Labour Market

As the Labour Market is often a mirror of the rest of the society, it is an important area for both political relations, trade and development. Denmark is active in a number of projects related to the labour market.

“Strengthening of Labour Inspection” Project, SSC

This is a government to government – or a Strategic Sector Cooperation (SSC) – project in cooperation between the Danish and the Bangladeshi Ministries of Labour and Employment.

It consists of transfer of knowledge from the Danish Working Environment Authority to the Bangladeshi Labour inspection (DIFE). It is a mutual learning process based on mainly Train the Trainer activities in core inspection topics (such as e.g. Machinery Safety) and it has already resulted in almost 30 national guidelines, approved by the Bangladeshi Sustainability Council, and systematic sharing of knowledge within DIFE with the new (ToT) trainers a turning points. The project also contains campaigns, public presentations and cooperation with social partners.  In the phase two 2019 -2021, there is additional focus on management and strategy skills.

Read about SSC activities here.

“Social Dialogue and Harmonious Industrial Relations” Project, SDIR

This project is jointly funded by Sweden and Denmark and implementation is handled by ILO.

The SDIR focuses on establishing sustainable partnerships between the government, employers and workers in the Bangladesh ready-made garment (RMG) sector. The project intervention is primarily facilitating improved dialogue between employers and workers, particularly at workplace level.

The project has three key priority focal areas. Activities and progress to date under these areas is detailed as follows:

Priority 1: Sustainable improvement in social dialogue, workplace cooperation, and grievance handling.

Priority 2: Sustainable and effective mechanisms for conciliation and arbitration are established.

Priority 3: Enhanced capacities of employers and workers organizations to dialogue and to prevent and resolve disputes.

The project runs till the end of 2020.

Read about the SDIR project here.

‘’Partnership for Cleaner Textile” Project, PACT

This project is funded by Denmark with a co-funding from Australia and Netherlands, implemented by IFC.

The overall program goal of PaCT II aims is to deepen Cleaner Production (CP) interventions and enhance competitiveness of the sector by reducing consumption of water, energy, chemical use and GHG emissions.

First, the factories are motivated to adopt efficient technologies and practices that lead to both cost savings, operational efficiency and environmental protection.

Then the project offers a membership of PaCT in which audits, reporting, technical advice, support to implementation, monitoring and communication is offered.

The project is expected to support long term sustainability of the sector. By the end of PaCT II, the program will have worked with 250 factories and a minimum of five apparel global brands to achieve the results.

The project runs till end of 2021.

Read about the PACT project here.

Additional information

For more information, please contact Sector Counsellor Ole Rosenborg Justesen, [email protected]