ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL BEGINS COORDINATION SEGMENT

 

ON THEME OF DECENT WORK FOR ALL

 

Panel Discussion Held on Toolkit for Mainstreaming Employment

(Reissued as received.)

GENEVA, 6 July (UN Information Service) –- The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) this afternoon began its coordination segment, taking up the role of the United Nations system in promoting full and productive employment and decent work for all. 

The Coordination Segment began with an opening statement by Hilario G. Davide Jr. ( Philippines), Vice-President of the Council, who said the decision to devote its Coordination Segment to this theme offered the opportunity to assess the role of the United Nations system and the guidance the Council could give on effective ways to promote the realization of these goals.  The Council this year would have the opportunity to put forward concrete recommendations on how the United Nations system could effectively mainstream the goals of full employment and decent work in their programmes and activities and help to make these goals central to national development strategies.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram, Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development, introducing the report of the Secretary-General on the theme of the Coordination Segment, said the report addressed three aspects of the United Nations system’s work in this area: current initiatives launched by the system; how those were promoting goals of productive employment and decent work at the global, regional and national levels; and what were the challenges being confronted by the United Nations system in translating those goals into a comprehensive policy framework.  Making full and productive employment and decent work for all a central objective of the United Nations system’s activities should be a system-wide effort. 

Introducing the panel discussion, Mr. Davide Jr. said that, in view of the need for the implementation processes to be closely linked with each other, the Economic and Social Council system had to play a proactive role by identifying ways to enhance further collaboration and synergy in the on-going work of the different ECOSOC bodies, and in assessing how ECOSOC could best exercise its leadership to facilitate a desired positive outcome.

Maria Angelica Ducci, Executive Director at the International Labour Organization (ILO) Director-General’s Office of the ILO, said the work in creating the Toolkit represented a very concrete follow-up to the Ministerial Declaration of the Council in 2006, which underscored the importance of full and productive employment and decent work for all.  The first objective of the Toolkit, which had been constructed cooperatively across the multilateral system, was to better serve the coherence sought by countries in the United Nations system, around one objective which had been identified. 

Olav Kjørven, Assistant Administrator and Director of the Bureau for Development Policy of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), said employment was the missing link between economic growth and poverty reduction.  The current initiative on decent work and poverty reduction had been started as a joint UNDP initiative.  The collaboration was initially between UNDP and the International Labour Organization but the goal was to bring in more organizations. 

Themba Masuku, Director of the Liaison Office in Geneva of the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO), said FAO took decent work seriously.  FAO had contributed to the ILO Toolkit in a number of ways, and a number of FAO’s comments had been included in the final version, which reflected adequately the reality of agricultural and rural employment.  FAO was planning to use the Toolkit to undertake a critical stock-taking of the impact of the FAO’s activities in different areas on the creation of decent work. 

Susanne Weber-Mosdorf, Assistant Director-General/Sustainable Development and Healthy Environments of the World Health Organization, said the agenda needed concerted action and activities by all United Nations agencies.  A strengthening of health systems to scale up basic health care for workers needed to be part of the development agenda.  The protection of health workers was also a paramount task because they were the most vulnerable.  WHO recognized its responsibility to protect them from the many hazards they were exposed to.

In the course of the interactive dialogue, speakers raised a number of issues and questions, including whether there were any alternatives being envisaged by the organizations for the guidance of the countries concerned to provide options with regard to how the growing number of unemployed could be provided with decent employment.  A speaker asked how the access of migrants to decent work and health systems was being incorporated in the new ILO Toolkit. 

The Council is scheduled to discuss the Secretary-General’s report on Monday, 16 August in the afternoon.

Speaking during the discussion were Pakistan, Portugal for the European Union, United Kingdom, Mexico, Argentina, Algeria, Nigeria, Norway, United States of America, and Tanzania.

At the end of the meeting the President announced that the Council had decided to continue consultations on the Ministerial Declaration on the themes associated with the high-level segment on Monday.

