EU Presidency Statement - ECOSOC High Level Segment

Mr. President,

I have the honour to speak on behalf of the European Union.

The Acceding Countries Bulgaria and Romania, the Candidate Countries Turkey, Croatia* and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia , the Countries of the Stabilisation and Association Process and potential candidates Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia as well as Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova align themselves with this declaration.

1. 
   
   
2. In September 2005, when the World Leaders at the UN Summit resolved "to support fair globalization and to make the goals of full and productive employment and decent work for all, including for women and young people, a central objective of [all] relevant national and international policies", the European Union willingly gave its full support to this paragraph 47 of the Summit Outcome Document.
   
   
3. The 2005 World Summit expressed unprecedented support for decent work as a global goal. This strong support provides an excellent platform for the mobilisation of all actors involved. A fair globalisation, productive employment and decent work for all must indeed be central to the United Nations' broad development vision and its operations.
   
   
4. At the European Union level, the Lisbon strategy consists of a set of integrated and mutually reinforcing economic, employment and social policies aiming at meeting these challenges. It consists of economic performance, investment in human capital and social cohesion, the quality of work, a high level of social protection and the key role of social dialogue in policy making. It has recently been refocused on three strategic areas: investing in knowledge and innovation; making Europe a more attractive place to work and invest; and creating more and better jobs.
   
   
5. The concept of Decent Work was proposed, developed and brought to global awareness by the ILO. The World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization internalised the concept and strengthened its position on the international agenda. The European Union Heads of State and Government have underlined the importance of strengthening the social dimension of globalisation in the light of the World Commission Report.
   
   
   
6. The European Union emphasizes the need to promote decent work for all in EU relations and cooperation programmes with third countries and regions. This encourages consistency between the internal and the external policies of the EU. In simple terms, we aim for European aid, development and trade policy that is coherent with the European Social Model.
   
   
7. The European Consensus on Development Policy emphasizes that the EU will contribute to strengthening the social dimension of globalisation, promoting employment and decent work for all, and making migration a positive factor for development. Combating poverty will be successful only if equal importance is given to investing in people, protecting natural resources, securing rural livelihoods, and investing in wealth creation.
   
   
8. The European Consensus regards employment as a crucial factor to achieve a high level of social cohesion. It commits for the first time the whole Union, meaning the European Community and the Member states, not only as Members of the Council but also as bilateral donors. It also focuses on the efforts of the European Institutions and the Member states on the improvement of the coordination, consistency and complementarity of the action they take.
   
   
9. The European perspective on Decent Work for All in the World is put forward by a Communication that the European Commission tabled just a month ago. This theme is on the agenda also in the dialogues between the European Union and other regions, most recently in the Latin American Summit in May. We also encourage the dialogue and cooperation between the World Trade Organization, the Bretton Woods institutions and the International Labour Organisation aimed at promoting decent work for all.
   
   Mr Chairman,
   
   
10. To summarize: The European Union is committed to paying greater attention to productive employment and decent work, which means productive employment and decent work for all women and men, in conditions of freedom, equity, security and human dignity. We will underline this commitment from a social development perspective through our engagement in next year's session of the Commission on Social Development, which will deal with the issue of "Promoting full employment and decent work for all".
    
    
11. Now it is the time to implement these commitments, in all countries, especially in the poorest countries. In the European Union we believe that the Decent Work Country Programmes should be incorporated in national poverty reduction and growth strategies, as well as in development cooperation policies.
    
    
    
12. The four key pillars of the ILO Decent Work Agenda are employment, fundamental principles and rights at work, social protection, and social dialogue. They are all equally important. Labour is often the only valuable asset of poor people. Therefore, efforts to reduce poverty must include job creation, social protection, social rights, the promotion of gender equality and knowledge and skills development. In this context we would like to underline implementing the core conventions of the ILO and the close links existing between decent work and economic growth.
    
    
13. We have to remember whom we are talking about: Of the over 2.8 billion workers in the world, nearly half are underemployed or do not earn enough to lift themselves and their families above the 2-dollar-a-day poverty line. Many of them are women. Many poor people may not even dream of formal jobs in the sense we understand the word 'job'. Many of them are entrepreneurs in the real sense of the word, taking risk and earning their living from a combination of agricultural and non-farm livelihoods, struggling to make these livelihoods secure and sustainable.
    
    
14. Every society needs entrepreneurs. In developing countries it often takes special courage to be an entrepreneur. The business environment is unpredictable, risks are difficult to manage, and the tolerance of poor families for failure is smaller than in rich societies with institutionalised business risk management and social protection systems.
    
    
15. Poor households often try to reduce their vulnerability to risks by engaging in low productivity and low profitability economic activities and by sending family members away from home to support household income. Girls and women are more and more affected by this development. While this development may empower some of them economically, it often renders them more vulnerable. The availability of reliable social protection instruments is good for growth since it encourages people to move to higher-risk and higher-profit activities.
    
