4 March 2022
From 22 to 24 February 2022, the International Labour Organization (ILO) held a virtual Global Forum to strengthen the international community’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and discuss concrete actions to put the millions of people who have been deeply impacted by this crisis at the centre of the recovery.
The high-level brought together Heads of State and Government, heads of international organizations and multilateral development banks, and employers’ and workers’ leaders from around the world. It examined actions and investments needed to promote decent jobs and inclusive economic growth, universal social protection, sustainable enterprises, and a just transition towards a carbon-neutral global economy. In short, the Global Forum laid the foundations of a plan to build a more inclusive and sustainable future. This action followed the adoption at the June 2021 International Labour Conference of the for a human-centred recovery that is inclusive, sustainable and resilient.
The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated the world of work: our latest estimates project a deficit in hours worked globally equivalent to relative to the fourth quarter of 2019, our pre-pandemic benchmark. The crisis has brought new challenges and exposed and crystalized existing ones, such as inequality and poverty. The outlook remains fragile and the path to recovery is slow and uncertain. The losses will be far from recovered even in 2022. Much will still depend on how the pandemic evolves.
To tackle this crisis, we need to act globally at the international level with a human-centred focus. In this respect, the Global Forum provided an opportunity to advance a more networked, inclusive and effective form of multilateralism that, in the words of United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, “draws together existing institutional capacities, overcoming fragmentation to ensure all are working together towards a common goal.” In the current context, that goal is to increase the coherence of the international response to the profoundly unequal nature of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on people.
As often happens in a crisis, the most vulnerable suffered more than others: those working in the informal economy——who lost their incomes and livelihoods without any form of social protection; the low-paid and less-skilled who lost their jobs and did not have the option to continue their work from home; women who worked in the sectors most affected by the pandemic and had to take care of their families; and young people, faced with an almost impossible transition from school to work with even fewer jobs available than before the crisis. We need to put them all at the centre of the recovery.
We also need to address a worrying “great divergence” in recovery trends that is deepening inequalities within and among countries and weakening the economic, financial and social fabric of almost every nation, regardless of development status. This damage is likely to take years to repair, with potential long-term consequences for labour force participation, household incomes and social and political cohesion.
At ILO, our task is to ensure that the world of work emerges from this unprecedented crisis not weakened but strengthened. There can be no real recovery from this pandemic without a broad-based labour market recovery. And to be sustainable, this recovery must be based on the principles of decent work—including health and safety, equity, social protection and social dialogue. We need to find the tools and the policies that will ensure that no one is left behind. This is what the high-level Global Forum for a Human-centred Recovery was all about.
A key issue for discussion was how to implement the Global Accelerator on Jobs and Social Protection for a Just Transition, launched by the Secretary-General during the General Assembly in September 2021. The goals of this proposal are ambitious: generate the investments and resources required to create at least 400 million new jobs, including in the green, digital and care economies; extend social protection floors to the more than 50 per cent of the global population without any access to social protection; and scale up climate action for jobs to accelerate progress towards a carbon-neutral global economy.
Instead of reverting to our previous models as we move towards recovery, let us examine how we can do this in a new direction. We must aim to build back better so that our new systems are safer, fairer and more sustainable than before the pandemic—and more effective in cushioning the consequences of future crises on people around the globe. This will require global solidarity and an unrelenting commitment to protect everyone. We are only as strong as the most vulnerable among us.
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