March 18, 2019. - The countries of Latin America and the Caribbean and the world are preparing to hold the Second High-Level Conference of the United Nations on South-South and Triangular Cooperation (BAPA + 40, for its acronym in English ), which will take place from March 20 to 22 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. 

The purpose of this event is to make visible the efforts and achievements of the countries of the South, examine the trends of South-South and Triangular Cooperation, including the progress made with the international community, in particular by the United Nations, in supporting and promoting of these cooperation modalities and the identification of new opportunities, as well as the challenges and suggestions to overcome them.  

Within this framework, the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the South Center are collaboratively organizing  two parallel events  to discuss the differential contribution of South-South Cooperation in achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8, referring to the decent work, and thus build a fair, sustainable and sustainable future of work. 

The first  panel, entitled “The future of work, youth employment and South-South Cooperation” , will address the contribution of South-South and Triangular Cooperation in the creation and implementation of post-BAPA + 40 youth employment policies from three angles : policies for skills development, green jobs and social dialogue; and the specialists will propose recommendations on the subject. The panel will be moderated by Carlos Correa, executive director of the South Center, and the panel of experts will be made up of:

• Rebeca Grynspan, Secretary General of the Ibero-American General Secretariat, member of the Global Commission on the Future of Work; 

• Fabio Isaac Masis Fallas, Executive Director of the Chamber of Private Companies of Costa Rica - (UCCAEP), representative of the OIE; 

• Kjeld Jakobsen, Consultant to the Trade Union Confederation of the Americas (CSA); 

• Brenda Cardozo, Youth Representative of the ILO SafeYouth @ Work project in Latin America, and

• Victoria Alonsoperez, Youth Leader of the Sustainable Development Goals.

The second panel, entitled “Regional Initiative Latin America and the Caribbean free of child labor ” will present the Regional Initiative as a successful South-South Cooperation mechanism to end child labor by 2025 in the countries that make up the sub-regional groups of Mercosur. , SICA and CARICOM, and jointly achieve Goal 8.7 of the 2030 Agenda. This panel will be moderated by María Olave, from the ILO Regional Child Labor Team; and the panel of experts will be made up of:

• Cecilia Garau, Director of Labor Protection and Equality of the Secretariat of Promotion, Protection and Technological Change of Argentina and Focal Point of the Regional Initiative; 

• Cecilia Malaguti, General Coordinator of Trilateral Technical Cooperation with International Organizations of the Brazilian Cooperation Agency (ABC); 

• Víctor Navalpotro, General Coordinator of the Technical Office for Cooperation in Uruguay of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), and

• Pedro Américo Furtado de Oliveira, Director of the ILO Office in Argentina, representing the Technical Secretariat of the Regional Initiative.

Both events will be a special discussion space for reflection and renewal of commitments between the social actors responsible for promoting concrete actions in the countries that help to overcome scenarios of inequality, discrimination and exclusion from the improvement of youth employment, the prevention and eradication of child labor and the protection of permitted adolescent labor; all this, through a strengthened and renewed South-South and Triangular Cooperation in favor of SDG 8. 

South-South and Triangular Cooperation as a vehicle to end child labor in Latin America and the Caribbean

This 2019 the ILO commemorates 100 years of promoting social justice and decent work and, during its history, one of the issues at the heart of its agenda has been the prevention and eradication of child labor and the protection of permitted adolescent work. 

In this regard, Latin America and the Caribbean has made great strides in the last 20 years and has achieved that 9.5 million children and adolescents stop working. For this reason, it is today one of the regions with the highest probability of having the first generation free of child and adolescent labor. It should be noted that much of this progress has been possible thanks to social dialogue and cooperation for development, which has been continuously accompanied by the ILO as the governing body on labor matters. 

With the creation in 2014 of the Regional Initiative Latin America and the Caribbean free of child labor, governments, employers 'and workers' organizations have created an effective mechanism, and with great potential, for South-South and Triangular Cooperation to find imaginative solutions against child labor based on the capacity, knowledge, commitment and accumulated experience of the countries themselves.

In the last three years, the Regional Initiative has promoted the exchange of information and tools, the training of public and private actors, the development of joint investigations and, more recently, the development and experimental application of  methodologies for identifying the risk of child labor , which seek to make public policies more efficient at the local level from a preventive approach. 

Likewise, the Regional Initiative has proposed as a challenge to promote interregional horizontal cooperation, especially with the African Union, to promote similar platforms dedicated to the generation of concerted and innovative policies on the subject. 

In this way, South-South and Triangular Cooperation in the region has been enriched and strengthened to strengthen ties of solidarity between countries, optimize the use of national technical and financial resources and establish a regional collective voice against child labor and the protection of adolescent work allowed.