Employment and decent work for all

Virginia Muwanigwa Gender Protocol
With the SDGs having been adopted at the just ended UN General Assembly, this entrenches their relevance in the post-2015 development arena. Against general consensus that the missing piece in the global development framework is requisite resources to ensure implementation, goal eight on ensuring economic growth therefore stands out.

Target one seeks to ‘sustain per capita economic growth in accordance with national circumstances and in particular at least seven percent per annum Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth in the least-developed countries’. In those countries whose economic growth has been regressing, this provides impetus to increase efforts at national level.

If the world is to “achieve higher levels of productivity of economies through diversification, technological upgrading and innovation, including through a focus on high value added and labour-intensive sectors” there is need for a serious review of competitiveness at national and sectoral levels.

Competitiveness is defined by the World Economic Forum (WEF) as the set of institutions, policies and factors that determine the level of productivity of a country. It is measured by among others, human capital, natural or other resources and economic diversity. A mix of productivity in agriculture, mining, manufacturing, tourism, among other sectors, symbolises diversity.

Key challenges hampering competitiveness of a country’s economy includes: cost drivers; existence of human capital in the form of education and training and how this relates to development; infrastructure outlay in energy, water, and communications, among others; and business environment. Business environment concerns investment climate, employment levels and productivity levels.

With the demand for people-centred development making the linkages between productivity, sustainable economic growth, improved standards of living and prosperity of a country is key. And this requires strategies to address factors disabling the economy such as improving public and private institutions to be more responsive and improving supportive infrastructure.

World leaders have signed up to promote development-oriented policies that support productive activities, decent job creation and entrepreneurship. Coupled with creativity and innovation, start-up, formalisation and growth of micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises, this responds to people-centred growth. Access to financial services, among many other factors, need to be expanded to ensure more and smaller players in the market.

One of the vagaries of contemporary society is the unchecked and wanton extraction and consumption that does not link up with production. The fourth target under goal 8 will improve progressively through 2030 global resource efficiency in consumption and production. The target will also endeavour to brink the link between economic growth and environmental degradation in line with sustainable development.

By 2030, target five expects to achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men, including for young people and persons with disabilities, and equal pay for work of equal value. Recent International Labour Organisation (ILO) statistics show that most workers are now in the less secure and highly fluid informal economy.

Despite widespread campaigns for equal pay for work of equal value, women are still pegged at 75 percent of the wages received by men. And the preference for young out of school workers is not so much altruistic as it is exploitation of their relative cheaper expectations.

Ironically, statistics also show that the education systems are spewing more people than can be absorbed by the market. The media training schools in Zimbabwe for example every year release at least 1400 graduates, 10 percent of which only find employment. This must have led to the need to target by 2020 to substantially reduce the proportion of youth not in employment, education or training.

Campaigns in the late 90s resulted in global awareness on the issue of child labour and its inclusion among the ILO core conventions. However, the informalisation or casualisation of labour and the increased need to cut labour costs has reversed whatever gains had been made. With globalisation reducing the efficacy of labour laws or even reducing the regulating powers of governments, the work environment has almost become free for all.

This then makes target seven to ‘‘ake immediate and effective measures to secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, eradicate forced labour, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms including recruitment and use of child soldiers” very relevant.

Recent developments including in Zimbabwe have shown the need to balance flexibility in labour laws to enhance investment with protection of workers. In a situation where unlike in the past, the employers is not easy to isolate, approach and negotiate with, especially with multinational companies, it is noted that the leaders have pledged to protect labour rights and promote safe and secure working environments of all workers, including migrant workers, particularly women migrants, and those in precarious employment.

Media reports of the desperate exodus of people from Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe to the more developed countries and some of the insensitive strategies adopted by host countries make it unlikely that migrant workers rights, would be a priority beyond security some paid work.

By 2030, the SDGs hope to devise and implement policies to promote sustainable tourism which creates jobs and promotes local culture and products. While it is expected that tourism has positive downstream effects among host countries, it has been tainted by the links to the increasing drug and human trafficking industries.

It is estimated that the two now account for third place as booming business. This led to the global agreement for countries to adopt and ratify human trafficking acts. The inevitable exploitation of children, particularly in the trafficking industry has heightened the campaign for the protection of children.

The WEF report notes that the responsiveness of institutions is among the indicators that determine a country’s competitiveness. These institutions either enhance or block investors from doing business through heavy regulatory, institutional, policy and practice misalignment. Target number 10 will therefore strengthen the capacity of domestic financial institutions to encourage and to expand access to banking, insurance and financial services for all.

While aid remains one of the main ways in developing countries can access resources, this should also be strengthened with trade. The SDGs therefore seek to increase Aid for Trade support for developing countries, particularly Least Developed Countries.

Finally, the adoption of the SDGs means that by 2020, countries individually and collectively will develop and operationalie a global strategy for youth employment and implement the ILO Global Jobs Pact.

Virginia Muwanigwa is a gender activist and Chairperson of the Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe. She is also the Director of the Humanitarian Information Facilitation Centre (HIFC).