GENEVA (ILO News) - Addressing the Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly in Geneva today, Mr. Juan Somavia, the Director-General of the ILO, told delegates that "the benefits of the global economy have not reached enough people".
He warned of a "growing gap between discourse and deeds, because those with the power to change policies have not done so" in the five years since the first UN World Summit for Social Development, which was held in Copenhagen in 1995.
On the results since Copenhagen, Mr. Somavia argued that "basically, the notions of the Social Summit have permeated policy talk, have had some influence on policymaking and very little effect on policy action".
Since the Copenhagen Summit, Mr. Somavia said, "it is now widely agreed there must be a social pillar to the global economy and poverty eradication has become a legitimate political objective". He added that the "critical role of social policy is generally accepted in international and national policy debates, including in the Bretton Woods institutions, and gender issues are becoming more prominent".
But this consensus has yet to be translated into concrete action: "Poverty", Mr. Somavia said, "has risen in absolute terms. Central and Eastern Europe continue to suffer; Latin American unemployment is at historical highs; East Asia has undergone great social trauma; and Africa continues to be largely excluded from the benefits of globalization." For many people throughout the world "there is greater inequality and insecurity", he added, while acknowledging that "personal responsibility, entrepreneurship and appropriate government policies have yielded some success stories".
To counter the negative trends, Mr. Somavia insisted that: "We need to reassert solidarity. We need to reestablish a basic sense of common purpose and security for all: people, families, communities and countries." He argued that "The real impact on people must become the driving factor in the design of economic policies."
Calling upon the private sector to increasingly assume its social responsibilities, Mr. Somavia said that "beyond the bottom line, enterprise must be accountable to stakeholders and community". Although governments today often have fewer resources and are less inclined to intervene in economic decision making, Mr. Somavia insisted that "the State must perform its function of ensuring a balance between the force of the market and the needs of society. Yes to a market economy, no to a market society". He added that "we need to globalize social progress".
He said that "the neoliberal economic policies that underlie the present global economy have failed to deliver what people need: a basic sense of security".
The current General Assembly Session is being held with the aim of advancing the global social development agenda that was set at the Copenhagen Summit, at which Mr. Somavia served as Secretary General. That gathering, Mr. Somavia noted "concluded that employment is the means to overcome poverty and exclusion" and he applauded the delegates to the follow-up conference for reaching agreement on the call for "a coherent and coordinated international strategy on employment".
He said that the ILO had expressed this goal as " decent work". "Decent work is what people aspire to. It is not a straitjacket or a one size fits all solution", Mr. Somavia explained. It is above all "work that corresponds to the reasonable, diverse goals of individuals, cultures and societies in different development realities".
"We need decent work for all workers, women and men, formal and informal, waged and self-employed. They all need work where basic rights are respected, people are protected and represented and where economic and social efficiency are pursued hand in hand. That's the real development goal", explained Mr. Somavia.
"To achieve decent work", the ILO Director-General said, "the policies guiding and shaping the global economy must change". New policies "must generate productive employment and greater personal opportunity since this is the key to poverty reduction and to economic and social inclusion for the millions who have been bypassed or hurt by globalization".
He said that to be effective, new policies must "support initiative and enterprise, large and especially small, since enterprises will be the main engine of employment growth".
"They must promote greater socioeconomic security and improved labour standards since this is what matters most to people. People want dignity in their lives."
Mr. Somavia highlighted the need for "an integrated and coherent approach to economic, social and environmental policies", adding that "we must strengthen the regulatory frameworks at the global level to tame the excesses of the market, to protect the basic rights of people and to realize the right to development".
In this regard, he characterized the adoption of the ILO Declaration on fundamental principles and rights at work in 1998 as "a significant step forward since the Social Summit", which if successfully realized, "will provide a badly needed social floor to the global economy".
"We must also respect the self-empowerment of those that we now call the voiceless and vulnerable and support their struggles to attain social justice."
Acknowledging that no organization can hope to meet these goals alone, Mr. Somavia called for "a new coalition bringing the key actors in the new global environment together around common values and goals".
He said this coalition should include "governments, business, representatives of workers, parliamentarians, local authorities, voices representative of civil society and the international system. Together they have the power to change policies. If all work in partnership, the goals of the Social Summit can be reached".