This comment piece by Cynthia Samuel-Olonjuwon (ILO Regional Director for Africa) discusses the book What works: Promoting pathways to decent work in the context of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. It was first published by the ILO on 17 October 2019.
Gainful employment is still the most reliable way of escaping poverty. However, access to both jobs and decent working conditions remains a challenge. Sixty-six per cent of employed people in developing economies and 22 per cent in emerging economies are in either extreme or moderate working poverty, and the problem becomes even more striking when the dependents of these “working poor” are considered.
Thus, it is not just unemployment or inactivity that traps people in poverty, they are also held back by a lack of decent work opportunities, including underemployment or informal employment.Appropriate labour market policies can play an important role in the fight to eradicate poverty, by increasing access to job opportunities and improving the quality of working conditions.
The new ILO report What works: Promoting pathways to decent work shows that combining income support with active labour market support allows countries to tackle multiple barriers to decent work. These barriers can be structural, (e.g. lack of education and skills, presence of inequalities) or temporary (e.g. climate-related shocks, economic crises). This policy combination is particularly relevant today, at a time when the world of work is being reshaped by global forces such as international trade, technological progress, demographic shifts and environmental transformations. […]
Source: International Labour Organization
Photography: © TREEAID