Sustaining GSP-Plus Status by Strengthened National Capacities to Improve ILS Compliance and Reporting - Mongolia (GSP+ Reporting)

The project is part of a four-country project funded by the European Commission to strengthen respect for fundamental principles and rights at work and other international human rights instruments.

Project background

A growing number of bilateral and multilateral trade agreements, as well as regional economic integration arrangements, contain social and labour provisions related to workers’ rights. Indeed, trade agreements with labour provisions have increased significantly in the last two decades: 58 trade agreements included labour provisions in June 2013, up from 21 in 2005 and 4 in 1995. Labour provisions in free-trade agreements increasingly refer to ILO instruments, in particular the 1998 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, and, in the case of recent EU agreements, also to ILO Conventions. For example, the European Union special incentive arrangement for sustainable development and good governance (Generalized Schemes of Preferences/GSP+) provides additional benefits for countries implementing certain international standards in regard to human and labour rights.

The ILO supervises the implementation of ratified Conventions through the Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations (CEACR). Once a country has ratified an ILO Fundamental Convention, it is obliged to submit periodical reports detailing the steps they have taken in law and practice to apply the Convention. The Committee then provides an impartial and technical analysis of the state of application of ILS which is published in the Committee’s annual report. 

Under the GSP+ arrangement, the EU is closely monitoring the beneficiaries’ compliance with the Conventions notably through the “Scorecards system”. As the countries have to report both to the CEACR and to the EU, their ability to comply with these reporting obligations and to address in practice the shortcomings highlighted by these monitoring bodies is of utmost importance.

An important component of the ILO action in the field of ILS is the technical assistance offered to countries to overcome difficulties on reporting and application.  In the biennium 2012-2013 this technical assistance, which was guided by the work of the supervisory bodies, targeted 43 countries (24 countries in Africa, 7 countries in Asia, 3 countries in Europe and Central Asia, 7 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, and 2 Arab countries) that had expressed their readiness and availability to collaborate with a view to overcoming the obstacles facing the application of international labour standards. This action led these countries to analyse their “report writing” practices and to benefit from technical advice and training with a view to building their reporting capacity in both quantitative and qualitative terms. Other countries benefitted from technical advice and training on the application of international labour standards, which allowed them to carry out actions with a view to reducing the implementation gap with respect to the specific Conventions they had ratified. With the assistance of the authorities of these countries, 125 activities were carried out, through which more than 1,400 tripartite partners and other key actors received training on or were made more aware of the standards and supervisory system of the ILO.


Project objectives

Support Mongolia’s effort to improve its labour market governance, by giving effect to ILO’s Fundamental Conventions and other international human rights instruments with a focus on ILO Convention 98 on collective bargaining

Expected Outcomes

Outcome 1. Mongolia is up-to-date on the reporting of ILO Conventions including all eight fundamental conventions
Outcome 2. Mongolian law and legislation evolve towards further compliance with fundamental rights at work especially the Collective Bargaining Convention
Outcome 3. Awareness is raised on (soon to be approved, or draft) revised Labour law
Outcome 4. Enhanced capacity of Government and workers’ and employers’ organizations in the application of Fundamental and Priority ILO Conventions particularly the Collective Bargaining Convention

Main activities

•    Training on International Labour Standards reporting
•    Information sessions on the Fundamental Conventions of the ILO and international human rights instruments and their supervisory mechanisms, including related trade interests
•    Advisory notes on unacceptable forms of work and collective bargaining in wage negotiation
•    Support advocacy campaigns by workers’ and employers’ organizations on international labour standards and revised labour laws

Partners

Ministry of Labour, Confederation of Mongolian Trade Unions, Mongolian Employers’ Federation, National Human Rights Commission of Mongolia
Target beneficiaries
Ministry of Labour; Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Ministry of Industry; Parliament members particularly MPs serving on the Standing Committee for Social Policy, Education, Culture and Science; National Human Rights Commission; Confederation of Mongolian Trade Unions; and the Mongolian Employers’ Federation.


Target beneficiaries

Ministry of Labour; Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Ministry of Industry; Parliament members particularly MPs serving on the Standing Committee for Social Policy, Education, Culture and Science; National Human Rights Commission; Confederation of Mongolian Trade Unions; and the Mongolian Employers’ Federation.


For further information please contact:

Ms. Bolormaa Purevsuren
National Coordinator for Mongolia

UN House 209
United Nations Street 12
Sukhbaatar district
Ulaanbaatar 14201, Mongolia
Tel: (976) 11320624                   
Fax: (976) 11320625 
Email: ulaanbaatar@ilo.org