About the ILO

How the ILO works

Reference documents

Managing for results

• Strategic Plan

  The Strategic Plan is the ILO's medium-term planning document. It is the expression of the strategic orientation of the Organization, what it aims to achieve and how.

  It describes the broad goals that are sought by the end of the planning period, sets medium-term priorities as identified by the ILO’s tripartite constituents and provides a framework from within which biennial programme and budget documents are defined and progress is assessed.

  • The ILO’s Strategic Plan for 2026-29
  • Previous Strategic Plans
• Programme and Budget

  The biennial Programme and Budget is proposed by the ILO’s Governing Body to the International Labour Conference and must be adopted through a vote of the Conference.

  Building from the Strategic Plan, the Programme and Budget establishes both a programme of work and a budget. It specifies the strategies to achieve measurable results, as well as the capacities and the resources required to deliver those results. It also authorizes the relevant regular budget expenditure. The ILO’s biennial programme of work is delivered in Member States mainly through Decent Work Country Programmes (DWCPs), aligned with national development plans and UN planning frameworks.

  • The Director-General’s Programme and Budget proposals for 2026–27
  • Programme and Budget for 2024-25
  • Previous Programme and Budget documents
• Sources of funds

  The results and achievements of the ILO are financed through three main sources of funds:

  • the Regular Budget, funded from assessed contributions by Member States, based on the scale of assessments of the United Nations;
  • the Regular Budget Supplementary Account, funded by voluntary contributions from key partners that provide fully unearmarked core funding to the ILO; and
  • Voluntary contributions from over 140 funding partners, including public and private organizations, IFIs and UN entities, in support of specific development cooperation programmes and projects.

  The close integration of the different funding sources available to the ILO is central to its strategy to deliver successfully on the social justice mandate of the Organization in countries, regionally and globally.

• Decent Work Country Programmes

  Decent Work Country Programmes (DWCPs) are the ILO’s programming instrument at the country level. They provide a framework that identifies the priorities of the ILO’s constituents in a country and specifies the planned support of the Office to the achievement of results under those priorities. They are developed with full participation of national governments and employers’ and workers’ organizations and are implemented with their active engagement. Country ownership and results orientation are key aspects of DWCPs.

  DWCPs are aligned with national development priorities and with the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework. They constitute the ILO’s contribution to the wider UN effort in a country towards the achievement of the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals.

  In supporting country priorities identified in DWCPs, ILO programmes build on synergies and complementarity of operations, bringing together diverse sources of funding for the achievement of common outcomes, greater scale and impact.

  • Decent Work Country Programmes
  • Country programme evaluations
  • ILO Development Cooperation Manual
• Results reports

  The biennial Programme Implementation report fulfils a governance and accountability function by reporting on the results achieved against the commitments and the targets set in the Programme and Budget for the biennium, within the resources made available. The report also serves to communicate the value of the ILO’s work to a wider audience and contributes to organizational learning as it identifies lessons and actions to further improve performance.

  The report is only one of the elements of a broader accountability and communication effort, which includes an interactive digital narrative and the ILO Decent Work Results Dashboard. These platforms provide detailed information by outcome, by region and by country with a range of videos, stories and testimonials that illustrate the impact of the ILO’s work on the lives of people and the realization of the ILO’s social justice mandate.

  • ILO programme implementation 2022–23 & Digital Guide
  • Previous ILO programme implementation reports
  • Dashboards: ILO Decent Work Results & ILO Development Cooperation
  • Partnering for Development
• Risk management

  The ILO employs a systematic, proactive and continuous process of risk management. Its primary purpose is to enhance the Organization’s preparedness to uncertainties which may affect delivering on its objectives. It also aims at equipping ILO officials with necessary tools and techniques to support risk- informed decision-taking throughout the Organization.

  • Risk management at the ILO
• Evaluations

  Evaluation is an accountability, project improvement, and organizational learning tool to help ILO constituents and staff support decent work and social justice. As a core element of results-based management, evaluation informs decision-making, generates knowledge and learning, and provides evidence of relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability.

  Access the Evaluation office of the ILO

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