The document was signed by Srinivas Reddy, ILO Country Director for Bangladesh and Shamima Nargis, Additional Secretary (UN) of the Bangladesh government’s Economic Relations Division.

The ‘Promoting Social Dialogue and Harmonious Industrial Relations in the Bangladesh RMG Industry’ project is funded by Sweden and Denmark.

The initiative will focus on the development of dialogue mechanisms and relations between employers and workers, particularly at the workplace level as a means of preventing disputes; and, the development of conciliation and arbitration mechanisms into a more credible, trusted and transparent system. In addition, the initiative will seek to intensively build the capacity of workers and employers to engage in social dialogue and collective bargaining at the workplace and sector level as well as to make effective use of the dispute prevention and resolution mechanisms.

The project will be initially piloted in the RMG sector, with gradual scaling up within the sector. However, the impact of the project and particularly that of the dispute resolution mechanism will go beyond the sector and cover all other sectors.