8 September, 2010ILO-IMF conference on "Challenges of Growth, Employment and Social Cohesion" will take place on September 13 in Oslo, with high-level participants including the heads of the ILO and International Monetary Fund.
GLOBAL: A joint conference of the International Labour Organization and International Monetary Fund on "Challenges of Growth, Employment and Social Cohesion" will take place on September 13 in Oslo, Norway.
The one-day conference will bring together political, labour and business leaders, as well as leading academics. Lead speakers include President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia; Prime Minister George Papandreou of Greece; Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero of Spain; Finance Minister Christine Lagarde of France; U.K. Secretary of State for Labour Iain Duncan Smith; and International Trade Union Confederation General Secretary Sharan Burrow.
IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn and ILO Director General Juan Somavia will chair the conference.
The debates at the conference will be based on the paper assessing the outlook for employment in the wake of the global financial crisis recently released by the International Monetary Fund and the International Labour Organization, saying that the world faces major challenges in creating enough quality jobs to sustain growth and development.
The conference paper available on the ILO website is intended to promote debate, with an online discussion forum simultaneously being launched on the conference website (http://www.osloconference2010forum.org/).
"The Great Recession has created a painful legacy of unemployment," Mr. Strauss-Kahn said, "and this devastation threatens the livelihood, security, and dignity of millions of people across the world. The international community must rise to meet this challenge. Now is the time for our collective action."
"We are now seeing signs of a fragile recovery, but for millions of people and enterprises around the world the crisis is far from over," Mr Somavia said. "A jobs-centered growth strategy should be our number one priority. Otherwise, the economic recovery may take years to reach those who need it most, or it may not reach them at all. We must connect our policies with people's legitimate aspirations for a fair chance at a decent job."
Additional information is available on the ILO website here.