Transcript Decent Employment and the MDGs

The global development agenda
beyond 2015: employment and
decent work for all
Stephen Pursey
Multilateral Cooperation Department
ILO
( April 2014
MYWORLD UN Global Survey
Main outcomes of post-2015 UN consultations:
People need better job opportunities
MyWorld survey: Proportion of people from
each country who selected jobs as one of
their priorities in the post-2015 agenda
Thinking about jobs: how can we make
people’s concerns central in the new agenda?
 Recent trends in global economy and
implications for employment and growth
 Designing a new comprehensive, universal
and integrated sustainable development
framework
 Strategies for employment and growth
 Policy mechanisms to promote more
equitable and sustainable employment trends
Scale of the Global Jobs Challenge
 Crisis-related jobs gap widened to 62 million jobs
lost since 2008
Mixed trends in reduction of
working poverty
 From 55.2 per cent in 2000, the share of $2 a day
working poor declined to 32.1 per cent in 2012, but
remained at nearly 60 per cent in LDCs. Progress
uneven across regions, with more than 87 per cent of
reduction in East Asia.
 More than half developing world workforce selfemployed or unpaid family workers – likely to be
informal.
 15 per cent of developing world’s total workforce still
living on below $1.25 a day - nearly 400 million
workers - two thirds in South Asia and Sub Saharan
African - mainly in agriculture.
Two-thirds of Africans working but
living in poverty
 Incidence of working poverty remains high in Africa
 Total working poor rising to around 200 million
workers
Employment Transformation

Movement of working women and men from less
productive work that barely yields a living, to better
jobs.

Economic transformation helps create opportunities
for decent work, and more and better jobs feeds
back into growth dynamics making it more inclusive
and sustainable.

Access to safe, productive and fairly remunerated
work is a key vehicle for individuals and families to
gain self-esteem, a sense of belonging to a
community and a way to make a productive
contribution.
Jobs and environmental, economic and
social sustainability challenges

Transforming consumption, production and employment
patterns onto trajectories that do not damage our
environment.

Developing countries exports to high income countries
much less buoyant requiring a reorientation of growth
drivers towards national markets and South South trade.

Most higher income and some middle income countries
moving into an era of population ageing.

World labour force increasing by over 40 million per
year, but gradually declining. To keep pace with the
growth, which mainly in developing world, close the
crisis jobs gap, some 670 million new jobs needed by
2030 ,more to raise female participation.
Employment and social policies to
manage transformations
 New policies to crowd in investment in the real economy,
not just lower interest rates, but dedicated finance for smaller
enterprises, support to innovation and ITC, green industries, and
labour-intensive public infrastructure programmes in the poorest
countries.
 Skills for youth, women and for industries and workers in
transitions.
 Well-designed policies and institutions, including minimum
wages and employment protection laws, which build fair and
efficient labour markets and smooth formalization.
 Investment in social protection and, for the poorest countries,
social protection floors offering a basic set of income and health
guarantees.
Employment and social policies to
manage transformations (continued)
 A focus on gender equality, through for example investment in
early child hood day care facilities and stepped up antidiscrimination legislation.
 A sufficient tax base, progressive tax systems and restraints to
tax-motivated illicit financial flows, in order to generate public
revenues to support productive and social investments.
 Remedying the dearth of information about the numbers, tenure
and quality of jobs.
Improvement in the collection and
availability of labour market statistics promotes employment
creation because of its implications for accountability,
transparency and effectiveness of policy-making.
Decent Work and Development:
where is the UN today?
 MDGs target 1b
 “Full and productive Employment
and Decent Work for All” – UN and
ILO
 Post 2015 Reflection
 Open Working Group
 Negotiations
 Implementation
Messages from the post-2015 global thematic
consultation on growth and employment
 Adopting a stand-alone goal on employment in the post-2015 agenda with
clear and measurable indicators.
 Decent jobs for the poor and most vulnerable as a pre-requisite for
sustained inclusive growth.
 Addressing the structural causes of unemployment and promoting economic
diversification and recognizing that governments must be responsible for
driving structural transformation through coherent policies.
 Development-friendly macroeconomic policies.
 Expanding social protection systems as a crucial policy tools to reducing
poverty and inequality and fostering social cohesion.
 Combining expanded social protection with employment generation
programmes especially targeting women and low-skilled workers.
 Strengthening social dialogue and the voice of workers so as to improve
working conditions and ensure fair distribution of benefits.
 Complementing official development assistance with reforms in the
international trade, finance and technology transfer systems
http://www.worldwewant2015.org/node/392756
Key reports on Post-2015
 The report of the High-level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post2015 Development Agenda (HLP) recommended an illustrative global
goal on "Creating jobs, sustainable livelihoods and equitable
growth".
 The Secretary-General’s report to the 68th session of the UNGA on
the MDGs in September 2013 noted that inclusive growth, decent
employment and social protection had been essential to drive
progress on the existing MDGs
 The SDSN report suggest a development goal with a target on decent
work and a goal on learning with a target on that all youth transition
effectively into the labour market, including an indicator on NEETs
The inter-governmental process (OWG):
Where do we stand so far?
 MDG format: single set of a limited number of actionoriented, concise and easy-to-communicate sustainable
development goals (SDGs)
 Aspirational/Transformative
 Universal – ie applicable to all countries, developed and
developing
 Measurable – to ensure monitoring and accountability
 Integrated – ie balancing economic, social and
environmental dimensions of sustainability
 National flexibility – eg in setting targets and indicators
that respect national priorities and circumstances
Towards a new set of goals: 19 focus areas
identified by the OWG
1. Poverty eradication.
2. Food security and nutrition
3. Health and population dynamics
4. Education
5. Gender equality and women’s empowerment
6. Water and sanitation
7. Energy
8. Economic growth
9. Industrialization
10.Infrastructure
11.Employment and decent work for all
12.Promoting equality
13.Sustainable cities and human settlements
14.Climate
15.Sustainable consumption and production
16.Marine resources, oceans and seas
17.Ecosystems and biodiversity
18.Means of implementation
19.Peaceful and non-violent societies, capable institutions
Transforming the global development
trajectory by focussing on jobs
 Working out of poverty
 Sustainable jobs – social, economic and
environmental dimensions
 Role of employers’ and workers’
organizations: who will implement the new
agenda?
 Building institutions for inclusive labour
markets
 National strategies within a global framework
for cooperation and coordination
 2015 UN connecting to “We the Peoples”