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TUC and DFID sign Programme Partnership Arrangement

On 3 July, the TUC signed a £2.4 million Programme Partnership Arrangement (PPA) with the Department for International Development (DFID) which will run until 31 March 2011.

The TUC's PPA purpose is to achieve:

Reduced poverty and increased rights of workers in developing countries through greater support for and strengthened capacity of developing country trade unions.

The partnership, signals a significant development in the UK trade union movement's relationship with DFID. PPA's are at the apex of DFID's agreements with civil society organisations. They provide for a trusted, flexible and core funding relationship that complements their partner organisation's existing international development strategy and activities.

The PPA framework enables the TUC to fulfil four strategic objectives:

• improved capacity of developing country trade unions to promote decent work and good governance to government, business and international institutions at the national level;
• poor workers and their families have improved rights and improved capacity to enforce those rights leading to higher income and better employment conditions;
• strengthened UK and developing country trade union international development policy engagement and influence at national, regional and international levels; and
• greater British trade union membership understanding of and commitment to sustainable development; and to the challenges of the Decent Work Agenda for developing country workers (including publicity about TUC projects in developing countries).

TUC Aid Trustees and the TUC International Development Group have been kept informed about the development of the PPA and both bodies received detailed report and were able to ask questions about the PPA at their meetings on 10 July and 22 July 2009. TUC Aid Trustees will continue to play a role in overseeing TUC international development activities, which will increase considerably with the PPA money.

Importantly, as with the TUC's previous two agreements with DFID, the PPA will include an enabling function for the TUC's affiliate unions who wish to work on international development, for example through the TUC's International Development Learning Fund which is being reviewed and improved based on lessons learnt from the SFPA. However, the main opportunity for funding for union development activities will continue to be the DFID competitive challenge funds - the Development Awareness Fund (DAF) to raise awareness among British trade unionists about development issues, and the Civil Society Challenge Fund (CSCF) which supports anti-poverty projects in developing countries. The TUC is not able to bid for money from these funds whilst the PPA is in operation.

The Programme Partnership Agreement will, however, include two specific projects running over three years (2009-2012), for which the TUC secured funding before the PPA was signed. These two projects were designed to cost about a third of the total amount being given to the TUC by DFID:

• a DAF project on Play Fair at the 2012 Olympics, designed to increase trade union members' awareness of the need for ILO core labour standards to be implemented in global supply chains; and
• a CSCF project on HIV/AIDS developed with the Nigeria Labour Congress.

The TUC is currently recruiting three new members of staff to act as PPA Programme Officers and the existing SFPA Project Officer, Gemma Freedman, will take up the fourth position. Annie Watson, the TUC's International Development Advisor, will continue to advise the TUC on their PPA strategy and activities. The full team is expected to be in place in the early autumn, when a special launch event will be organised.

For any questions or queries on the PPA, please contact Gemma on 020 7467 1233 or Gfreedman@tuc.org.uk.

Briefing document (600 words) issued 4 Aug 2009