Its purpose and measures of success are unclear and it lacks a theory of change.
• The strategy broadly addresses findings from the 2015 independent high-level evaluation of the ILO’s strategy for technical cooperation 2010–15 and the 2021 Multilateral Organisation Performance Assessment Network (MOPAN) assessment, but more attention is needed on some critical issues. 

"Overall, the DC strategy is more a reflection of what the Office already does rather than a strategy that influences what the Office should be doing. A few innovative actions have been integrated though, e.g. the pilot on structured funding dialogues, as well as the ILO business case for funding partnerships."

• The development cooperation strategy broadly follows directions set by key International Labour Conference documents and other ILO plans, but the level of coherence is inconsistent. Its efforts to better align development cooperation with constituent needs and to specific programme and budget outcomes lack detail and measures of success.  

“The ILO must carry forward into its second century with unrelenting vigour its constitutional mandate for social justice by further developing its human-centred approach to the future of work, which puts workers’ rights and the needs, aspirations and rights of all people at the heart of economic, social and environmental policies”. 

• The mechanism to drive and implement the strategy was ineffective. Monitoring and reporting dropped off after the 2023 mid-term review. 
• Pillar * 1 – services to constituents: tools and guidelines were introduced to foster national ownership of DWCPs and support South–South and triangular cooperation. Development cooperation often aligns with national priorities, but challenges persist. Gaps remain in using development cooperation to promote social dialogue and tripartism, and to address the organizational needs of constituents. 
• Pillar 2 – partnerships for policy coherence: the ILO maintained its trajectory in promoting decent work through better policy coordination, but evidence of added value from the strategy’s actions is unclear. The Global Accelerator on Jobs and Social Protection for Just Transitions has established its management structure, and volunteer pathfinder countries are formulating road maps. The Global Coalition for Social Justice shows promise for improved coherence but is still in its early stages. 
• Pillar 3 – partnerships for funding: the high-level evaluation found little evidence that the strategy significantly contributed to the recent increase in development cooperation funding, much of which relates to geopolitical events. Funding partners emphasized the need for the ILO to promote its unique blend of normative mandate, technical expertise and country-level activities more strongly for sustainable results. 
• Pillar 4 – efficiency, decent work results and transparency: the ILO delivered most of the planned tools, guidelines, training initiatives and communication products. It improved transparency in development cooperation work and took steps to enhance social and environmental safeguards. However, progress was less evident in introducing systems for continuous improvement in the way the ILO delivers and supports development cooperation. 

* The strategy refers to four “focus areas”. For brevity the evaluation used the term “pillars”. 

Observations made by ILO funding partners

Observations made by ILO partners in public-private partnerships

• The strategy paid little attention to the overall efficiency of the ILO’s delivery of development cooperation projects, despite ongoing concerns about this issue. Various internal and external reviews have highlighted problems with the speed and complexity of systems and procedures, and these concerns were further highlighted by the high-level evaluation. 

• The strategy mainly reaffirms existing practices rather than providing innovative guidance for future priorities and approaches. Its development lacked transparency and engagement with development cooperation practitioners, leading to low staff ownership. To ensure impact and sustainability, future efforts should emphasize “what success looks like”. 

Initiate consultations on the need for and form and scope of a new ILO development cooperation strategy 2026–29, aiming for possible submission to the Governing Body by late 2025 via a transparent process involving constituents, senior management, policy specialists, development cooperation project practitioners, oversight functions, and administrative and financial management specialists. This process should: 

• consider identifying and pursuing opportunities for a more focused and strategic approach to resource mobilization, emphasizing links with the ILO's normative role and addressing resource gaps in key policy areas outlined in the strategic plan for 2026–29, the Programme and Budget proposals for 2026–27, and priority action programmes; 

• consider how best to ensure an ILO-wide commitment to improving the efficiency, effectiveness and impact of development cooperation implementation, and to promote twoway accountability between administrative and development cooperation delivery units; 

• consider ways to implement the principle of a more programmatic approach to development cooperation contained in the 2018 International Labour Conference resolution on development cooperation, drawing lessons from successful larger-scale programmes and considering mechanisms for enhanced integration and clustering of efforts; 

• consider how the new proposed architecture for the Programme and Budget for 2026–27 (for example, outcome 10 and enabling outcome A, output 4) might subsume the current “partnerships for policy coherence” pillar and allow future development cooperation strategies to focus on resource mobilization and efficiency in delivering quality services to constituents; 

• consider how development cooperation project appraisals can be strengthened to ensure quality design and specify how inputs from ILO units will be actioned; 

• consider options for a realistic but robust framework to ensure constituent involvement in crucial stages of development cooperation development and implementation; 

• consider whether a “development cooperation operations unit” responsible for monitoring and managing the development cooperation portfolio is needed for a whole-of-ILO approach. This unit would identify and maximize development cooperation linkages with the programme and budget and ILO norms and standards, and ensure projects have optimal human resources and staff training. 

Develop a new policy and mechanism for monitoring development cooperation that promotes accountability, compares planned outcomes with results, allows flexibility to respond to changing needs, and makes visible not just what has been spent, but what projects have done and what they have achieved. This should: 

• provide real-time monitoring and visibility of project performance for agile development cooperation portfolio management (as opposed to the endline or retrospective view currently provided by evaluation and audits) supported by effective information technology platforms and appropriate training packages; 

• consider the feasibility of creating a dedicated function responsible for development cooperation monitoring as practised in other peer UN agencies: 

• gather data on administrative bottlenecks affecting delivery that can be used for continuous improvements of these systems; 

• enhance accountability and performance management of development cooperation programme and project managers, identifying their capacity development needs and improving the processes used for their selection; 

• progressively improve the evaluation and measurement of progress towards impact on beneficiaries of development cooperation activities enabled through improved monitoring. 

Either as part of the new development cooperation strategy or under the plans of the relevant Corporate Services cluster at headquarters and in regional offices, identify and implement specific and measurable steps to improve the efficiency of support provided to development cooperation practitioners working in the field. This should: 

• promote two-way accountability between delivery units and support services (with relevant efficiency/timeline key performance indicators) and seek to bridge the “cultural divide” between the two; 

• explore innovations in development cooperation recruitment, such as appointment eligibility lists, development cooperation talent management, and funding to bridge gaps in project phases; 

• clarify how programme support income raised by development cooperation projects can be better allocated to support projects without the time lags that currently occur; 

• review options to provide additional targeted support to non-resident country programmes at key points of the DWCP/Common Country Assessment/United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) cycles or to meet surges in demand. 

Strengthen communication strategies tailored and adapted for different audiences covering the unique contributions of the ILO to decent work and the humanitarian-development nexus, emphasizing the significant value added by its normative foundation, high-quality technical research and tripartite approach. This should: 

• build on success stories; 

• address challenges and how to overcome them using the ILO approach; 

• highlight the benefits of longer-term investments to address decent work challenges by showcasing impacts achieved over time in specific countries or through a programmatic approach; 

• train ILO staff with resource mobilization responsibilities in communicating the ILO's added value to potential funding partners; 

• promote collaborative approaches combining ILO comparative advantages with key strengths of other stakeholders.