Social partners have an important role to play in reforming societies and economies. The UN's 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development identifies a key role for social dialogue in strengthening institutions and transitioning to a more sustainable economy. It includes economic growth and a social market economy, which aims at employment and social progress, a high level of protection and improvement of the quality of the environment. This necessitates the formulation of new policies and strategies with a view to a long-term perspective, which can be achieved by the Bulgarian social partners by exchanging experience and good practices with advanced partner organizations in this regard, promoting their experience through discussions and appropriate trainings. This is the main goal of the Social Dialogue for Sustainable Development and Decent Work (SDSD) project, which is implemented by the Bulgarian Industrial Association (BIA) in partnership with the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria (CITUB), the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprises (NHO) and the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO).
Social dialogue is a key tool for solving problems related to the rapidly changing work environment, the digitalization of production processes, the requirements of the green economy, crisis management. Raising awareness, building capacity to develop new industrial relations is extremely important for formulating new policies and strategies responding to the rapidly changing work environment. In order to achieve this, the following activities are planned within the framework of the project:
- Exchange of good practices for achieving the goals of sustainable development through social dialogue - the role of employers and trade unions in creating new skills, sustainable models of production and consumption;
- Development of educational packages on the goals of sustainable development, green jobs;
- Trainings of representatives of BIA and CITUB at the national and sector level;
- Thematic discussions.
Through the selection of appropriate trainings, the experience of the Norwegian partners in solving key problems will be presented, such as:
- Achieving the objectives of the Green Deal – the example of Norway
- Circular economy - good practice of the Norwegian industry
- Food sustainability – Norwegian policy and experience
- Plastics Strategy - Norway
- Development of an ESG report
- The Norwegian Climate Action Plan
One can familiarize themselves with these documents in more detail on the project page: https://sdsd.bia-bg.com/
Increasing the capacity of social partners through the provision of knowledge and training is a key element of creating appropriate policy and strengthening institutions to achieve sustainable economic growth.
At the beginning of 2024, a final conference of the project will be held in the city of Sofia with the participation of representatives of the Bulgarian and Norwegian social partners, and during the event the results of the project will be presented and the Norwegian experience in the specified areas will be widely discussed.
