January 2026 Case Study: Public Procurement as a Lever for SDG 8
January 2026’s SDG of the Month is SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth. To launch the year, we are highlighting a practical guidance article on how public procurement can be used to actively promote decent work across supply chains, strengthen labor protections, and improve employment quality through contract design and supplier requirements. The featured article, Promoting Decent Work Through Public Procurement, published by the United Nations Office for Project Services, presents a structured and operational roadmap for integrating labor standards into procurement policy and practice. Rather than treating decent work as a separate social policy objective, the article shows how it can be embedded directly into procurement processes. It explains that public procurement represents a significant share of national economies and therefore shapes labor conditions at scale. However, traditional procurement approaches that emphasize the lowest price can unintentionally create pressure that leads to:
Underpayment of workers
Excessive working hours
Weak safety practices
Poor subcontractor oversight
Informal or non-compliant labor arrangements
Key Procurement Strategies
The article outlines practical procurement measures that directly support SDG 8 outcomes, including:
Including labor and social security compliance clauses in contracts
Enforcing minimum wage and working time standards
Requiring supplier codes of conduct covering labor rights
Strengthening health and safety requirements in specifications
Screening suppliers for labor risks
Extending labor obligations to subcontractors
Monitoring working conditions during contract management
Establishing corrective action and sanction mechanisms
Rejecting abnormally low bids that cannot sustain lawful wages
Embedding worker training and skills development in contracts
Together, these measures shift decent work from aspiration to enforceable requirement.
Operational Insight
A core contribution of the article is its lifecycle view. It shows that decent work protections can be inserted at multiple stages:
Tender design (labor clauses and eligibility requirements)
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