Upcoming Commission for Social Development

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This Year’s Priority Theme: Creating full and productive employment and decent work for all as a way of overcoming inequalities to accelerate the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and the full implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

From September to December the NGO CSOD committee has been holding education sessions in preparation for the CSOCD commission starting next week. They included issues e.g. Just Transition, Decent work, and Care Workers.

Decent work addresses SDG 8. We believe at the Ngo CSOCD committee that this is at the heart of development.  Most people work to sustain their life. People don’t want charity they want work and dignity. 

In 1995, the International Labor Organization, ILO described four pillars of decent work:

  • Association for collective bargaining
  • Freedom from discrimination
  • Freedom from forced and slave work

They later added a, 

  • Fifth category: safe and healthy workplace

This is significant. When it is a fundamental principal, it doesn’t matter if a government has ratified it or not.

Recovery in labor markets and loss of jobs during the pandemic and the war in Ukraine have put things in reverse.  The war in Ukraine has upped the high energy and food prices, as well as having an impact on climate change. We are not getting back to where we were including an Impact of recovery on youth. Alarm bells of inequality and divergences between labor and over all lack of employment is getting more difficult. Some of the documents that will be discussed at the commission are the following:

Each year the NGO Committee of CSOCD creates a declaration of recommendations to the Commission on CSOCD. Here is our NGO – CSOCD call member states :

  • Invest in social protection floors for all members of society, without discrimination on any basis, and regardless of nationality or employment status.
  • Encourage sustained holistic economic progress through sustainable technological innovation that seeks to balance societal harmony and protection of the natural world.
  • Commit to forward looking financing and job creation policies. State institutions should create incentives for the private sector (companies, industry) to commit to an essential duty: invest in fostering and releasing the talents of young people.
  • Ensure young people have a path to employment. Programming around the transition to decent work calls for investment in education and high-quality training for all. Access to quality education and training for the most disadvantaged members of a nation’s population should be prioritized. Skills training in both technical and soft skills must be provided.
  • Build dynamic, sustainable, innovative and people-centered economies, promoting youth and women’s economic empowerment, access to decent work for all and opportunities to increase digital literacy.

To read the NGO Committee on Social Development Declaration click here.

In addition please see the tool guide to the NGO Social Development Commission here. It is a complete guide to the ten days of the Commission. You will find it very informative. It is produced by the Justice Coalition of Religious at the UN that we Dominicans belong to.

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