International organisations in the eco-social transformation: Strategies, policies and programmes

In the post-war welfare era, international organisations as diverse as the United Nations (UN), the World Bank or the International Labour Organisation (ILO) have portrayed economic development and social protection as intertwined, placing both concepts at the centre of their agendas. More recently, 'eco-social policies' have gained some traction among governments and international actors. Eco-social policy does not sit easily with conventional economic growth paradigms, which have generally been framed as in conflict with the respect of planetary boundaries. It needs to be clarified how international organisations (IOs) balance ambitions for reconciling ecological, social, and economic growth goals, which eco-social policy approaches they use and implement in their programmes, and how they steer them across different governance levels.
Building on Mandelli's (2022) definition of eco-social policies as ‘public policies explicitly pursuing both environmental and social policy goals in an integrated way’, the first part of the chapter provides a brief review of current scientific debates and the state of IOs and eco-social policy strategies, focusing on how different actors have incorporated this novel approach to social policy in the last two decades.
In the second part, we illustrate how two key international organisations (ILO and IMF) have developed their eco-social strategies along the concept of a ‘just transition’, though following quite distinct patterns. We propose an original analytical framework to capture three dimensions of eco-social strategies, paying specific attention to the ideational goals these actors prioritise within the so-called 'eco-social-growth’ triangle, the preferred policy instruments, and operational aspects such as the governance method and mode of interaction with social partners. The chapter ends with a summary of the results and an outlook on avenues for further research.