GENEVA (ILO News) ─ World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick cited on Monday increasing ties with the International Labour Organization in pursuit of “an inclusive and sustainable globalization” and a broad range of other issues of joint concern including job creation and other elements of the ILO’s Decent Work Agenda.
In an address to the ILO’s Governing Body, his first to a UN specialized agency since becoming President of the World Bank, Mr. Zoellick said his organization, the ILO and other international agencies should intensify efforts to forge a globalization that can “help to overcome poverty, to enhance growth with care for the environment and to create individual opportunity and hope”.
“We welcome your experience and insight” he said, noting that the World Bank’s agenda “connects quite well with the Decent Work Agenda”. He also said the Bank was “very pleased … to try to build a closer working relationship with the ILO across an agenda that also involves other partners” and to promote cooperation with the ILO’s tripartite constituents in what Governing Body Chairman H.E. Mr. Dayan Jayatilleka of Sri Lanka called “partnership through dialogue”.
Mr. Zoellick cited a number of areas of joint concern to the Bank and the ILO including developing skills, helping workers adjust to change and expanding efforts on gender issues. He also said the Bank and the ILO were managing joint projects, including the Better Work initiative for improving working conditions, the Youth Employment Network, projects with the ILO and UNICEF against child labour and cooperation in the fields of migration and microfinance.
Discussing the logic of an inclusive globalization he said, “In effect, what we are trying to do at the World Bank is something very similar to what you are doing at the ILO. We are trying to develop a new multilateralism for changed circumstances, we are trying to make multilateralism work in a different environment.”
“We have a vision of an inclusive and sustainable globalization”, he said. “What this comes down to, at the end of the day, is people. It’s trying to improve the lot of people across the globe. And that requires quality jobs, it requires better social conditions, and it requires opportunities for individual development in achieving aspirations… We can’t leave people behind.”
In his introduction of Mr. Zoellick to the Governing Body, ILO Director-General Juan Somavia cited increased cooperation between the ILO and World Bank, and noted that the ILO tripartite members could provide a “vital conduit” for extending efforts to create jobs and reduce poverty at all levels of the world of work.
Citing increasing global economic turbulence, Mr. Somavia said “social dialogue is particularly important in difficult times and a key component in finding solutions”. He said tripartism could help bring together governments, workers and employers as a “social capital” for addressing the challenges of globalization and decent work.
“We have a lot going and I think we can do a lot more together”, Mr. Somavia said.
In comments from the Governing Body, workers' group spokesman Sir Roy Trotman stressed the importance of respect for the rights to freedom of association and recalled that "all international policies should be directed to meet the needs of working men and women". He voiced concerns that the current financial crisis could have dire consequences for workers, the working poor, as well as progress towards the Millennium Development Goals of halving poverty by 2015. He also called on the Bank to "rethink" the Employing Workers Indicator of its annual Doing Business Report, adding, "Labour is not a commodity and must therefore be removed from ‘Doing Business'".
The spokesperson of the employers’ group, Daniel Funes de Rioja cited the close relations between his group and the Bank, adding that employers sought “labour market policies that are inclusive and that aim to provide protection to all in the workplace – not just a few in the formal economy but also those in the informal economy – and promoting productive employment and sustainable enterprises”. He also cited the Doing Business Reports which he said employers in all regions regard as a useful tool in initiating dialogue on reforming legislative frameworks.
The presentation was followed by a discussion of the impact of the global credit crunch on economic prospects and job creation for 2008, as well as policies to promote multilateral cooperation and decent work.