The next meeting of the Council will be on Monday at 10 a.m., when it will hold a panel discussion on the role of the United Nations system in promoting full and productive employment and a decent work agenda in national strategic frameworks: the case of Latin America. 

Document

The Council has before it the report of the Secretary-General on the role of the United Nations system in promoting full and productive employment and decent work for all (E/2007/49), which gives an overview of UN system initiatives both at the policy and operational levels on promoting full and productive employment and decent work for all.  The report also highlights emerging challenges in pursuing those objectives.  The report concludes that the ministerial declaration adopted by the Council in 2006 has added new impetus to the work of the UN system in making the goal of full and productive employment and decent work for all a priority.  It has also helped to take this goal beyond the International Labour Organization constituencies and into the mainstream.  However, this recognition needs to be translated into policy frameworks and internalized in the work of the UN system.  Among others, that will require strengthening the analytical and programmatic support of the UN system to countries to help them in translating these goals into national development priorities and strategies.  Finally, the Secretary-General makes recommendations that stress action that can be taken at the policy level by the United Nations functional and regional commissions; inter-agency collaboration that would enhance system capacity to promote the employment and decent work objectives; and partnerships with all relevant actors to facilitate an effective realization of those goals.

Opening Statements for Coordination Segment

HILARIO G. DAVIDE JR. ( Philippines), Vice-President of the Economic and Social Council, said that he was confident that the inspiration given in the high-level segment including the Annual Ministerial Review would influence the work in the coordination segment leading to a fruitful conclusion of the work.  The two agenda items this year followed the two themes of the segment, namely the role of the United Nations system in promoting full and productive employment and decent work for all, and the role of ECOSOC in the integrated and coordinated implementation of the outcomes of and follow-up to major United Nations conferences and summits.  On the theme of the coordination segment, the centrality of the goals of full and productive employment and decent work for all, in national and international strategies to achieve the internationally agreed development goals, was agreed to by the largest gathering of world leaders ever at the 2005 World Summit, and reiterated last year in the Ministerial Declaration of ECOSOC.

The decision of the Council to devote its coordination segment to this theme offered the opportunity to assess the role of the United Nations system and the guidance the Council could give on effective ways to promote the realization of these goals, Mr. Davide said.  At the global level, the Commission for Social Development would devote its next policy review to the goals of full employment and decent work agenda and their interrelation with poverty eradication and social integration policies.  At the regional level, the United Nations’ regional commissions had drawn attention to the specific characteristics and challenges of various regions in promoting employment and decent work for all in the formulation of development policies and strategies, including on poverty reduction.  At the country level, the United Nations System Chief Executive Board for Coordination, led by the Secretary-General, had agreed to integrate these goals in the programmes of the United Nations agencies.  Many agencies had also focused on employment generation as a strategy to promote the reconstruction and development of countries in post-conflict situation.  There were several other collaboration initiatives underway that aimed at promoting a better understanding of the inter-linkages between the various policy areas relevant to the promotion of the employment and decent work agenda. 

The Council this year would have the opportunity to put forward concrete recommendations on how the United Nations system could effectively mainstream the goals of full employment and decent work in their programmes and activities and help to make these goals central to national development strategies, he said.  The Council had sought for years to promote a comprehensive approach to economic and social development, which took into account the linkages and possible synergies between the various goals and outcomes of the major United Nations conferences and summits.  The internationally agreed development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals, had increasingly become the framework for the work of the United Nations system.  In view of the need for the implementation processes to be closely linked with each other, the ECOSOC system had to play a pro-active role by identifying ways to enhance further collaboration and synergy in the on-going work of the different ECOSOC bodies, and in assessing how ECOSOC could best exercise its leadership to facilitate a desired positive outcome.

JOMO KWAME SUNDARAM, Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development, introducing the report of the Secretary-General on the role of the United Nations system in promoting full and productive employment and decent work for all, said employment generation and decent work had always been one of the central focus areas of the work of the United Nations.  Recently, the 2005 World Summit had helped to renew the United Nations' commitment to making employment generation and decent work a central objective of its work in the area of development.  The Ministerial Declaration of the Council in 2006 had clearly recognised that promoting the objectives of full and productive employment and decent work for all was a complex challenge that encompassed a broad range of economic and social polices at the global, regional and national levels. 

