Labour

Political Commitment Key to Health for All

By Ban Ki-moon
One of my proudest accomplishments as the former UN secretary-general was playing a part in the ambitious global agenda for sustainable development (SDGs), including the goal of universal health coverage (UHC) by 2030.

Lives of the poor

By Noman Ahmed
The past few weeks in Karachi have seen an anti-encroachment drive that has affected livelihoods and living. Those spearheading the drive justify their actions, saying they are legal, and those using the spaces are painted as land grabbers. Meanwhile, another cause for concern is the intended clearing of land along the route of the moribund Karachi Circular Railways.

AI to map Chinese strikes

By Erik Larsson
29 years ago, Han Dongfang survived the hail of bullets at Tiananmen Square. Now, he lives in Hong Kong and maps Chinese labour market strikes. Arbetet Global caught up with him at the ITUC World Congress in Copenhagen.

Big Business Capturing UN SDG Agenda?

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Anis Chowdhury
Over the last two decades since the Global Compact, the United Nations has increasingly embraced the corporate sector, most recently to raise finance needed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), i.e., for Agenda 2030. But growing big business influence has also compromised analyses, recommendations, policies and programme implementation, undermining the SDGs.

Havana Charter’s Progressive Trade Vision Subverted

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Anis Chowdhury
In criticizing the ‘free trade delusion’, UNCTAD’s 2018 Trade and Development Report proposes an alternative to both reactionary nationalism, recently revived by President Trump, and the corporate cosmopolitanism of neoliberal multilateral discourse in recent decades by revisiting the Havana Charter on its 70th anniversary.

ITUC at a Crossroads as Sharan Burrow is Challenged

By Ivar Andersen and Erik Larsson
A fight for the position of Secretary-General divides the ITUC ahead of the World Congress in December. Where some see a choice between diplomacy and activism, others say it’s a question of internal democracy.

Asia-Pacific Takes Stock of Ambitious Development Targets

By Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana and Natalia Kanem
Ministers and senior policymakers across Asia and the Pacific are gathered in Bangkok this week to focus on population dynamics at a crucial time for the region. Their goal: to keep people and rights at the heart of the region’s push for sustainable development. They will be considering how successful we have been in balancing economic growth with social imperatives, underpinned by rights and choices for all as enshrined in the landmark Programme of Action stemming from the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development, or ICPD.

Gender Inequality is Stunting Economic Progress

By Siddharth Chatterjee
‘Do not let us off the hook; keep our feet to the fire’. These were the words of the UN Secretary General Mr. Antonio Guterres when he promised to personally lead the global body towards greater gender equality.

Teenage Pregnancy in Kenya: A Crisis of Health, Education and Opportunity

By Siddharth Chatterjee
That almost one in five Kenyan teenage girls is a mother represents not only a huge cost to the health sector, but also a betrayal of potential on a shocking scale.

Bringing Informal Workers to the Forefront of Our Economy

By Annette Francis
The image of the ‘struggling’ daily wage labourer in India is one that stakeholders from across the development sector aspire to transform. Financial security, quality living conditions, and opportunity to thrive are the buzzwords in a conversation about the needs of this bracket. These workers—usually associated with the informal or unorganised sector—are assumed to represent the outliers of the national economy.

Africa’s Giant Blue Economy Potential

By Siddharth Chatterjee and Toshitsugu Uesawa
With good reason, Africa is excited over the prospects of sharing in the multi-trillion maritime industry, with the continent’s Agenda 2063 envisioning the blue economy as a foremost contributor to transformation and growth.

Is the United Nations in Kenya Fit For Purpose?

By Yusuf Hassan
The United Nations globally is witnessing some of the most ambitious reforms led by the UN Secretary General Mr. Antonio Guterres. Most relevant to us in Kenya is the entire reform of the development system and how the UN will adapt to a fast-changing development environment.

The Invisible, Hungry Hand

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
The very people who help put food on our tables often face numerous human rights violations, forcing them go to bed hungry.

”Like a TripAdvisor for migrant workers”

By Ivar Andersen
“The idea is to integrate technology into the fight for workers’ rights,” says Ira Rachmawati.  As project manager with ITUC’s division for human and workers’ rights, she has led the development of the digital tool Recruitment Advisor, which the global trade union confederation hopes will improve conditions for the world’s 150 million migrant workers.

Is There a Remittance Trap?

By Ralph Chami, Ekkehard Ernst, Connel Fullenkamp, and Anne Oeking
Workers’ remittances—the money migrants send home to their families—command the attention of economists and policymakers because of their potential to improve the lives of millions of people.

Women & Youth Key to Achieving Agenda 2030 in South-South Cooperation

By Siddharth Chatterjee
By 2050 Africa will have 830 million young people. Many countries in the global south, India included are seeing a youth(men and women) bulge. To reap a demographic dividend countries in the global south need to share and exchange knowledge to leapfrog socio-economic transformation.

Entrepreneurial about Gender Equality

By Hong Joo Hahm
Asia and the Pacific needs more women entrepreneurs. Women’s economic empowerment and gender equality depend on it, as does the inclusive economic growth needed to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. This drives a new initiative by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, generously supported by Global Affairs Canada, focused on improving women entrepreneurs’ access to finance in our region.

Ethiopian Domestic Workers Battle for Survival in Saudi Arabia

By Rabiya Jaffery
Marjani F, 44, spent 8 years in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital working as domestic help. “My husband was killed by the military after being accused of organizing a protest. I have four children and there was no way I could pay the bills staying there,” she says.

“In Two Years, Duterte Has Crushed All the Progress We’ve Made”

By Ivar Andersen
“Isn’t it cool? I get some hostile looks when I walk around in it, but other people come up asking where they can buy one,”  Josua Mata says of his T-shirt, which reads “Resist dictatorship”.  He is the Secretary General of the labour union umbrella organisation Sentro and does not hold back when he speaks about the Philippines’ hard-line president, Rodrigo Duterte.

Demonizing State-Owned Enterprises

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Historically, the private sector has been unable or unwilling to affordably provide needed services. Hence, meeting such needs could not be left to the market or private interests. Thus, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) emerged, often under colonial rule, due to such ‘market failure’ as the private sector could not meet the needs of colonial capitalist expansion.

The Sun Powers a Women’s Bakery in Brazil’s Semi-arid Northeast

By Mario Osava
“The sun which used to torment us now blesses us," said one of the 19 women who run the Community Bakery of Varzea Comprida dos Oliveiras, a settlement in the rural area of Pombal, a municipality of the state of Paraiba, in Brazil's semi-arid Northeast.
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