Today, the ILO is focusing on four strategic objectives: Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, Employment, Social Protection and Social Dialogue. Decent work for all is at the heart of its action. ILO's values are based on fundamental principles embodied in the ILO Constitution and its annex, the Declaration of Philadelphia: "Labour is not a commodity", Freedom of Expression and Association are essential to sustained progress" and "Poverty anywhere constitutes a danger to prosperity everywhere". More recently, in 1998, the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work and its Follow-up took up the challenges of globalization: social progress has to go hand in hand with economic progress. The Central and Eastern European countries are covered by the ILO through the Regional Office for Europe at Headquarters in Geneva and the Subregional Office for Central and Eastern Europe in Budapest. The ILO Support Unit in Sarajevo has been established in 1996 and is headed by the national correspondent.

ILO activities in Bosnia-Herzegovina aim at promoting the development of democratic labour institutions and tripartism, and assisting in the adoption and implementation of policies that can steer the transition towards market economies into socially desirable directions. In addition to this, technical assistance is provided in order to promote employment creation through small and medium enterprise development.

Area of work
Since the opening of the ILO office in Sarajevo, a number of projects have been implemented:

-the vocational training to support the employment programme in Bihac at the Bihac Construction Training Centre (funded by Luxemburg)
-the promotion of small and medium enterprise development through establishment of the Enterprise Development Agencies (EDA’s) in Banja Luka, Bihac, Brcko, Mostar and Livno (funded by the Italian government and UNDP)
-a professional rehabilitation program for war-disabled people at the Medical Rehabilitation Center in Fojnica (funded by the German government)
-an extensive program for the promotion of Social Dialogue and tripartism, consisting of a series of seminars and workshops at the various levels of the economy (funded by the Italian government)