2 Jul 2012

UN / ECOSOC

A ministerial- level meeting of the Economic and Social Council is drawing some 500 diplomats and experts from all over the world to discuss ideas and plans for confronting the worldwide job crisis. (UNTV)

Posted at: July 2, 2012 4:59 pm

Duration: 03:00

Available in: SD

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STORY: UN / ECOSOC
TRT: 3.00
SOURCE: UNTV
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS

DATELINE: 2 JULY 2012, NEW YORK

SHOTLIST:

FILE – 2011, UNITED NATIONS NORTH LAWN BUILDING, NEW YORK CITY

1. Wide shot, exterior United Nations North lawn building

2 JULY 2012, NEW YORK

3. Various shots, Ban arrives 
2. Wide shot, meeting
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Milos Koterec, President, ECOSOC:
"Sixty six years ago the ECOSOC held its first session. Among the many topics discussed then was employment. Much has changed since 1946 but in many ways the challenges remain the same and they are no less daunting."
3. Cutaway, audience
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General, United Nations:
"Getting the global economy back on track will require decisive action -- and the courage to take difficult decisions.  Short-term measures have bought us time, but they have not resolved the underlying dysfunctions. Recovery is not just a matter of macroeconomic adjustment; it is a development issue." 
5. Cutaway, delegates
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General, United Nations:
"Only by generating decent – and decently paid – employment can we help the poor and vulnerable to escape poverty traps and build resilience."
7. Cutaway, delegates
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General, United Nations:
"These results represent a tremendous reduction in human suffering. They are a clear validation of the approach embodied in the MDGs. But, they are not a reason to relax. Success is uneven within countries and regions."
9. Cutaway, meeting
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Juan Somavia, Director-General, ILO:
"This will not happen if the financial system continues to have the power that it has today over the global economy. So we need to put into the driver seat of the global economy the real economy of people who want to invest, create enterprises, create jobs. Yes it takes some risks but not the types of risks the types of casino economy that we have seen over and over again."
11. Cutaway, meeting
12. Wide shot, press conference
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Juan Somavia, Director-General, ILO:
"The key question is that whatever the fragility of the situation is, the fact that the main reason for many of the conflicts –and certainly the revolutionary processes on the way or even the protest movements throughout the world which are rather high- is jobs. It's 'give me a fair chance at a decent job'. So the issue is not so much what's the technical policy, policies we are full and ILO has a global jobs pack that is a policy recipe that can be applied to different situations, it's the political conviction that the legitimacy of post conflict situation is absolutely linked to job creation." 
14. Wide shot, press conference ends

STORYLINE:

The United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) today (2 July) opened its high-level meeting at the United Nations headquarters in New York with a focus on the global jobs crisis and the search for ways to stimulate the creation of decent and sustainable employment.

Noting how 66 years ago the ECOSOC had held its first session, the Council's President, Ambassador Milos Koterec of Slovakia, said, "then, like today, the topic discussed was employment", adding that, "not much has changed since 1946 but in many ways the challenges remain the same and they are no less daunting."

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said, "Getting the global economy back on track will require decisive action, and the courage to take difficult decisions", underlining the need to pursue a new model of growth within the framework of sustainable development and enhanced international cooperation.

Highlighting that the creation of decent jobs had been a priority during the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) last month in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Ban said that "only by generating decent – and decently paid – employment can we help the poor and vulnerable to escape poverty traps and build resilience."
  
Also noting that this year's report on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) pointed to significant but uneven progress among and within countries and that while those results represented a tremendous reduction in human suffering, he said that "they are not a reason to relax. Success is uneven within countries and regions."

And while stressing that there was no financial solution to a financial crisis but a productive solution, in other words job creation, Juan Somavia, the International Labour organization's Executive-Director said that that would not occur as long as the financial system continued to have the power that it had today over the global economy. So, he said that, "we need to put into the driver seat of the global economy the real economy of people who want to invest, create enterprises, create jobs."

And later at a press briefing responding to which policies were necessary for job creation in many of the recent post conflict situations, Somavia said that the issue was not so much what's the technical policy said, instead it was, "the political conviction that the legitimacy of post conflict situation is absolutely linked to job creation".

The high-level segment is expected to conclude on 9 July with the adoption of a ministerial declaration on how to achieve full employment and decent work.

A founding UN Charter body, ECOSOC is the venue where issues concerning the world's economic, social and environmental challenges are discussed and debated, and policy recommendations made. More than 500 delegates, including government ministers and heads of civil society groups, international institutions and the private sector, are attending the Council's high-level segment, which will focus on boosting productive capacity, strengthening development cooperation and creating decent, sustainable work.