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5.0 Decent work, poverty eradication and policy coherence: Working Out of Poverty
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| Guest post by: International Labour Organization |
Article Overview: Over the next ten years, over 1 billion young people, today aged between 5 and 15, will enter the working-age population. However, the global economy is not well organized to make full use of the enormous potential of their skills, energy and ambition to fight against poverty and make development sustainable. Today’s working life offers opportunities to some, but lowpaid work, unemployment and poverty to a great many.
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Free Download - References: Learning to change: Skills development among the economically vulnerable and socially excluded in developing countries By International Labour Organization |
5.0 Decent work, poverty eradication and policy coherence: Working Out of Poverty
Over the next ten years, over 1 billion young people, today aged between
5 and 15, will enter the working-age population. However, the global
economy is not well organized to make full use of the enormous potential of
their skills, energy and ambition to fight against poverty and make development
sustainable. Today’s working life offers opportunities to some, but lowpaid
work, unemployment and poverty to a great many.
●
The world’s labour force is increasing by about 50 million people each
year, as the number of new entrants exceeds those who stop working;
97 per cent of this increase is in developing countries.
●
About half of the over 1 billion people living on US$1 a day or less in
developing and transition countries are of working age (between 15 and
64). Despite often long and hard days of toil, they do not earn enough
for themselves or their families to live above bare subsistence levels.
●
180 million people are unemployed worldwide,
1
and almost half of
them are young people aged under 24.
These alarming trends form the background to major concern about
high levels of youth unemployment all over the world, particularly in developing
countries with fast-growing populations. This concern prompted the
United Nations Millennium Summit to resolve to “develop and implement
strategies that give young people everywhere a real chance to find decent
and productive work”. Subsequently, the United Nations Secretary-General
invited the ILO to lead a Youth Employment Network to catalyse national
and international action. Building on the recommendations of a high-level
panel, the Network is focusing on employability, equal opportunities, entrepreneurship
and employment creation as key issues for national action programmes. One of the means of assuring decent work for the current and
future generations of young people has to be “making full employment an overarching goal for global economic and social strategies and for national
policies”, as emphasized by the high-level panel in its recommendations.
Let me recap some major points made in preceding chapters.
We need to view global challenges through the eyes of people living in
poverty. Progress on all the Millennium Development Goals requires action
in local communities all over the developing world to promote decent work.
Social, economic and political empowerment of people and their communities
is essential. Their fight against poverty is directly linked to the realization
of basic human rights, especially those concerned with the freedom to
work in conditions of equity, security and human dignity.
The analytical work of the ILO and experience of projects and programmes
with communities vulnerable to poverty show that we can generate
a virtuous cycle in which work is better rewarded, social and economic security
is increased and community infrastructure enhanced. For enterprises and
communities to develop, however, an enabling macroeconomic framework
that promotes growth in employment and productivity is needed. If national
strategies for poverty reduction are to succeed, they must be supported by
international action to improve developing countries’ access to export markets
and investment finance.
The theme of this concluding chapter of the report is linking local empowerment
to comprehensive pro-poor and pro-jobs national strategies and
global action for sustainable development.
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About the Author: International Labour Organization RSS for International's articles - Visit International's website As the world's only tripartite multilateral agency, the ILO is dedicated to bringing decent work and livelihoods, job-related security and better living standards to the people of both poor and rich countries. It helps to attain those goals by promoting rights at work, encouraging opportunities for decent employment, enhancing social protection and strengthening dialogue on work-related issues. The ILO is the international meeting place for the world of work. We are the experts on work and employment and particularly on the critical role that these issues play in bringing about economic development and progress. At the heart of our mission is helping countries build the institutions that are the bulwarks of democracy and to help them become accountable to the people. The ILO formulates international labour standards in the form of Conventions and Recommendations setting minimum standards of basic labour rights: freedom of association, the right to organize, collective bargaining, abolition of forced labour, equality of opportunity and treatment and other standards addressing conditions across the entire spectrum of work-related issues. Click here to visit International's website 114 Our common challenge Working Out of Poverty Preface Working Out of Poverty 513 Gender Working Out of Poverty 52 International economic integration and social justice Working Out of Poverty 22 Wasting opportunities Working Out of Poverty |
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