The Toolkit for Mainstreaming Employment and Decent Work was developed to assist UN agencies, as well as governments and social partners, respond to the international mandate of promoting decent work and help them integrate and improve decent work outcomes in their own policies and programmes.

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At the 2005 World Summit of the United Nations General Assembly, heads of States and governments of more than 150 countries recognized decent work as an international development goal:

“We strongly support fair globalization and resolve to make the goals of full and productive employment and decent work for all, including for women and young people, a central objective of our relevant national and international policies as well as our national development strategies, including poverty reduction strategies, as part of our efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. These measures should also encompass the elimination of the worst forms of child labour, as defined in International Labour Organization Convention No. 182, and forced labour. We also resolve to ensure full respect for the fundamental principles and rights at work.” (World Summit Outcome Document, paragraph 47)

This commitment was reaffirmed in 2006 when the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) adopted a ministerial declaration recognizing decent work as essential for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a fair globalization and poverty reduction. The declaration called on the UN system to support countries in their efforts to include the ILO’s Decent Work Agenda in their development policies.

In order to assist member agencies in this endeavour, the High Level Committee on Programmes (HLCP) of the United Nations System Chief Executives Board for Coordination (CEB) asked the ILO to take the lead in developing a Toolkit for Mainstreaming Employment and Decent Work to assist CEB member organizations in this endeavour. The Toolkit was adopted at the April 2007 session of the CEB. Further endorsement of the Toolkit came in July 2007 with an ECOSOC resolution calling on all relevant agencies of the UN "to collaborate in using, adapting and evaluating the application of the Toolkit".