Setting the development agenda beyond 2015

The meeting is the first in a series of global consultations aimed at fostering dialogue amongst multi-stakeholder experts on issues relating to growth, structural change, productive capacities, and employment, as these issues are likely to bear an impact both on the current Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the post-2015 development agenda. The meeting to be held 15-16 May 2012 at the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) is supported by the Japanese Government and organized jointly by the United Development Programme (UNDP) and the International Labour Organization (ILO).

Recognizing employment as one of the main means to achieve a sustainable development path on the way to Rio+20, the Post-2015 agenda needs a policy rethink to reverse the current employment trends. This consultation is an attempt to shed light on the prospects for employment creation within new patterns in growth and structure of the global economy.

Since 2000, the MDGs have played an important role in global cooperation for development. But the global landscape has shifted: global crises of the past years, un- and underemployment, climate change, have now become the main concerns of billions of people worldwide. Global unemployment is estimated to be nearly 200 million in 2012 and is projected to grow further. Each year 45 million young women and men enter the labour market. Jobs need to be created. Decent jobs, green jobs.

At the same time, economies are facing a number of major structural shifts including the need to move to low-carbon bases. Technological developments that are labour-saving in nature are widening the gap between low-skilled and high-skilled people. Developing economies face the need make a structural shift away from primary production to industry and services.

It is now globally recognized that growth alone is not a sufficient condition for employment generation, despite it being a necessary condition. Also, the structural changes the world economy is undergoing do not seem to be conducive to employment creation. These two factors explain the employment crisis and the subsequent inequity, exclusion and unsustainable human development. Beyond inequity in income distribution, the labour market, mainly in the developing economies, is closely related to exclusion. Hence, this series of thematic and national consultations is set to develop a new agenda that reflects the emerging challenges and the changing development model.

Participants will address key issues:

• Can the world economy create such volume of jobs which are needed? Can we ensure the new jobs are productive and decent?
• What kind of ‘new industrial policy’ is needed that recognizes the structural shifts unfolding and provides incentives for building productive capacity in employment-intensive sectors?
• What are the policy options for incentivizing agricultural productivity and small-scale enterprises that are notably employment generating sectors?
• What are the new education and skill sets required for the ‘knowledge economy’? How to raise skills for all those working in the informal economy?
• How do we manage the labour market transition to ‘de-carbonized’ economies of the future?
• How will the emerging economies be a new source of the sustained global demand necessary to reverse the employment crisis?
• In what way the goals of inclusion, equity and inequalities, as described above, can be achieved by global and domestic policy responses?

As discussions have already begun on the goals, indicators and targets that could build on and succeed the MDGs, this meeting is expected to offer key insights and inputs into a broader, open and inclusive intergovernmental process on options for a post-2015 development framework, which will be carried throughout 2015 and beyond.