The International Labour Organization (ILO) has welcomed the commitments in the G7 Leaders’ Communiqué to work together – in close cooperation with other international partners – to address pressing global challenges including growing inequity, achieving gender equality, the rising cost of living, climate change, pandemic preparedness and the need for a just transition to a sustainable and inclusive future.
The G7 Leaders’ Communiqué, issued at the end of their annual Summit, reaffirmed their commitment to provide wide-ranging support to Ukraine in response to the Russian Federation’s aggression, which echoes the position taken by the ILO’s Governing Body earlier this month.
Addressing the Summit, ILO Director-General Guy Ryder said, “the world is becoming rapidly more unequal under the impact of pandemic and conflict. And we know that current levels of inequity are the seedbeds of future conflict.”
“Progress towards greater equity becomes more urgent than ever,” he said.
Ryder cited both the growing divergence between industrialized and developing countries and growing inequality within countries, in particular on gender. He called for specific action to improve gender equity, including making it an explicit public policy goal, a better funded and more equitable care economy, progress on equal pay and work-related gender discrimination, and the extension of universal social protection.
The closing G7 Communiqué highlighted the importance of upholding human rights and the ILO’s international labour standards throughout global supply chains, as well as tackling forced labour.
The ILO welcomed the Leaders’ commitment to accelerate progress towards universal social protection for all by 2030, in line with the UN Secretary-General’s “Global Accelerator on Jobs and Social Protection for a Just Transition“.
In addition, the Leaders voiced support for the ILO Tripartite Declaration of Principles concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy (the MNE Declaration) and endorsed the G7 Roadmap towards Safe and Healthy Work in a Green Economy (agreed by the G7 Labour Ministers at their meeting in May 2022). They reaffirmed their commitment to better occupational safety and health along global supply chains, including through support for the Vision Zero Fund, a multistakeholder initiative to advance jointly towards zero severe and fatal work-related accidents, injuries and diseases in global supply chains. They also emphasized the importance of close cooperation with the social partners (employers’ and workers’ organizations).
The Summit established a standing Employment Working Group within the G7.
The G7 Leaders were meeting in Elmau, Germany, from 26-28 June 2022, under the German G7 Presidency. The Group was joined by Leaders from Argentina, India, Indonesia, Senegal and South Africa.