The report addressed three aspects of the United Nations system’s work in this area: current initiatives launched by the system both at the policy and operational levels; how these were promoting goals of productive employment and decent work at the global, regional and national levels; and what were the challenges being confronted by the United Nations system in translating these goals into a comprehensive policy framework for their activities.  At the policy level, functional commissions of the Council had focused on various dimensions of this goal.   The regional commissions had also made important progress in addressing specific regional dimensions in the formulation of appropriate policies and strategies for the achievement of these goals.  At the operational level, United Nations system entities had launched an array of initiatives to promote employment and decent work in their policies, programmes and operations supporting national efforts to achieve these goals. 

United Nations system agencies had also been individually addressing different dimensions and challenges of employment and decent work through their programmes and operations in support of national development and poverty-eradication efforts.  The Secretary-General’s report provided an overview of the work of various United Nations system agencies, and their collaborative efforts to create a conducive environment and build national capacity to implement the decent work agenda, including post-conflict situations.  The central challenge was to ensure that United Nations system entities adopted comprehensive policy frameworks that facilitated the integration of these goals in their work.  The report provided a number of recommendations on ways to strengthen the role of the United Nations system in promoting employment and decent work at various levels through its policies and activities.  Making full and productive employment and decent work for all a central objective of the United Nations system’s activities should be a system-wide effort. 

Mr. DAVIDE JR. (Philippines), Vice-President of the Economic and Social Council, said the general discussion on the Secretary-General’s report on the role of the United Nations system in promoting full and productive employment and decent work for all would be held at 3 p.m. on Monday, 12 July.

Panel Discussion

Mr. DAVIDE JR. ( Philippines), Vice-President of the Economic and Social Council, said that the 2006 Ministerial Declaration underscored the significance of full and productive employment and decent work for all as an end in itself and as a means to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, including poverty eradication.  On that occasion, Member States requested the United Nations funds, programmes and specialized agencies, and invited financial institutions to mainstream the employment and decent work objectives in their policies, programmes and activities.  The United Nations System Chief Executives Board for Coordination had been at the forefront of the efforts to promote the follow up to the Ministerial Declaration.  In this regard, the High-level Committee on Programmes of the United Nations System Chief Executives Board for Coordination decided to support the development of a Toolkit for Mainstreaming Employment and Decent Work and requested the International Labour Organization to take the lead in this effort.  The Toolkit was intended to encourage and assist agencies to take full account of the implications of their strategies, policies, programmes and activities on employment and decent work.

The Toolkit aimed at promoting greater policy coherence and synergies among United Nations system agencies and at enhancing their role in promoting employment and decent work for all through their action at the global, regional and national level.  The effective use of the Toolkit would require agencies to take several steps, including an initial assessment of how their current activities were interlinked with employment and decent work outcomes and how they might optimise employment outcomes.  It would also require agencies to identify capacity gaps and ways to fill them to ensure that the Toolkit could be used consistently throughout the system, especially at the country level.  The panel discussion provided an opportunity to hear from the United Nations system organizations about their progress in identifying and selecting their own knowledge-based tools, networks and good practices.  It would also be an opportunity to hear about the platform for the United Nations system to share knowledge and expertise and work together more effectively in promoting the employment and decent work objectives.     

MARIA ANGELICA DUCCI, Executive Director at the International Labour Organization (ILO) Director-General’s Office, said the work in creating the Toolkit represented a very concrete follow-up to the Ministerial Declaration of the Council in 2006, which underscored the importance of full and productive employment and decent work for all.  The objective of full and productive employment and decent work for all was embraced by all countries in 2005, since which the Council had taken it forward and had considered strategy on how to make this a global reality.  By this, it endorsed a concept which the ILO had been developing; namely what was decent work.  The mandate given to the multilateral system was to mainstream the concept.  The ILO was responding to those countries which needed a multilateral system in order to achieve these goals.

