Launch of the joint FAO – ILO website “Food, Agriculture and Decent Work” at the International Labour Conference (Friday, 6th June 2008)
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the International Labour Organization (ILO), will launch the joint website “Food, Agriculture & Decent Work” ( www.fao-ilo.org ) on the occasion of the International Labour Conference’s 97th Session, 28 May - 13 June 2008.
“Food, Agriculture and Decent Work” is the first joint FAO – ILO website and one of the few examples of thematic websites jointly owned and managed by two UN partner organizations. Its idea stem out of the increased cooperation between ILO and FAO following the Memorandum of Understanding signed in September 2004 and it is today particularly important in the context of the UN Reform and the commitment towards closer collaboration between UN agencies around common thematic areas.
The website intends to give visibility to FAO-ILO’s collaboration, highlighting the linkages between employment, rural development and food security. While maintaining its focus on the areas of current joint work, which include decent work, children and youth employment, sustainable livelihoods and emergencies, cooperatives and producers’ organizations, labour statistics, crops, fisheries and forestry, the website also aims to catalyze collaboration on other themes, such as HIV and AIDS, avian influenza, indigenous people, rural migration and land tenure.
The website will be used to share relevant data and information and to encourage further interaction between FAO and ILO staff, workers’ and producers’ representatives, governments, researchers and other stakeholders.
“Food, Agriculture and Decent Work” is available in three languages - English, French, Spanish – and will be soon available in Arabic. The website provides specific resources as tools to raise awareness about decent work in agriculture and off-farm employment, technical papers and policy briefs jointly developed by the two organizations, and links to other resources, including all relevant ILO Conventions and Recommendations, and a News sections.
ILO and FAO welcome all ILC’s participants to attend the website launch on friday 6th June at 13.15 in Room XIX, Palais des Nations, Geneva.