Because long-lasting, inclusive and sustainable economic growth is still a mirage
The International Labor Organization (ILO) has produced a Report on the status of implementation of Objective 8 of GOALS. The speech by Alessandra Servidori, professor of labor policies
The International Labor Organization (ILO) has produced a Report on the status of implementation of GOALS Goal 8: Promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth, employment and decent work for all.
The Italian foundation for sustainable development meets on October 5th to check where we are on decarbonisation and mobility. But the ILO Report of 13 September, starting from the reflections of 2019, leads to disheartening conclusions.
The critical role of collective capabilities and social learning is evident. SDG ( Sustainable Development Goals , SDGs) 8 integrates the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. To achieve inclusive and sustainable economic growth for full employment and decent work, an integrated process is needed to promote balanced progress in these three dimensions.
In its 2019 report Time to Act for SDG 8: Integrating Decent Work, Sustained Growth and Environmental Integrity , the ILO described a broad policy approach to this challenge that encouraged countries to pursue interconnected strategies that fuel a cumulative dynamic process: a “positive policy for SDG 8″.
This report builds on that previous work, analyzing countries' prospects of achieving the economic, social and environmental aspects of SDG 8 by 2030 based on their performance between 2010 and 2022. The text traces the disappointing state of the prospects global achievement of SDG 8 and identifies some patterns and imbalances in these perspectives across countries and across the three dimensions.
The report then delves into the policy framework presented in 2019 by seeking to more fully explain the dynamics of transformative change envisaged by SDG 8, in particular by exploring the underappreciated role of societies' “collective capabilities” in enabling and shaping such change. Finally, it distills a set of principles and policy recommendations for integrated learning and transformation strategies – an epistemic approach – to mobilize investment, technological change, innovation and structural transformation in the economy.
Progress on Goal 8 is slow, despite decades-long efforts to promote the productive transformation of economies on a socially inclusive and environmentally sustainable basis, including through the promotion of science, technology and innovation (STI) .
Actions to achieve the SDGs are still ongoing, are not progressing at the speed or scale required and, as with the other SDGs, progress on SDG 8 has been weak across most of its dimensions and indicators and in much of the world.
Furthermore, the prospects for future progress are not encouraging, given the multiple crises affecting the world. Economic growth is far from the levels envisaged in the Sustainable Development Goals, and unemployment rates and the deficit in informal and decent work remain high in many parts of the world.
By applying the integrated measurement tool for SDG 8 developed by the ILO to groups of countries with similar performance at different levels of GDP per capita, this analysis provides a clearer picture of the nature of the challenges humanity faces for achieve balanced progress in the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. We find that there are large differences between and within these groups of countries with respect to both the level and pattern of perspectives, identifying 11 distinct patterns or types of balances and imbalances.
These patterns of imbalance reveal that past performance on economic indicators is a necessary but not sufficient condition for improving prospects for social inclusion and decent work and that average prospects in the environmental dimension appear to be completely independent of prospects in the economic and social dimension.
Based on this finding, this report concludes that societies, institutions, value systems and political choices must be taken into account to explain these different levels and patterns of balances and imbalances.
It is further concluded that, although the Covid-19 pandemic has caused serious disruptions in the labor market, the pandemic is not the main reason for the poor prospects of achieving the aspirations of Sustainable Development Goal 8. Societies' collective capabilities enable and shape transformative change, but the failure of so many countries to make adequate progress towards SDG 8 suggests that there is a need to look more closely at the challenges they face in implementing the Goal.
The slow progress of countries in creating dynamic transformation processes for Sustainable Development Goal 8 can in part be attributed to the lack of coordinated international assistance that was envisaged when the Sustainable Development Goals were adopted. However, this also suggests a fundamental weakness in prevailing models of economic growth and development that limits their power to pursue policies that improve the dynamics of complex transformation processes.
Drawing on insights and evidence from across the social sciences, this report presents a framework for understanding the importance of the collective capabilities of societies in explaining effective implementation processes for SDG 8. Corporations are the agents of transformative change and the How they cultivate different collective capabilities must shape the options available for investment, technological change, innovation and structural transformation in the economy. Capabilities also enable societies to shape the dynamics of change processes and establish consensus on the common purpose of transformative change.
It is crucial to note that collective capabilities, which reside at the level of societies, are fundamentally different from the skills of individuals. Collective capabilities exist in teams, social groups and communities and reside in different forms such as relationships, networks, structures, institutions, routines or culture. To explain how collective capabilities evolve, this report takes an epistemic approach, arguing that collective capabilities are created in a process of social learning. Collective learning is understood as a process of transforming socially shared bodies of knowledge and beliefs that involves improving society's technological knowledge base, changing the rules of institutions, and adapting cultural knowledge and systems of learning. values.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/perche-una-crescita-economica-duratura-inclusiva-e-sostenibile-e-ancora-un-miraggio/ on Tue, 19 Sep 2023 13:59:38 +0000.