ILO side event: Decent Work and Social Protection Floors for Sustainable Development

The new vision of development links economic growth with low environmental impact, social inclusion and decent jobs. This requires a strong social pillar of sustainable development and policies which reinforce the synergies and mitigate the trade-offs between the environmental, economic and social pillars.

The transition to a greener, fairer and sustainable development will create opportunities but also enormous challenges. With the right policies, such transformation can lead to social inclusion and more and better jobs. It provides significant opportunities for the creation of new jobs in sustainable enterprises, for the upgrading of existing jobs to lift millions out of poverty and to improve livelihood through access to basic social protection and services in the form of social protection floors.

At Rio+20, the ILO will hold the side event "Decent work and Social Protection Floors for Sustainable Development". Stakeholders from Brazil, India and South Africa will showcase successful experiences of coherent policies and effective programmes linking social protection, employment, economic and environmental issues.

The side event will be held on Friday, 22 June, from 1:00 to 2:30 pm at the Rio Convention Centre.
(See full agenda)

The side event will launch a major initiative that, building on the UN Chief Executive Board (CEB) initiative concerning social protection floors, proposes to strengthen the capacity of national governments and stakeholders to design and implement integrated social protection floor policies, including synergies with environmental policies, leveraging South-South and Triangular Cooperation.