International Labour Organization
Decent Work Technical Support Team
and the Country Office for Eastern Europe
and Central Asia
15 Petrovka Street, office 23
Moscow 107031, Russia
Tel: (7 495) 933 0810
Fax: (7 495) 933 0820
E-mail: moscow@ilo.org
URL: http://www.ilo.ru
ILO National Coordinator in Armenia
UN House
14 Petros Adamyan str.
Yerevan 0010, Armenia
Tel: (374 10) 54 39 72
Fax: (374 10) 54 39 72
E-mail: hovhannisyan@ilo.org
URL: http://www.un.am
Work is central to people's well-being. In addition to providing income, work can pave the way for broader
social and economic advancement, strengthening individuals, their families and communities.
Such progress, however, hinges on work that is decent.
Decent work sums up the aspirations of people in their working lives.
Mandate
The International Labour Organization (ILO) is a UN specialized agency which seeks the promotion of social justice and internationally recognized human and labour rights. The ILO was founded in 1919 and became the first specialized agency of the United Nations in 1946. ILO Headquarters are located in Geneva, Switzerland.
The ILO has four principle strategic objectives:
These objectives are realized in a number of ways:
The ILO has a unique tripartite structure in the United Nations, in which employers’ and workers’ representatives – the “social partners” of the economy – have an equal voice with those of governments in shaping its policies and programmes. Similarly, the ILO encourages tripartite cooperation at the national level. National tripartite social dialogue brings together government, workers and employers to discuss public policies, laws and other decision-making that affect the social partners.
The ILO activities in Armenia
The ILO activities in Armenia are coordinated by the ILO Decent Work Technical Support Team and Country Office for Eastern Europe and Central Asia (the Office is located in Moscow). They are supported by the ILO National Coordinator in Yerevan. Apart from Armenia, the Office covers nine other countries of the region–Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russian Federation, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
Priorities for the cooperation between the ILO and the Republic of Armenia have been formulated and agreed upon by the ILO and its constituents - government, employers’ and workers’ organizations.
One priority issue is the improvement of employment policies. The Government of Armenia plans to launch a new employment policy that would help to switch from passive programmes to active labour market policy programmes. The ILO provides continuous support to the Government in development and implementation of active programmes boosting employment. Training of high-level officials from all constituents is organized on Employment Policy. Technical advice is provided to the constituents in addressing the problems of labour market and education system linkage. New methods of work and new instruments, including active labour market policies are tested and introduced for the specific groups. Another central issue is strengthening of social partnership. In Armenia, basic foundations for effective social dialogue are in place, in particular legal framework regulating collective bargaining and tripartite consultation and a Tripartite Commission for consultation between the government and the social partners. The national tripartite agreement was renewed in 2012. The ILO constituents - Ministry of Labour and Social Issues, the Republican Union of Employers of Armenia (RUEA) and the Confederation of Trade Unions of Armenia – pay proper attention to the social dialogue, actively carrying on consultations and negotiations looking for consensus on relevant national policies. The ILO will continue to provide support in promoting tripartite social dialogue in order to bring it into the new level. The ILO will further support the RUEA in providing specialized services for its members and promoting a business point of view in the socio-economic policy in the framework of national tripartite cooperation.
The Government of Armenia has initiated recently a reform in its public wage policy system. In order to help the Armenian authorities to elaborate a sound public pay policy, the ILO implements the Support the public sector pay reform project, which aims at providing a comprehensive and detailed analysis of the current public pay practice by examining the wage levels and structures. The project will also provide comparison with the private sector as a benchmark to better assess the public sector wage policy. It will provide the Ministry of Labour with a methodology of wage expenditure forecast.
On the ILO-Moscow bilingual website you will find news, country information, full texts of ILO Conventions and Recommendations, project briefs, publications, our quarterly Newsletter, articles about the ILO and a lot of other useful information.
