COP 21
ILO Director-General addresses COP 21 on Africa Day
With education, technical skills and business development support, thousands of young African women and men can become business leaders that will drive the clean energy revolution, transform agriculture and bring about green innovation that we need for climate change solutions.
Excellences, dear colleagues and friends, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to join you on the occasion of this Africa Day, particularly as I just return from the ILO Regional Meeting for Africa in Addis Ababa.
One of the messages that came out of that regional meeting, in the Addis Ababa Declaration it adopted entitled “Transforming Africa through Decent Work for Sustainable Development”, was that one of the continent-wide policy priorities the promotion of a just transition towards environmentally sustainable economies and societies for all. I want to bring three key messages from that meeting.
The first is that the climate crisis and the global jobs crisis are interrelated and need to be addressed through coordinated responses.
Nearly 75 million youth are unemployed today and if you are a young person, you are three times more likely to be unemployed than other age groups. 600 million more are expected to enter the labour market by 2030, and one in three will be a young African.
Africa has made considerable progress in economic growth. However, that pattern of growth has not generated enough decent jobs to absorb the growing labour force.
Almost half of new labour market entrants in the last ten years have taken jobs in the informal economy – jobs often characterized by low productivity, wages and technological uptake.
And so the challenge for Africa is therefore to transform their economies to generate more and better jobs and inclusive growth.
And the potentially devastating impact of climate change will exacerbate the already complex problems. The need is to find integrated responses to these pressing, yet connected challenges.
And for Africa, a key question is how in your responses to climate change through INDCs, you duly recognise this interrelation both in the formulation and implementation of climate policies.
And here my second message is that understanding the implications of climate responses for employment is essential for social development in Africa.
Several African countries have considered, in their national responses to climate change, both development needs and climate change imperatives.
Let me cite the example of South Africa’s INDC which recognizes the challenge of climate change in a context of overriding priorities to eliminate poverty and eradicate inequality, and addresses major challenges in creating decent employment. I believe this is valid for the majority of African countries.
And again to refer to the South African INDC, it states that “socio-economic implications, notably any negative impacts on employment, need to be avoided and will be studied empirically as further mitigation measures are put in place.”
And so on the basis of this I want to urge all counties to consider the various types of implications for employment and incomes, both positive and negative, that climate change adaptation and mitigation would generate.
My third message to you is that we have immense opportunities to implement climate responses that foster decent work creation in Africa.
Low-carbon, greener and resilient economies can generate millions of new jobs in Africa. Our own studies show that such policies and investments could generate up to 60 million additional jobs worldwide over the next two decades.
As highlighted in the Addis Ababa Declaration “African countries have the resources of a young workforce, strong entrepreneurial spirit and a dynamic private sector as a foundation for a stronger and more integrated continental strategy for prosperity and sustainability”.
And so the investments that you will make in adaptation represent a significant opportunity to reduce poverty and inequality and to create employment.
At the same time, taking this opportunity will require policies on education, training and skills building, so that the skills we have are the skills we will need – and that is not always the case now.
Our work on youth employment across Africa has demonstrated that with education, technical skills and business development support, thousands of young African women and men can become business leaders that will drive the clean energy revolution, transform agriculture and bring about green innovation that we need for climate change solutions.
Today is a moment of great challenges. But it is a moment for optimism as well. And so I would like to thank you particularly for the opportunity to speak at this Africa Day meeting today.
One of the messages that came out of that regional meeting, in the Addis Ababa Declaration it adopted entitled “Transforming Africa through Decent Work for Sustainable Development”, was that one of the continent-wide policy priorities the promotion of a just transition towards environmentally sustainable economies and societies for all. I want to bring three key messages from that meeting.
The first is that the climate crisis and the global jobs crisis are interrelated and need to be addressed through coordinated responses.
Nearly 75 million youth are unemployed today and if you are a young person, you are three times more likely to be unemployed than other age groups. 600 million more are expected to enter the labour market by 2030, and one in three will be a young African.
Africa has made considerable progress in economic growth. However, that pattern of growth has not generated enough decent jobs to absorb the growing labour force.
Almost half of new labour market entrants in the last ten years have taken jobs in the informal economy – jobs often characterized by low productivity, wages and technological uptake.
And so the challenge for Africa is therefore to transform their economies to generate more and better jobs and inclusive growth.
And the potentially devastating impact of climate change will exacerbate the already complex problems. The need is to find integrated responses to these pressing, yet connected challenges.
And for Africa, a key question is how in your responses to climate change through INDCs, you duly recognise this interrelation both in the formulation and implementation of climate policies.
And here my second message is that understanding the implications of climate responses for employment is essential for social development in Africa.
Several African countries have considered, in their national responses to climate change, both development needs and climate change imperatives.
Let me cite the example of South Africa’s INDC which recognizes the challenge of climate change in a context of overriding priorities to eliminate poverty and eradicate inequality, and addresses major challenges in creating decent employment. I believe this is valid for the majority of African countries.
And again to refer to the South African INDC, it states that “socio-economic implications, notably any negative impacts on employment, need to be avoided and will be studied empirically as further mitigation measures are put in place.”
And so on the basis of this I want to urge all counties to consider the various types of implications for employment and incomes, both positive and negative, that climate change adaptation and mitigation would generate.
My third message to you is that we have immense opportunities to implement climate responses that foster decent work creation in Africa.
Low-carbon, greener and resilient economies can generate millions of new jobs in Africa. Our own studies show that such policies and investments could generate up to 60 million additional jobs worldwide over the next two decades.
As highlighted in the Addis Ababa Declaration “African countries have the resources of a young workforce, strong entrepreneurial spirit and a dynamic private sector as a foundation for a stronger and more integrated continental strategy for prosperity and sustainability”.
And so the investments that you will make in adaptation represent a significant opportunity to reduce poverty and inequality and to create employment.
At the same time, taking this opportunity will require policies on education, training and skills building, so that the skills we have are the skills we will need – and that is not always the case now.
Our work on youth employment across Africa has demonstrated that with education, technical skills and business development support, thousands of young African women and men can become business leaders that will drive the clean energy revolution, transform agriculture and bring about green innovation that we need for climate change solutions.
Today is a moment of great challenges. But it is a moment for optimism as well. And so I would like to thank you particularly for the opportunity to speak at this Africa Day meeting today.