Decent work’s place among the SDGs: contribution by the International Labour Organization

A year before the start of the 21st century, the first Director General of the International Labour Organization (ILO) from outside the global North launched a new agenda and concept: decent work. This was a powerful response to a liberalized, deregulated and structurally fragmented world economy in which most people, particularly in the global South, work informally: without social protection, occupational health and safety and a voice for collective bargaining. The chapter provides a brief 100-year history of the ILO, its unique tripartite system of member-state representation and supervision, and its main policy instruments: research, participatory standard-setting, supervision and capacity-building. It reports on the ILO’s move into environmental and climate issues, analyses the contribution of the four interrelated pillars of decent work to the 17 SDGs, outlines the ILO's policy on a just transition to sustainable development and concludes with a brief outlook.