I would like to welcome you all to this South Asia Regional Training on Evidence-Based Policy Making for Decent Work. This is the second phase of this course (the first was done online in November 2021). Many things have changed within this short period and especially the devastating impact of the COVID-19 on people’s life. At the 109th International Labour Conference in June 2021, representatives of governments, employers’ and workers’ organisations of the ILO’s 187 Member States adopted a Global Call to Action for a human-centred recovery from the COVID-19 crisis that is inclusive, sustainable and resilient. The Global Call commits the ILO’s constituents to place the aim of decent work, the needs of the most vulnerable and hardest hit by the pandemic and support for sustainable enterprises, employment and incomes at the heart of national strategies to build forward better from the crisis. This training will provide some elements of how to build back, or rather build forward, better.

Congratulations for being selected to take part in this training course.

This Training Course on Evidence-Based Policy Making for Decent Work aims to build your capacities using specific case studies, research papers, guidelines, and other data and information sources for evidence-based policy making for decent work. As such the specific objectives of this training are to:

• Incorporate processes in order to improve evidence generation and use in policymaking, advocacy, and service provisions;
• Use innovative training methods to improve skills and knowledge of individuals to use a wide variety of evidence sources to make more effective and just evidence-based policy;
• Utilize the specific strategies discussed to influences policies in the areas identified and draft a policy brief.

By the end of this training, you will be able to:

• Build skills and knowledge for evidence-based policy making, advocacy and services provisions for decent work;
• Reflect upon how South Asian constituents can respond to the issues raised in the ILO Centenary Declaration;
• Explore the policy making, advocacy and service development processes, while specifically focusing on how to undertake and draft research for influencing policy, informing advocacy activities and services development;
• Explore how to promote a culture of evidence-based policy making, advocacy and service provisions; how to prioritize and build a robust evidence base for policy reconciling different perspectives, findings, and, conflicting evidence;
• Improve the attitude towards research (process, types of research, actors involved, etc.), improving policy makers’ knowledge (data, citizen evidence, experience), and improving and building skills for constituents to effectively search for, assess, use and communicate evidence for effective advocacy and services provisions;

With this in mind, the main aim of the Course is to prepare you for leadership roles in the field of labour and social policies for decent work. Possibly you will sometime be a national delegate or advisor to the International Labour Conference or being members of the ILO Governing Body. This training will allow you to become effective decent work practitioners and advocates while using evidence-based policy making for decent work agenda, in your own field of expertise in your countries. It will also help you in proposing how to build forward better with a human-centred approach from the COVID-19 pandemic.

This course will run for 4 days, during which we will explain key issues and concept of decent work and their inter-linkages, We will be providing you with the latest evidence-based research findings on the world of work, successful country experiences and practices, necessary tools and negotiating skills, group work, role plays and simulation exercises. We will bring together several ILO experts who will share their knowledge and wisdom with you.

This year we have 22 participants from the tripartite constituency, coming from 7 South Asian countries. There is so much experience and diversity within this group and this will make the learning even more interesting and enriching.

I wish you a successful learning journey and a very fruitful training. Thank you.