Panellists at a special forum at the ongoing centenary International Labour Conference have said recent waves of globalisation in international trade and finance have increased global inequality, widened the gap between the world’s richest and the poorest.
The panellists, who are economic experts from across the world, noted that disparities in income and wealth distribution are growing, despite the fact that extreme poverty has been reduced.
They argued that although most economies are growing, large portions of the world’s workforce experience real wage stagnation.
The experts added that while women’s economic contributions are growing, gender inequalities still persist.
The Director General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Roberto Carvalho de Azevêdo, said trying to apply “old fixes” at a time of major structural changes across the globe “is not going to work”.
According to him, necessary remedies must be applied largely by government “in domestic politics.
de Azevêdo noted that international organisations have a big role to play, particularly in identifying the problems, proposing solutions and instigating the discussion at the domestic level “so we can have movement and progress in the right direction”.
ILO’s Director General Guy Ryder stressed the need to move away from the view that increasing inequality “is the price we have to pay to keep the global economy growing”.
Ryder said: “It’s time to revisit these old models. They go to the heart of what the world of work is doing at this conference, on the occasion of our centenary. We would like to start to construct the answers to what it takes to have a more equitable future of work. Whilst the ILO has a big part of that job to do …this is not a job for us alone.”
The General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, Sharan Burrow, expressed the belief that there is a “need to change the way we do business because the model is broken”.
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She added: “We have to learn to work for a global economy that is in the interest of growth, but growth that is shared, that is inclusive and that is in the interests of people and of sustainable business.”
The French government’s representative on the ILO’s governing body and the Labour and Employment Task Officer to the G7 and G20 groupings, Anousheh Karvar said: “The G7 countries, the G7 labour ministers, call for a better integration of international labour standards in three areas in which the Philadelphia Declaration has been our inspiration: these are international finance, trade and the future of work.”
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) in Niger Republic, Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, said African countries have some of the fastest-growing yet most unequal economies in the world.
He said: “We quickly realised that development is not equal to strong economic growth because strong economic growth does not automatically lead to inclusive growth. The best and simplest definition that can be given of inclusive growth is the creation of decent jobs.”
Vice President of the World Bank Group in charge of the 2030 Development Agenda United Nations Relations and Partnerships, Mahmoud Mohieldin, said there is a need for “investment in human capital”.
This, he noted, encompassed “investment in universal health, universal education and investment in early childhood with sufficient attention given to the gender dimension”.
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