Report asks ILO to review globalisation priorities

A new report presented to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has said the priority should be to make globalisation fair and inclusive.

"There is growing concern about the direction globalisation is currently taking. Its advantages are too distant for too many, while its risks are all too real. Corruption is widespread. Open societies are threatened by global terrorism, and the future of open markets is increasingly in question. Global governance is in crisis. We are at a critical juncture, and we need to urgently rethink our current policies and institutions," says the report, titled 'A Fair Globalisation: Creating Opportunities for All'.

The report, which was issued by the World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalisation, was co-chaired by Finland's President Tarja Halonen and Tanzania's President Benjamin William Mkapa.

The report acknowledges that globalisation's "potential for good is immense" and that it "has opened the door to many benefits... promoted open societies and open economies and encouraged a freer exchange of goods, ideas and knowledge...(and) a truly global conscience is beginning to emerge sensitive to the inequities of poverty, gender discrimination, child labour and environmental degradation, wherever these may occur".

"There are deep-seated and persistent imbalances in the current working of the global economy, which are ethically unacceptable and politically unsustainable... Seen through the eyes of the vast majority of men and women, globalisation has not met their simple and legitimate aspirations for decent jobs and a better future for their children," the report goes on to say.

ILO Director-General Juan Somavia, who originally proposed the Commission, said this was the first time there had been a systematic attempt to deal with the social dimension of globalisation.