The European Commission Directorate General for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities has published a report produced by Ergon looking at EU Member States and International Institutions bilateral co-operation and decent work in relation to 10 partner countries.

The nine-month study examined bilateral and other interventions in the area of decent work between the EU and EU member states and relevant regional and international organisations (among them the EU, ILO, UNDP, WHO, World Bank, EBRD, ADB) and selected emerging economies and strategic partners of the EU, namely China, India, Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Russia, Ukraine, Morocco, South Africa and Indonesia. 

Click here to download the report directly (PDF format) 

There is growing interest in the sustainability of agricultural commodities such as sugar, soy, palm oil, cotton, cocoa and coffee. This is reflected in the development in recent years of a number of commodity-specific initiatives such as the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, the Better Sugar Initiative and the World Cocoa Foundation. Cocoa aside, commonly, the initial impetus behind these has been the rising concern at the environmental impacts of contemporary global agriculture – heightened by the recent explosion of interest in the use of palm oil and sugar as raw material for biofuels – rather than labour issues.

The ILO has approved a new 'landmark declaration' which it claims 'marks the most important renewal of the Organisation since the adoption of the historic "Declaration of Philadelphia" in 1944'. The Declaration on Social Justice for a Fair Globalisation represents a wholesale restatement of the ILO's fundamental principles and its ways of working.