FAO and the International Labour Organization (ILO) have a long history of collaboration that dates back to 1947. The overall goal of the collaboration is to promote sustainable agriculture and rural development, with particular attention to improving rural livelihoods, supporting decent work and employment creation, and promoting gender equality in rural areas.

To act on these common priorities, FAO and ILO have embarked on an ambitious partnership to extend the standards of the Decent Work Agenda to the agriculture sector and rural areas. While ILO leads the Global Employment and Decent Work Agenda, FAO has a crucial complementary role to play in promoting decent rural employment, specifically with respect to employment in agriculture, in agro-processing and in rural marketing enterprises and industries.

Since its inception, the FAO–ILO partnership has generated significant results and has grown in scope and effectiveness. Currently, FAO and ILO are engaged in numerous joint global initiatives, such as Decent Jobs for Youth, the Decent Work for Equitable Food Systems Coalition that emerged from the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit, and the Global Coalition for Social Justice. FAO and ILO's joint involvement in country- level projects, such as the CLEAR Cotton, has also delivered significant results at the national and regional levels.

The two UN agencies work to:

• Promote rural and agricultural development strategies that are socially, environmentally and economically sustainable;
• Achieve internationally agreed development goals, in particular those that are relevant to decent work, employment promotion, gender equality and social protection;
• Strengthen synergies between ILO and FAO activities at country level in support of national development plans and programmes, including in the context of poverty reduction strategies, development assistance frameworks and common country assessments; 
• Develop more coherent and comprehensive normative instruments and provide assistance for their implementation.

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