Articles
December 2010
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The long struggle for a social foundation of the global economy
01 December 2010
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Green jobs in construction: Small changes – big effect
01 December 2010
Construction was the first specific sector of the economy to be addressed in the ILO’s Green Jobs Initiative. The sector is responsible for 25-40 per cent of global energy use, and 30–40 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Andrew Bibby, a London-based journalist, reports from the suburb of Khayelitsha, Cape Town’s largest informal settlement, where the Kuyasa Initiative has targeted 2,000 homes for basic energy-saving measures, creating jobs at the same time.
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Pakistan’s devastating floods: Rebuilding lives and livelihoods
01 December 2010
Sher Hassan watched helplessly through the driving rain as flood water approached his house. Horrified and panicking, and with little time to spare, the 24-year-old managed to take his elderly mother, five sisters and one younger brother to higher ground. Within an hour his home in the village of Masma was submerged under two metres of water.
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Planning for recovery: How to rebalance global growth and demand
01 December 2010
As stimulus measures wind down, many governments are opting for austerity. According to the ILO’s World of Work Report 2010, neither approach addresses the underlying drivers of global economic instability. Gary Humphreys reports.
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Promoting a recovery focused on jobs
01 December 2010
The global financial crisis has led to the highest level of unemployment ever recorded – 210 million people. This has sharpened prior international concern about the failure of the global economy to generate enough decent work opportunities in all countries.
August 2010
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Cooperatives and the crisis: "Our customers are also our owners"
01 August 2010
Cooperatives have been more resilient to the deepening global economic and jobs crisis than other sectors. Andrew Bibby reports from Sweden.
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Setting the terms of the child labour debate
01 August 2010
Though child labour has preoccupied the ILO since its first days, the practice remains a problem of immense social and economic proportions throughout much of the world. While there has been progress in reducing child labour over the last decade, the decline was uneven in different world regions and the global pace of reduction slowed between 2004 and 2008.
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Small premiums, long-term benefits: Why poor women need microinsurance
01 August 2010
Microinsurance coverage is an important safety net for households in developing countries, providing a tool to protect productive assets. For poor women, however, coverage can be even more critical.
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Paving a way out of poverty for people with intellectual disabilities
01 August 2010
Millions of people with intellectual disabilities and their families are inordinately affected by poverty and social and economic exclusion. In March 2010, the ILO–Irish Aid Partnership Programme gathered representatives from several East African countries, Australia and the United Kingdom at a three-day conference in Lusaka, Zambia to explore opportunities for people with intellectual disabilities to train and work alongside non-disabled workers in their communities, thereby paving a way out of poverty.
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International Labour Conference: ILO urges strong action on jobs
01 August 2010
The annual Conference of the International Labour Organization (ILO) concluded its 2010 session with a strong call for placing employment and social protection at the centre of recovery policies. Meeting in the run-up to the G20 Leaders summit in Toronto, representatives of the “real economy” – government, employer and worker delegates from the ILO’s 183 member States – expressed broad concern that the global economic recovery remained “fragile and unevenly distributed, and many labour markets are yet to see jobs recovery match economic recovery”.