ILO Governing Body, 356th session - EU Statement - Results of the ILO Action Plan for Gender Equality 2024–25 and proposed outline of the Action Plan 2026–29
European Union Statement
ILO Governing Body, 356th session
23 March – 2 April 2026
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Results of the ILO Action Plan for Gender Equality 2024–25 and proposed outline of the Action Plan 2026–29
GB.356/INS/3
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Geneva, 31 March/April 2026
Chair,
I speak on behalf of the European Union and its Member States.
The candidate countries North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Albania, Ukraine, Republic of Moldova as well as the EFTA countries Iceland and Norway, members of the European Economic Area, align themselves with this statement.
We thank the Office for the comprehensive report on the implementation of the ILO Action Plan for Gender Equality 2024–25 and the proposed outline of the Action Plan for 2026–29.
Gender equality is a cornerstone of social justice and a fundamental principle and right at work. Advancing gender equality is essential to achieve decent work and an inclusive, sustainable and resilient development of the labour market as ILO core mandate. Achieving gender equality in the world of work will require sustained and systematic attention as a policy priority of the ILO and the Action Plan for 2026-29 should clearly outline the offices efforts in this regard.
We note the positive progress reported in the implementation of the Action Plan, including the increase in the proportion of targets met during 2024–25, as well as improvements in gender-responsive evaluation and coordination within the UN system. The alignment of the new Action Plan with UN-SWAP 3.0 and the System-wide Gender Equality Acceleration Plan represents an important step towards strengthening coherence and accountability.
However, challenges remain. The independent evaluation of the ILO’s gender equality and mainstreaming efforts points to limited success of the Action Plan because of under-investment, fragmented responsibilities and un-even leadership engagement. Twenty-six per cent of the targets under the Action Plan were not met, and we are deeply concerned about the sharp decline in gender-responsive Decent Work Country Programmes, which has fallen to 48 per cent, far below the target of 85 per cent.
We encourage the Office to ensure the early and systematic involvement of experts on gender equality in DWCP design and to address capacity and resource constraints affecting effective gender mainstreaming in line with the findings in the independent evaluation. We also remain concerned about gaps in capacity, the uneven application of the gender equality marker across ILO programmes and the fact that ILO is lagging behind comparable UN agencies and the UN system at large when it comes to performance against UN-SWAP 2.0. We encourage ILO’s engagement in a UN-SWAP peer review to help inform further improvements.
Women’s representation among accredited delegates and advisers at the International Labour Conference and regional meetings also remains below target. We encourage continued efforts to promote more balanced representation and gender parity in official meetings.
We underline the importance of robust international labour standards and effective supervisory mechanisms for advancing gender equality in the world of work, including the broader ratification of ILO standards to prevent violence and harassment.
We strongly support the offices continued attention to a results focus in the development of the Action Plan and reiterate our support for the objectives of the ILO Policy on Gender Equality and Mainstreaming.
Finally, we look forward to the finalization and implementation of the ILO Action Plan for Gender Equality 2026–2029 in support of the ILO’s transformative agenda for gender equality.
Thank you, Chair.
- ^ North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Albania continue to be part of the Stabilisation and Association Process.