I am delighted to welcome all of you to this International Consultation on Follow-up to the World Summit for Social Development. Your presence here is an expression of the importance you give to the issue of people's development. As the turn of the century approaches, all of our societies are facing new opportunities but also new uncertainties and insecurities.
As never before, the challenge before us is to develop the capacity to understand problems through the eyes of people. We must learn to project the impact of any policy on the lives of individual human beings, their families and the communities in which they live. We have to make the connection between an unemployed person, an unhappy family, and a depressed community. Conversely, when things go well we should understand the combination of policies that made it possible.
In this respect, the Heads of State in Copenhagen said it very clearly. "We acknowledge that the people of the world have shown in different ways an urgent need to address profound social problems, especially poverty, unemployment and social exclusion, that affect every country. It is our task to address both their underlying and structural causes and their distressing consequences in order to reduce uncertainty and insecurity in the life of people."
At the beginning of this decade, when I was promoting and later chairing the preparation of the Social Summit, I could have hardly foreseen that in 1999 I would be Director-General of the specialized agency of the United Nations which is perhaps closest in spirit to the content of so many of the commitments made at Copenhagen. The ILO is well placed to contribute to the next stage of the Social Summit process, particularly the special session of the General Assembly here in Geneva next year. Ambassador Maquieira, the Chairperson of the preparatory committee for Geneva 2000 will shortly says a few words on how that process is developing. I have also taken the opportunity of this meeting to organize a very short briefing session on Geneva 2000.
The ILO is an organization with its own well tested procedures. It is based on a set of values which are never likely to lose their validity, encompassing as they do equity, social justice and common sense. ILO instruments enshrine these values and principles. But these principles need to be turned into acceptable and implementable policies and programmes in which Governments, business, workers and relevant civil society actors develop partnerships and dialogues to reach our goal of decent work for all. In many ways, all four strategic objectives of the ILO - Rights at Work, Employment, Social Protection and Social Dialogue - are a contribution to the implementation of the commitments adopted in Copenhagen. In particular, the ILO's tripartite structure is in itself a contribution to a better understanding of socio-economic issues in real life.
Certainly it has been generally accepted that the Social Summit was a consensus-building success, but its goals remain to be fully realized. Its commitments continue to give legitimacy and guidance to many activities of the United Nations system and serve to keep many governments up to the mark in living up to their words and promises.
The Social Summit identified seven ILO conventions as the social floor of the emerging global economy. By doing so, it upgraded the principles and rights promoted by these conventions into major global objectives to be pursued by the international community as a whole. There is no turning back on that decision. It will be and must be a central component of national policies and international governance for a more just and stable world.
To advance the implementation of this decision, the ILO has, since Copenhagen, adopted its Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. Its objective is to help these rights become a reality in practice. First, we will put basic information on the table on a regular basis. The Annual Reports to the Governing Body in March and my report to next year's Conference will be the first in a series of follow-up reports on how the Principles and Rights of the Declaration are being applied. Second, it will permit discussion with countries on how the Office can give technical assistance to all constituents on their better and further application and review progress achieved. Third, it will serve as a basis for promotional and advocacy activities. Fourth, it will reinforce the normal supervisory machinery of conventions.
In my report I intend to stress the positive contribution of social dialogue in coming to a genuinely common understanding and resolving socio-economic problems. ILO Convention No. 182 on the elimination of the worst forms of child labour is also a practical contribution to the implementation of the Declaration and Social Summit objectives.
I refer also to the efforts of the Bretton Woods Institutions. I welcome particularly the IMF's initiative together with the World Bank to develop a new strategy for poverty reduction that will be the cornerstone of their combined efforts in this area. I also welcome the encouraging developments in the work of the World Bank reflected in the promotion of the comprehensive development framework and of good practices in social policy. In September I represented ILO at meetings of both the Interim Committee of the International Monetary Fund and the Development Committee of the World Bank. To both of them I pointed out that we could all contribute better to reducing poverty if greater attention is given to the world of work in the further development of an integrated framework for development policies. I stressed that employment and different forms of income-generating activities are the source of livelihood for most people. They normally constitute the first steps out of extreme poverty. They are equally essential for ensuring a sense of participation in economic and social life. An enabling environment for entrepreneurship and enterprise creation is key in this respect.
Employment is not just a conduit for ensuring that incomes are shared out. It is also an essential part of many people's daily lives. It is not always a pleasant part, conditions of work may not be adequate and the poor are quite likely to be overworked. The world is full of working poor who have not left a life of poverty.
The ILO is founded on the belief that everyone at work has rights. We are also concerned with achieving decent work for all. How, one may ask, does a so-called independent informal sector operator have rights? Obviously it is very difficult to jump from a situation of extreme poverty to the enjoyment of full and secure employment. The process requires years of sound policies and steady development. People need to be empowered to take advantage of the opportunities that sound policies can deliver.
The different institutions of the international community have an enormous responsibility to give the appropriate and differentiated policy advice which is a precondition for steady, equitable and sustainable growth. The time of one-size-fits-all solutions is over.
The world economy must operate in ways which open the door to the great advantages of open societies and open economies while acknowledging the specificity of national situations, culture and practices. It also needs better governance. Its benefits are not reaching enough people and the backlash is brewing. Democracy, to be sustainable, must be based on fairness and social inclusion.
Possibly, the most important challenge facing us is to make markets work for everybody. Suggestions are welcome. We know well that when the three billion people who live with under two dollars a day become mainstream consumers, we will enjoy a long term cycle of sustainable economic growth and increasingly stable communities. We know it. But the policies to make it happen soon are not yet in place.
It is equally an absolute cornerstone of the ILO's values and beliefs that workers' rights are not part of a zero sum game, to be traded off against an equal and opposite notion of employers' obligations. Many workers' rights, like freedom of association and the capacity to organize without hindrance are truly citizens' rights and human rights. They are not subject to negotiation. They are part and parcel of a just and democratic society. Work practices have to adapt to these realities.
Other components of decent work are more contingent and variable and are linked to development processes. Perhaps they cannot all be achieved at once. Others again may be an expression of appropriate human behaviour in a very basic sense, like treating people decently as a normal attitude in life. At another level, we have to understand the value of decent work as a productive factor.
The notion of decent work thus spans the economic and social domains in ways that go beyond classical labour market analysis and welfare policies. It is an essential part of the optimal way in which societies operate, informing policy decisions, allowing a wide range of choice and all options to be expressed and providing the background of basic social confidence and consensus against which necessary change with stability can take place.
Let me finish by inviting you to be creative and imaginative, daring to go beyond traditional notions in the search for new solutions to the obviously new problems that the global economy has brought about.
Copenhagen + 5 in the Geneva 2000 setting is an opportunity for new initiatives. Let's make the most of it.