Decent work deserves more attention

Decent work is one of the three priority themes of the Belgian Development Cooperation. The Special Evaluation Office uncovered areas for improvement that development players can work on to devote more attention to decent work.

There are still too many people without the opportunity to perform 'decent work'. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), this includes not only fair wages, but also social protection (compensation in case of unemployment or illness) and the opportunity for social dialogue (consultation between workers and employers). Furthermore, the work must be performed by free will (i.e. not forced labour). Women and men must receive equal pay for equal work, and fundamental labour rights must be respected (such as the right for unionisation and collective bargaining).
 

New strategy note

We obviously cannot speak of true sustainability without decent work. This is why Belgium was a keen advocate for devoting a separate goal to it within the UN Sustainable Development Goals, which ultimately became SDG8. Decent work is one of the three priority themes of the Belgian Law on Development Cooperation.

A brand new strategy note on decent work (PDF, 264.79 KB) was launched in early January 2024, through which all partners of the Belgian Development Cooperation united their efforts on this topic. Not just NGOs but also, for example, Enabel – the Belgian Development Agency – and BIO – the Belgian investment company for developing countries.

The note promotes a multidimensional approach. This is in line with the ILO's vision of decent work, as enshrined in Belgian law. After all, decent work is only possible when multiple dimensions are taken into account simultaneously. Therefore, Belgium focuses not only on employment (fair wages, etc.), but also on social protection (basic income security in case of illness, unemployment, maternity and incapacity for work, etc.), social dialogue (freedom of association, etc.) and legislation (respect for national labour laws and ILO standards, etc.).
 

Decent work in sustainable agriculture

But how does this work in practice? Do the projects of the Belgian Development Cooperation take decent work sufficiently into account? Investigating this was the task of our Special Evaluation Office (SEO), an independent evaluation service that regularly reviews various aspects of the Belgian Development Cooperation.

In 2020, the SEO had already given the recommendation to the Minister of Development Cooperation to develop a strategy note on decent work, since such a strategy puts all parties more on the same page. This recommendation was implemented this year (see above).

In 2022, the SEO also wanted to investigate whether decent work was being adequately addressed in interventions focused on value chains in sustainable agriculture. In other words, to what extent do all links in the chain have decent work, such as the farmer who supplies the agricultural product or the worker in an agri-food company.

Points for improvement

The evaluation shows that although the various Belgian players attach great importance to decent work, the topic is too often not an express ambition in the design of the projects.

Yet the projects are having an impact on some aspects of decent work. For example, efforts are sometimes being made to formalise the informal sector in which informal workers are given some access to social protection, although in most low-income countries it will probably take many years to close the gap between formal and informal work.

To provide a fair wage to small-scale farmers, several factors must be taken into account, such as the price of the harvest, the size of the land cultivated, the yield of the harvest, the cost of production and so on. Therefore, interventions that take into account only one or a few of these factors do not necessarily lead to a fair wage in the fullest sense.

A very limited number of projects have invested in improved access to social protection. Yet this can indeed have a positive effect on income and reduce child labour.

In the cases studied, trade union activity was found to be minimal. Usually, worker committees were formed in factories, offering less participation than trade unions. These committees also make it difficult for full-fledged unions to emerge.

In addition, while cooperatives or associations can defend the rights of small-scale farmers, the farmers need to feel properly represented in the cooperative structures and be able to express their concerns, which was not happening in the sample of cases.

A further striking observation was that, while a fair amount of attention is paid to the living conditions of small-scale farmers, this was not true for their hired temporary workers. Women also tend to earn less than men: farmers because, for example, they farm smaller plots of land and have more difficulty to obtain loans, and workers in formal businesses because they are less educated than men.

The trade prices of a harvest or product are not the only factor, but still an important one when determining a producer's income. However difficult, Belgian development players could make more effort to exert pressure in the supply chain to achieve a fair trade price that reaches producers.

These are just a few of the areas for improvement revealed by the evaluation and accordingly, these were turned over to the parties concerned. Of course, decent work – including fair wages – is not easy to achieve, yet greater attention to the various dimensions that make decent work possible can have a significant impact.

In any case, the recommendations have been taken to heart. The new strategy note on decent work also offers guidelines on how to give greater prominence to this topic during the interventions of the Belgian Development Cooperation. Decent pay, access to social protection, strengthening social dialogue and the role that work plays in emancipation must always be points of focus.