The Forum aims to support the Philippines to achieve decent work through enterprise formalization by further empowering policymakers and informal economy leaders to design and implement an appropriate policy mix. The three-day Forum brought together around 30 high level policy makers and experts from the Philippines, Global South (Brazil, Chile, India and Uruguay) and the ILO.
Efforts to support the formalization of the informal economy have accelerated across the globe since 2015 after the historic adoption of International Labour Organization (ILO) Recommendation 204 Concerning the Transition from the Informal to the Formal Economy and the launch of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Number of countries, notably in Latin America, have made significant progress in reducing informality among small enterprises through a multi-facetted policy mix, which provides incentives and information, whilst reducing administrative red tape. Their experiences and challenges have been documented by the ILO to facilitate policy debates in a wider group of countries.
Again this backdrop, the South-South Expert Knowledge Sharing Forum on Policy Innovations and Lessons Learned on Enterprise Formalization was successfully hosted by ILO from 16-18th July 2018 in Manila. The three-day Forum gathered around 30 high level decision makers from the governments, social partners, informal economy associations and academics from the Philippines as well as experts and practitioners from Latin America (Brazil, Chile and Uruguay) and India. The event was co-hosted by the Department of Trade and Industry, The Department of Labour and Employment and the National Anti-Poverty Commission under the Office of the President. A broad range of other government departments were also represented.
The Forum’s discussion encompassed the following policy areas: business entry reforms, simplified tax regimes, access to public procurement, access to inclusive financial services, access to entrepreneurship training, skills development and tailored business development services, and access to social security coverage.
The forum stared with the formal opening by the ILO Director of the Manila Office (Mr. Khalid Hassan) and a video message on South-South and Triangular Cooperation by Ms. Anita Amorim, Head Emerging and Special Partnerships Unit, Partnerships &Field Support, ILO.
Subsequently, ILO experts Philippe Marcadent and Judith van Doorn set the global context by presenting respectively the Recommendation 204 and ILO’s approach on enterprise formalisation, which emphasised on the importance of a right policy mix, reform measures and toward right targets. Filipino government officials then presented a situation analysis of enterprise formalization initiatives in the Philippines. Based on that, the speakers from Latin America (i.e. Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay) and India shared with audiences their policy interventions, good practices and lessons learned on the subject.
This forum with extensive discussions and rich knowledge exchanges was a prime example of South-South and Triangular Cooperation, which has not only paved the way for the host country to take stock of their achievements, and pending issues, and to develop an action plan for the way forward; but also provided an opportunity for the participants from Global South to re-evaluate their strategy and inspired them for further efforts toward enterprise formalisation.
The event is supported by the South-South and Triangular Cooperation (SSTC) Facility of the ILO Partnership and Field Support Department (PARDEV).
Detail on the discussion and presentations during the forum should be found following this link: http://www.ilo.ch/manila/eventsandmeetings/WCMS_634492/lang–en/index.htm