The Toolkit represented a great step forward.  The first objective of the Toolkit, which had been constructed cooperatively across the multilateral system, which should be emphasised in as of itself, was to better serve the coherence sought by countries in the United Nations system, around one objective which had been identified.  This issue had not been clearly included in the Millennium Development Goals in 2000, but in 2005 countries had wondered how they could get out of poverty without increasing employment figures.  The United Nations agencies had been briefed in order to be able to conduct a dialogue with countries in order to help in their operations and policy research, among other areas. 

The dialogue had taken place over a year, and the Toolkit had been constructed, following the decent work and employment agenda as set up by countries and agencies across the world.  A collective knowledge base was being constructed for the entire system, in order to facilitate progress.  The collective effort was a signal of what was happening in the multilateral system to identify issues where countries had common priorities, and to connect better in the system to ensure improved policy coherence.  Policies had to be made coherent to pursue the objectives of Member States and to assist them in achieving these.  This was a collaborative effort, and it was hoped that the ILO could show the level of its commitment to helping the system to put this into effect and to go very soon to the national level to test the Toolkit, and to work with constituents in countries to determine how it could serve at the national level. 

OLAV KJØRVEN, Assistant Administrator and Director of the Bureau for Development Policy at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), said that UNDP treated productive employment from a multi-dimensional perspective.  Employment was the missing link between economic growth and poverty reduction.  The gender aspect of employment was also crucial.  The notion of decent work was a holistic approach.  Employment was a crucial element of inclusive and equitable growth.  Studies had been undertaken in Egypt, Uzbekistan and Viet Nam, among other countries.  In addition, specific initiatives had led to national programmes like in Nepal and Yemen.  In Africa the issue of employment targeting versus inflation targeting was taken up in Ghana, for example.  The current initiative on decent work and poverty reduction had been started as a joint UNDP initiative.  The collaboration was initially between UNDP and the International Labour Organization (ILO) but the goal was to bring in more organizations.  A joint work plan, a week-long executive workshop and a high level joint UNDP-ILO mission were activities that had been undertaken. 

A rather new development was the establishment of a fund by the Government of Spain to support interagency work at the country level, Mr. Kjørven said.  It had a separate window for youth employment.  A related initiative was the Commission on the Legal Empowerment of the Poor.  It was meeting again in the coming week in New York to work on the first draft of the report.  It should come up with legal recommendations for the poor.  The commission had four focus areas, such as property rights, business and entrepreneurship opportunities, labour rights and access to justice as a cross cutting theme.  The topic had very much to do with women, who represented a large part of the poor and unemployed worldwide.  On the response to the Toolkit, extensive comments were provided on several topics.  The Toolkit had been tested in some Latin American countries.  Among the recommendations was a strong willingness to use the Toolkit into more programmes and to continue the strong collaboration with the ILO.

THEMBA N. MASUKU, Director of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Liaison Office in Geneva, said FAO and the International Labour Organization (ILO) had signed a Memorandum of Understanding in September 2004, which committed the two organizations to promoting decent and productive rural employment in agriculture and off-farm industries.  FAO took decent work seriously, as defined by ILO and endorsed by the international community.  FAO had contributed to the Toolkit in a number of ways, and consequently a number of FAO’s comments were included in the final version, which reflected adequately the reality of agricultural and rural employment.  FAO was especially committed to gender equality and the elimination of child labour in agriculture within the decent work agenda. 

FAO was planning to use the Toolkit to undertake a critical stock-taking of the impact of FAO’s activities in different areas on the creation of decent work.  It would also be used to assess in a systematic way FAO’s agricultural and rural development strategies, polices and programmes with the objective of achieving a better understanding of their impact on employment and decent work. As part of the implementation of the Toolkit, FAO considered training and sensitisation of the agency’s staff very important.

FAO was also interested in developing joint programmes in a few pilot countries, for example where United Nations system teams had been set up in the spirit of the United Nations Working as One policy.  FAO could develop, in collaboration with ILO and other interested agencies, indicators and tools that it could use to assess the employment impact of its work in rural areas - with particular attention to the impact on poverty, livelihoods and food security.  That way, FAO could link the employment goals and impacts to the organization’s central mandate and Millennium Development Goal One.

