Our Trade and Decent Work program encourages governments and donors to use trade and development policies to increase decent work opportunities, particularly among informal workers and in the agricultural sector; and to help build political commitment progressively to realize the right to decent work.
Realizing Rights contributes through global fora as well as focusing our activities on countries in Africa in which we contribute to development practice on trade and decent work. Our roles as convener, communicator and catalyst can strategically expand dialogue, champion the successful efforts of others, and challenge policies and practices that are undermining decent work opportunities.
By 2010, we anticipate that our trade and decent work program will have:
- Strengthened support for decent work policies and programs via projects in Liberia and other African countries.
- Promoted the concept of decent work with specific companies with operations in Africa through in-depth analysis and recommendations on opportunities to enhance employment and adequate working conditions in core business operations and value chains.
- Supported efforts to enhance women’s leadership and gender aspects of decent work and rural employment.
Latest News
July, 2010
This video provides a glimpse into the lives of street vendors in Liberia and how Realizing Rights and our partners seek to promote the right to decent work for all. Realizing Rights staff interviewed informal traders about their progress in getting organized and improving their situation and Realizing Rights President, Mary Robinson, visited the leaders within the petit traders union.
April 27th 2010
Child Labor is only a Symptom
Heather Grady, Managing Director of Realizing Rights, spoke on the panel "Just Jobs: Building Institutions for Development" at the Center for American Progress (CAP) on April 23rd. She stressed that strengthening opportunities for decent work – which CAP and others call the ‘just jobs and social protection’ agenda – is an essential but often overlooked target within the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Latest Special Reports and Policy Briefs
October 2009
Authors: Heather Grady with support from Irina
Bazarya, Scott Jerbi and Jennifer McCarthy
This background paper "Fostering Equitable and Sustainable Development: The Role of
the Private Sector and Trade in Times of Economic Turmoil" is a contribution by Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative to discussions during
the European Development Days 2009. It was commissioned by the Swedish International Development
Cooperation Authority (SIDA).
June 2009
Policy Brief: Global Economic Crisis and the Informal Economy
Co-produced with India’s Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) and the global WIEGO network, this policy brief highlights how the informal economy is too often wrongly assumed to be a cushion for formal workers who lose their jobs. The fact is that as more workers crowd into the informal economy, the net result is a growing number of firms and individuals competing for smaller pieces of the informal ‘pie’.
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