Single most important issue around the world is jobs, says UN labour director

As world leaders prepare to discuss a host of social ills at a summit at United Nations Headquarters next week, the leaders of the world’s parliaments zeroed in on jobs as the single most important global issue, the head of the UN labour agency said today.

“In our reading of government, employers and workers, the constituents of the [International Labour Organization] ILO, and seen from the people who elect the parliamentarians, the single most important issue is the question of jobs,” said Juan Somavía, United Nations Director-General of the ILO, at a press conference highlighting the events of a global conference of parliamentarians.

“What people are asking worldwide,” he elaborated, “is ‘give me a fair chance, at a decent job, and I will take care of my family, educate my children, live in the community where others work in peace’ – that political demand is global.”

He also said that the overall consensus of the parliamentarians attending the Second World Conference of the Speakers of Parliament is that people want to know whether the international policies their governments are pursuing will actually help them live better lives. They also expect local leaders to represent their interests on an international level.

“Parliamentarians are elected locally, so they can bring the local reality, the national reality to the international scene,” he added. But he said that despite the observer status that the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) has been able to reach with the UN, individual parliamentarians still need to have a more strategic relationship with the world body to be more effective.

The ideas formulated by the more than 150 parliamentarians attending the conference co-sponsored by the IPU and the UN, will be used to draw up a declaration and plan of action that will contain their input to the 2005 UN World Summit taking place from 14 to 16 September.