SUSANNE WEBER-MOSDORF, Assistant Director-General for Sustainable Development and Healthy Environment at the World Health Organization (WHO), said WHO had a long relationship with the International Labour Organization (ILO).  WHO strongly welcomed the decent work agenda and it was very committed to this common objective.  It was a huge agenda which needed concerted action and activities by all United Nations agencies.  Two months ago, during the World Health Assembly, a plan on workers’ health had been endorsed and would give WHO the strength to collaborate with ILO.  The global plan of action aimed to improve workers’ health.  Work related accidents and illness continued to increase.  Of particular concern was the increase of children working; there were 350 million of them.  Some 107 million children were engaged in hazardous work.  Occupational health was one field where WHO could make a difference in achieving the decent work agenda, together with other organizations. 

A strengthening of health systems to scale up basic health care for workers needed to be part of the development agenda, Ms. Weber-Mosdorf said.  Most of the workers in developing countries were employed in the informal sector.  More partnership with industry was welcomed on occupational health in developing countries.  An existing partnership with the International Labour Organization was proving guidance to countries on occupational health services.  A key area was the increase of access of workers in vulnerable areas as well as in the informal economy.  A basic package of occupational health services should be developed.  The primary prevention of occupational hazards was another important topic.  A hepatitis B immunisation campaign was being launched.  Another example of good cooperation was the chemical risk assessment toolkit to identify the risks and manage them better.  Strong linkages between occupational health conditions and general health conditions needed to be established. 

The protection of health workers was a paramount task because they were the most vulnerable, she said.  WHO recognized its responsibility to protect them from the many hazards they were exposed to.  The health sector itself was a growing sector and contributed in some countries significantly to economic growth, provided there was an investment in the workforce.  But it could be hindered if the migration rate of health workers continued to rise.   Safe environments were one of the most important reasons to migrate.  On the question of the missing link between poverty and growth, WHO welcomed the initiatives supporting the supplies for water and energy.  Globalization had chances and risks.  Those who were creating growth should enjoy a decent workplace. 

Discussion

Speakers then raised a number of issues and questions, including whether there were any alternatives being envisaged by the organizations for the guidance of the countries concerned to provide options with regards to how the growing number of unemployed could be provided with decent employment.  A speaker noted how useful it was to have been briefed by the different organizations on the process of creation and of fine-tuning of the Toolkit.  The Toolkit was a framework to implement full and productive employment and decent work for all, but its effectiveness at the country level remained to be proved, a speaker pointed out.  It was a useful starting point, another speaker said. 

ILO had the right approach, but did the panel agree that the Toolkit appeared quite overwhelming for those who were not used to the bureaucratic format, a speaker asked.  Agencies needed to prioritise and sequence programmes and policies.  Development should be achieved in human terms, and this applied not just to income, but also to the ability to achieve one’s aspirations, a speaker said, and in this respect, it should be explained how the access of migrants to decent work and health systems was being incorporated.  Did this first Toolkit mean an additional diagnosis on decent work, and would it lead to other work that would help to refine the process of coherence and coordination, another speaker asked. 

The concept of decent work lay in the integrated, multidisciplinary approach, and the purpose lay in the optimisation of work vis-à-vis other employment, and its success could be gauged by increased employment, thanks to the link between the latter and poverty reduction.  It should be developed, improved and refined in the light of experience in the field, and its use should take into account the priority that should be given to employment.  Another speaker raised the issue of microfinance, and whether there were any initiatives by the agencies to establish microcredit facilities.  The Toolkit should serve the entire system of global labour governance, a speaker said, asking how the agencies would verify how it was being used, both by the agencies and by countries, and how and when its impact would be measured.  Talking of decent work and employment required going back to the issue of education and training, a representative said. 