    
16. Reliable social protection means that people do not have to fall back on coping strategies that can lead to permanent poverty and irreversible losses of human capital, such as selling productive assets and not being able to educate children. The promotion of social protection systems should be extended by efforts to strengthen social inclusion to cover those excluded from current systems taking into account national needs and priorities..
    
    
17. Through social dialogue employers and workers' representatives have a voice in the world of work. Governments, employers and workers should work together to agree systems that stimulate and protect investments in human capital. Agreements made through collective bargaining, backed up by the actions of the state, can provide responsive social protection systems that are good for employers, employees, the unemployed and the national economy.
    
    
    
18. Decent work country programmes need to take into account national priorities and specifities, that strengthen ownership, contribute to better mobilising resources and to strengthen policy coherence and to facilitate cooperations with donors. Governments should also ensure the involvement of female and male workers and employers as this contributes to the success of structural reforms, maintain the social support for those reforms, and ensure that the benefits are widely distributed.
    
    
19. There is a need to design labour market institutions that provide both flexibility and security. In many developing countries such "flexicurity systems" have to serve not only the needs of enterprises and workers of the formal, but also of the informal sector, in which the majority of men and women are engaged. This entails developing sustainable social protection systems with broader and effective coverage, and, for instance, an adequate mix of individual contributions and systemic solidarity.
    
    
20. In Sub-Saharan Africa, women contribute 60 to 80 per cent of the labour in food production both for household consumption and for sale. We need to re-focus our efforts on rural development with a view to expanding employment, productivity and market access - but not only to the ports and export markets, but also to the domestic and cross-border markets, which often matter most for rural women.
    
    
21. The integration of youth into the labour market is a priority challenge and one of the Millennium Development Goal targets to which we have all committed ourselves. As recommended by the UN Youth Employment Network, which we strongly support, a comprehensive strategy should focus on four elements:
    
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    • employability through investing in education and vocational training,
      
    • equal opportunities to give young women the same chances as young men;
      
      
    • entrepreneurship by making it easier to start up and run enterprises to provide more and better jobs; and
      
    • placing employment creation at the centre of macro-economic policy.
      
    
    
    
22. Globalization and macro-economic policies have changed the labour market institutions and social provisioning so that wage shares of national incomes have declined. Wage differences between skilled and unskilled labour have increased. Gender wage gaps persist throughout the world, and further measures need to be taken to reduce this gap. These problems are symptoms of an imbalanced attention given to economic and social outcomes in policy making.
    
    
23. The goals of productive employment and decent work for all are naturally essential elements of all international and national policies, including Poverty Reduction Strategies.
    
    
    
24. We have to measure the success or failure of our economic policies not only in terms of GDP-growth and inflation percentages, but also in terms of the employment impacts that our policies have had. The dual challenge is: (a) creation of new productive jobs, and (b) improving the quality of existing jobs.
    
    
25. The important potential of Corporate Social Responsibility should also be acknowledged as a complementary tool to legislation and enforcement.
    
    
26. Employers' associations, producer groups and cooperatives can help vulnerable entrepreneurs in accessing credit and markets, and in risk pooling. While the successes of micro-credit are well recognised, the provision of credible and flexible savings products, secure transfer and remittance facilities (also for remittances from the emigrant diaspora), and insurance services are often as important as access to loans.
    
    
27. Commercial banks should be encouraged to lend to small and medium-sized enterprise (SMEs). Central banks and designated financial service regulators can play a proactive role in this regard, by integrating the objective of increasing access of SMEs to financial services into regulatory and supervisory policies.
    
    Mr. Chairman,
    
    
28. Employment is where the "economic" dimension of people's lives meets the "social", and the "environmental". Work is an essential element of all three dimensions of sustainable development. Decent work is central not only as a source of income, but also as a condition for people to live a self-determined life, and to participate fully as citizens in their communities. It facilitates social integration and cohesion of societies. It is also essential for the long-term recovery of countries emerging from conflict.
    
    
29. This ECOSOC is the first opportunity for us to assess the system-wide work of the United Nations in reviving the employment focus and discussing the importance of decent work in the context of MDGs, poverty reduction strategies and other national policy frameworks. The ECOSOC should strive for achieving better policy coherence on decent work, in close collaboration with the ILO.
    
    
30. The challenge for all of us is - in accordance with paragraph 47 of the World Summit Outcome Document - to devise the national and international employment policies and decent work country programmes that will turn full productive employment and decent work for all into central objectives of all relevant national and international policies.
    
    
31. The European Union stands ready to work together with all governments and international partners who are committed to this same objective at national, regional and international levels.
    
    
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    
    
    
    
    
    • Ref: PRES06-204EN
    • Source UE: Présidence UE
    • UN forum: ECOSOC (Conseil économique et social), (y compris Commissions fonctionnelles)
    • Date: 4/7/2006

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