The International Labour Organization was founded in 1919 and became a specialized agency of the United Nations in 1946. It currently has 182 member states. The ILO has a unique “tripartite” structure, which brings together representatives of governments, employers, and workers on an equal footing to address issues related to labour and social policy. The ILO’s broad policies are set by the International Labour Conference, which meets once a year and brings together its constituents. The Conference also adopts new international labour standards and the ILO’s work plan and budget.

Between the sessions of the Conference, the ILO is guided by the Governing Body, which is composed of 28 government members as well as 14 employer members and 14 worker members. The ILO’s Secretariat, the International Labour Office (ILO), has its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, and maintains field offices in more than 40 countries. On its 50th anniversary in 1969, the ILO was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The current Director-General of the ILO is Juan Somavia.

ILO's history key events:
1919 ILO Foundation. The Organization was created as a result of the Treaty of Versailles that ended  the First World War and founded the League of Nations.
1926 The International Labour Conference (ILC) introduced a supervision mechanism, to monitor  the implementation of the international labour standards.
1944 Adoption of the Declaration of Philadelphia, defining the fundamental ILO principles.
1946 ILO became the first specialized agency of the newly created United Nations Organization.
1969 ILO was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, for promoting the social equity and peace between  nations.
1998 Adoption of the Declaration on the Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.
1999 ILO adopted the concept of Decent Work, as a contemporary expression of its historical  mandate.
2004 The World Commission on Social Dimension of Globalization launched the report on "A Fair  Globalization - Creating Opportunities for All".
2006 The ILO members from Asia and Pacific Island countries committed themselves to the Asian  Decent Work Decade, and to the achievement of the general goal to provide complete,  productive and decent jobs for all till 2015.
2008 ILC adopted the ILO Declaration on Social Equity and Fair Globalization, empowering ILO to  confront the challenges of the globalization through the Decent Work Agenda

ILO's main goal is to promote decent work, so that everybody works in conditions of freedom, equity, security and human dignity. To achieve its goal of decent work for all, ILO relies on 4 strategic objectives:
 1. Promoting and developing the labour international standards and the fundamental  principles and rights at work;
 2. Creating more opportunities for men and women providing decent jobs and incomes;
 3. Extending and strengthening the social protection for all;
 4. Consolidating the tripartism and the social dialogue.

ILO's main intervention areas are: the trainings and professional rehabilitation, employment policies, labour administration, labour legislation and industrial relations, labour conditions, management development, social security, labour statistics, security and hygiene at work. ILO's intervention tools are labour standards that cover all the issues related to work, which are developed and incorporated in International Conventions and Recommendations (there are 188 conventions and 199 recommendations) by the representatives of the governments, employers and workers from all over the world.

The ILO’s Governing Body has identified eight conventions as “fundamental”, covering subjects that are considered as fundamental principles and rights at work: freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining; the elimination of all forms of forced or compulsory labour; the effective abolition of child labour; and the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation. These principles are also covered in the ILO’s Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work (1998). In 1995, the ILO launched a campaign to achieve universal ratification of these eight conventions. There are currently over 1,290 ratifications of these conventions, representing 88,5%of the possible number of ratifications.

The eight fundamental conventions are:

• Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No. 87)
• Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98)
• Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29)
• Abolition of Forced Labour Convention, 1957 (No. 105)
• Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No. 138)
• Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (No. 182)
• Equal Remuneration Convention, 1951 (No. 100)
• Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention, 1958 (No. 111)

The ILO designed a Decent Work Agenda which takes up many of the same challenges that the Organization faced at its inception, targeting to achieve decent work for all by promoting social dialogue, social protection and employment creation, as well as respecting the international labour standards. International labour standards have grown into a comprehensive system of instruments on labour and social policy, backed by a supervisory system designed to address all sorts of problems in their application at the national level. They are the legal component in the ILO’s strategy for governing globalization, promoting sustainable development, eradicating poverty, and ensuring that people can work with dignity and safety.

The ILO Subregional Office for Central and Eastern Europe is established in Budapest, Hungary, and is responsible for Moldova, beside a list of other countries of this region. The Republic of Moldova became a member of the ILO in 1992 and during this period of time there have been ratified 40 ILO conventions, including the fundamental ones.

Moldova's assistance framework provided by ILO is implemented through the Decent Work Country Programs (2006-2008 and 2008-2011) and contains essentially legal expertises, technical assistance and logistics, audits of the institutions on the labour market.

Decent Work Country Program for 2008-2011

 THE DECENT WORK COUNTRY PROGRAMME FOR 2012-2015

The present Decent Work Country Program (DWCP) aims to assist the country in the implementation of the National Development Strategy for 2008-2011, the most important national medium term strategy and the country’s aspiration to achieve closer integration with the EU. The present DWCP is well harmonised with the priorities of the National Development Strategy i.e. 1) improved governance on the labour market; 2) human resources development; 3) mainstreamed social protection and 4) consolidated local public-private partnership.

Within the overarching theme of “Decent Work for All” the ILO will concentrate on three country programme priorities in Moldova in the period 2008-11, which should be seen as long-term goals:

I. Strengthening capacity of government institutions and the social partners to improve the governance of the labour market.
II. Improving the design, monitoring and evaluation of employment policy, through more effective labour administration as well as measures targeting workers in the informal economy and those exposed to migration.
III. Improving the effectiveness of social protection, with special focus on vulnerable groups.

The ILO has a comparative advantage in developing programmes, plans and in delivering technical cooperation for attaining the above-mentioned goals. More specifically, the ILO’s Secretariat has long-standing experience and technical expertise in the areas of labour standards, employment promotion, social protection and social dialogue. The ILO has also been implementing a number of projects in Central and Eastern Europe to the full satisfaction of donors and governments of the countries covered.

To realize the objectives of the DWCP, the Government and social partners decided to so set-up a National Overview Board for the DWCP. The National Overview Board meets on a regular basis at the end of every trimester for the review and evaluation of the activities and their impact in the country. The deputy minister of Labour, Social Protection and Family in charge with labour issues may also convene meetings of the National Overview Board on an ad-hoc basis to address issues of major concern at the request of a majority of the members of the National Overview Board.

A list of completed and on-going activities tend to contribute to achieving the targets set within a range of technical assistance programs, as for example the child labour, social dialogue, improvement of the employment policies, HIV/AIDS prevention at work, enhancing labour administration, migration management, etc. The activities may be illustrated by auditing the Labour Inspection and the National Employment Agency, as managing labour administration institutions. Another example would be the project expertise of the Law on Tripartite Commission for consultations and collective bargaining, the project of the Employment Strategy for long-term and the national plans for its implementation, the project of the Law on Labour Migration, and so on. 

In 2009 ILO celebrated its 90th Anniversary since it was founded. The organization is the oldest specialized agency of the United Nations. ILO's strength is conditioned by the fact that the social equity message is as relevant and comprehensive as it was 90 years ago.

Starting with 2005 the ILO's National Coordinator Office was opened in Moldova. Mrs. Ala Lipciu, the ILO National Coordinator, may be contacted for further information on the activities of the Organization or of its projects. The address of the ILO National Coordinator Office is:

1, Vasile Alecsandri Street
617 Office
MD-2009, Chisinau
Republic of Moldova
Tel/fax: (373 22) 269 369
email: lipciu@ilo.org