Trade Unions Unite: Demanding Development Cooperation Focused on Workers’ Rights and Sustainable Future

Trade Union–OECD DAC Forum 2025 joined the trade union leaders all over the world along with delegates from OECD DAC and development experts to discuss on how to best facilitate cooperation on development principles which revolve around fair work, poverty eradication, and social equity. This is because it offers a platform for discussing urgent global issues to be addressed by development policies concerned.

Eric Manzi, Deputy General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), underlined the need to ensure workers’ needs are put at the center of all development cooperation policies. He added, “We would take the demands in our statement to members of the OECD DAC urging them to consider this issue during the DAC High-Level Meeting and to bring it in their development agendas.”

Throughout this forum demand was heard, real poverty, and inequality that confront development assistance. The issue under discussion was decent work, living wages, and responsible business conduct along global supply chains.

“Millions of workers around the world come to work only to remain stuck in poverty,” Eric Manzi said. “Development cooperation should be a force for good,” Nilsson said. “It should have things such as decent pay, strengthening of labor market institutions, and guaranteeing social protection-proven solutions for poverty and inequality reduction.”

This message was affirmed by Veronica Nilsson, General Secretary of TUAC (Trade Union Advisory Committee), stressing the vital input of strong labor market institutions and collective bargaining made to the fight against poverty and inequality. “Evidence consistently shows that these factors are key to creating sustainable development pathways,” she added. “We would continue to advocate for this agenda at the OECD and within the DAC framework.”

The bureaucracy introduced by the forum also shared some of the notable challenges and priorities for the future:

Formalization of the economy: Most people work in informal employment conditions and are desperately poor people. It is important to improve labor market institutions and support collective bargaining to lift people out of poverty and construct a solid sustainable economic foundation.

Emergence of the private sector: Growth of the private sector in development cooperation is inevitable and investment should thus comply with international labor standards. Priority should also be laid in ensuring that businesses conduct themselves with accountability to the rights of workers in their global supply chains.

Social Protection: Social Protection has to be incorporated, quite importantly, into the definition of responsible business conduct. These benefits include health insurance, pensions, and unemployment insurance which would be basic to the welfare and security of workers.

In particular, the single highlight from the forum is urgency in terms of development cooperation policies that would put workers’ rights at the forefront. The Trade Union-OECD DAC Forum addresses itself, with a collective commitment to dignified work and fair wages, to a future in which global development creates equality, security, and opportunity in the lives of all workers, anywhere.