Mr. KJØRVEN, Assistant Administrator and Director of the Bureau for Development Policy at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), said that in terms of the proposals on generating employment, they would have to be country-specific.  UNDP would work closely with governments and other partners in the United Nations system to examine the available policy options for tackling the employment challenge.  UNDP was looking at the interface between trade and employment.  By this way, the gap could be looked at.  Through inclusive finance, such as micro finance, and the access to financial service, entrepreneurs could have access to the capital that they needed to expand and employ people.  The challenge in a country like Tanzania was to stimulate the economic activities that would be employment generating.  A programme there was cross cutting several dimensions, such as bringing the informal economy in touch with the formal. 

With regard to the lessons learnt, it was too early to say but this issue would be tracked closely, Mr. Kjørven said.  On the mainstreaming of the Toolkit, a commitment was made that it would be brought to the country level.  Regarding productivity versus employment, it was right that one had to give emphasis to the productivity dimension.  UNDP would not be making up the case of subsidising working programmes.  It was about the texture of growth.  In many countries the question was not productivity versus employment.  There was a fundamental difference between an economy, which was mostly formal, and one that was mostly informal.  It was thus a structural difference.  In many countries, access and inclusion were more important topics than productivity as such.

Ms. DUCCI, Executive Director at the International Labour Organization (ILO) Director-General’s Office, said the objective was to get as many people as possible aware of what this Toolkit was about.  The countries were in the driving seat when it came to policies -- what ILO was doing was to gather a span of policy options and also how-to tools.  It was the opening up of policy options and how they worked which was important.  Also, how these policies were applied and what their results had been was important.  On how to get to the country level, this was the first branching out of the Toolkit today, as ILO had wished to ensure it had the institutional background first, including the views of the whole system.  When going to the country level, the Toolkit should represent the views of the system, but the countries were so enthusiastic that it was already being used by country teams.

The Toolkit was currently a master document, and it needed to be adapted individually to the needs and situation of the country concerned.  The ILO was building a separate methodology to assist the agencies in responding to the questionnaire, it did give space for that, and included a number of objective bases and criteria which should be relied on, as well as filling in gaps.  As the process advanced, the knowledge base would be more complete.  There was a whole chapter dealing with migrant workers, and dealing with the problem from the point of view of full and productive employment and decent work for all had allowed for the formulation of consistent policies for a problem that was very complex.  There should not be a proliferation of Toolkits - this one was a very pragmatic tool, and the next would be even better, more and more adapted, and with the United Nations system ensuring coherence. 

Mr. MASUKU, Director of the Liaison Office of the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) in Geneva, said that as the initiative was rolled out, the concerns raised were noted.  On the question from Pakistan relating to the diminution of agriculture productivity, there were many factors that led to declining productivity, such as climate change among others.  FAO undertook analytical work and provided policy advice and proposed solutions, such as seeds taking a short time before being harvested.  With regard to the question of understanding the concept of decent work, the issue of training had been raised in the presentation.  On migrant work, it had been adequately covered throughout the discussion.  But migrant work was a challenge.  It was a complex issue, because there were national and international movements, and women were also involved.  Regarding the improvement of the Toolkit, it was a new thing and the organization was also learning.  That was why the briefing in New York was welcomed.  Investment was very key to whatever was done.  The 2003 Maputo Declaration was mentioned in relation to investment.  If there was no investment, there would be a major disaster. 

Ms. WEBER-MOSDORF, Assistant Director-General for Sustainable Development and Healthy Environments at the World Health Organization (WHO), said there was no choice - there was a need for better calibration at the country and at the global level, with or without the Toolkit.  The Toolkit should strengthen collaboration with other United Nations organizations and agencies, in the light of country needs and agency mandates.  The issue was how to measure progress in a more effective way, not in a bureaucratic or mechanical way.  In implementing the Toolkit, migrant work would be examined, as migrant workers were those who were the most un-served.  The creation of employment in the health sector was very important, and there were various innovative ways to do so.

WHO advocated the employment of skilled health workers, as without them health problems in developing countries could not be tackled, even if funds were increasing and activities were being duplicated in the field.  Effective health systems were vital for economic growth. 

* *** *

For information media • not an official record