Belize to Address Gaps in Decent Work Agenda

Lars Johansson

Decent work is applied to both the formal and informal sectors, addressing all kinds of jobs, people and families.  According to the International Labor Organization, decent work involves opportunities for work that are productive and deliver a fair income, security in the workplace and social protection for families.  It also includes better prospects for personal development and social integration, freedom for people to express their concerns and equality of opportunity and treatment of all women and men.  Lars Johansson is the Deputy Director of ILO’s Decent Work Team at the Country Office for the Caribbean.

Lars Johansson, Deputy Director, ILO Caribbean

“We have, ever since the concept of decent work as the way to structure the ILO’s work was established, we also decided a way to work with our constituents and other stakeholders at country level would be to develop a program, time bound, normally three to five years where we could be strategic about what we work on, what we prioritize and the change we want to contribute to bring about in the country.  Belize had the Decent Work Country program which ended, I think, in 2017 and this now is taking a few years, but now we’re here to develop the second one.  And this is, let’s say, the first milestone in that process where we are analyzing what we call the Decent Work Country diagnostic which is a document that analyzes the current situation in country and which is used to set the priorities for the program to come. There are gaps in the Decent Work agenda in Belize, in several areas related to working conditions, salaries and other fundamental principles and rights to work.  There are still issues, there are still challenges.  But that said, I would just like to mention that there is a lot of work going on to improve the situation and a lot of it is done in collaboration with the ILO and hopefully with this program, we will be able to do that in an even more concerted and strategic manner for the next four or five years.”