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We must reject the notion that there is a trade-off between the health of people and the health of the economy: UN Secretary General António Guiterres
New York: The Business and Sustainable Development Commission has found that companies could unlock $12 trillion in market opportunities by 2030 and create 380 million jobs by integrating the Sustainable Development Goals in their business strategies. According to the Commission, initiatives such as the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the United Nations Global Compact, the ILO Tripartite Declaration of Principles concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy were instrumental platforms to promote responsible business conduct.
Pointing this out at the International Organization of Employers centenary summit: “Achieving a Multilateralism Reset: Business Contribution”, in New York today, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said the COVID-19 pandemic had revealed fundamental global fragilities — fragilities that extend far beyond health systems.
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“Fragilities affect all our global institutions and multilateral efforts. We see it in the failed response to the climate crisis, in the rising inequalities or in the lawlessness in cyberspace,” he said and analysed how these structural fault lines in our systems, policies and institutions were being exposed at a time when many, and particularly the most disadvantaged, were already growing anxious about their future. “Today, our primary task is to defeat the pandemic and rebuild lives, livelihoods, businesses, and economies. We must reject the notion that there is a trade-off between the health of people and the health of the economy,” he declared.
Referring to the significant contributions that the International Organization of Employers had made to global policymaking for economic and social progress, job creation, and a mutually beneficial business environment, Guterres said it was among the first business organizations to engage directly with the multilateral system and has been an important pillar of the International Labour Organization (ILO) since its earliest days.
“Today, the International Organization of Employers actively supports the global vision for sustainable development… It is indeed a very old but an extremely representative business organizations in the world. …(which)actively supports the global vision for sustainable development,” he said.
Guterres said that at a time when multilateralism is under severe strains, it was especially important that the International Organization of Employers carried the commitment that it always had into its second century. “This is also a timely opportunity to address the global employers and business leaders at what is arguably the most challenging period in generations,” he said.
He stressed that there was a need to build economies and societies “that are more inclusive and sustainable, in line with the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, where our challenge is clear: To limit global temperature increase to 1.5 °C, and having global emissions halved by 2030 and carbon neutrality reached in 2050”.
According to him the private sector is essential to all these efforts. “So, what can businesses do?” he asked and suggested four solutions:
- Continue to engage with the multilateral system, through representative organizations, to create a conducive global environment for decent work, investment, and sustainability. In the last few decades, multilateralism was vital in creating a world with open borders for trade, security and prosperity. Today, as this is under threat, the private sector can play a pivotal role in showing that the world can be a better, more prosperous and fairer place through international cooperation and a rules-based global economy.
- Engage with the United Nations at the national level to help ensure that multilateralism works on the ground. United Nations reform will lead to more direct engagement with non-State actors at the national level, including the private sector. Local and regional cooperation is a precondition for multilateralism to work globally.
- Businesses and employers’ organizations must actively participate in national and global public-private dialogue and initiatives — and there must be space for them to do so. The Sustainable Development Goals and the 2030 Agenda cannot succeed without the full engagement of the private sector.
- Do what you do best: invest in businesses, jobs and people, especially now when hundreds of millions of people have lost their livelihoods. You must continue to bring out the best of innovation and creativity in the service of people, help to build trust in business by doing the right thing, at the workplace, in the communities and globally.
According to him today, growing inequalities between and within countries, boosted by the pandemic, were fuelling ethnic nationalism and protectionism — “Combined with the anxieties about advancing drivers of change, this creates significant uncertainty about the future. To build a better future, we need a global multilateral system that answers the real anxieties of people with practical responses. That requires a more inclusive multilateralism. Governments today are far from the only players in terms of politics and power. The business community, trade unions, local authorities, cities and regional governments and so many others must assume more and more leadership roles in today’s world. And they are doing it.”
He said the private sector, and employers’ organizations and those they represented had a real capacity to make a meaningful difference and ensure a more effective multilateralism. “But they must be given the space to do so,” he said.
– globalbihari bureau
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