Our mission is to assist employers’ organizations around the world in becoming representative and effective voices of business. We believe that employers and business associations can make significant contributions to creating the conditions for sustainable development.

Our objective is to help national employers’ organizations better to fulfil their role as:

• advocates of business-conducive policies

• providers of services to their members

• representative and effective development partners

• experts and partners with regard to ILO strategic objectives.

Our activities

We train employers’ organizations to become strong partners in economic and social development and to provide better services to their members. Besides training, we also develop training materials. This is essential to meeting the needs of employer organizations, responding to their particular concerns and taking their ways of working into account. Moreover, on behalf of employer organizations, and in partnership with them, we manage capacity-building programmes financed by donor agencies.

We run courses both in Turin and in the field. Our approach to capacity-building is to research and apply the lessons learned from employer organizations’ good practice. Our interactive learning methodology provides tailor-made practical knowledge and guidance to participants.

In January 2009, we launched Lempnet, the Learning Employers Network, an Internet platform dedicated to the employer organizations’ community around the world (http://lempnet.itcilo.org). Employers use it to share knowledge and learning.