The 16th Asia and Pacific Regional Meeting (APRM) of the International Labor Organization (ILO) was organized from 6-9 December 2016 in Bali, Indonesia. The meeting which is organized once every four years was attended by over 350 delegates (representatives of governments, workers’ and employers’ organizations along with several UN agencies and international institutions) including 24 ministers from 37 countries in the region. The Asia Pacific unit of the ICA-EU partnership participated in the meeting as an international nongovernmental organization. The meeting culminated with the passing of the Bali Declaration that makes a call to stakeholders of the ILO to act to promote decent work, foster inclusive growth, and social justice. The meeting further called on governments to strengthen the application of fundamental labor standard and the ratification and implementation of ILO conventions in the region. The meeting suggested additional measures to close gender gaps, break down barriers to women’s labor force participation and advancement, promotion of equal pay for work of equal value, and extended measures for maternity protection and balancing work and care responsibilities. Taking stock of the ‘Decent work’ decade that began in 2005, the ILO’s Director-General Guy Ryder said “implementing the (Bali) Declaration can change and improve the lives of many millions of workers and their families. It can begin the task of generating the 249 million decent jobs that need to be generated in this region if we are to implement Goal 8 of the Sustainable Development Goals.”

Co-operatives are vehicles for socio-economic change and are positioned to play a relevant role in meeting the targets set out in the SDGs. The ICA and the ILO continue to engage in the interest of the development and growth of the co-operative movement worldwide.  The ILO and the ICA launched a new initiative on the role of co-operatives in delivering on SDGs in the context of the post 2015 development framework. Besides its firm commitment on developing co-operative law and policy via its recommendation 193, the ILO has also widely recognized the co-operative enterprise as a practical option for the formalization of informal economy. This ILO recommendation is the only international policy framework for the co-operative development that has the added value of being adopted by governments, employers’ organizations and trade unions, and supported by relevant civil society organizations[1]. ICA-AP attended this important meeting giving importance to the bilateral relations of the ICA and the ILO as well as to put forth the co-operative perspective in various discussions on development.