PM Supports Call for ILO Jobs Pact; Global Development Initiative

JUNE 16, 2009

 GOLDING SUPPORTS ILO CALL FOR JOBS PACT..

CALLS FOR GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVE

Dateline Geneva, Switzerland: Prime Minister Bruce Golding has come out in support of an International Labour Organisation (ILO) sponsored Jobs Pact for the people of the world as an essential step out of the global economic downturn.

In a speech today (June 16), at the Annual ILO Labour Conference Mr. Golding told the Director General Juan Somavia, "I support your call for a global Jobs Pact.  Job creation is not an outcome of economic recovery. It is essential to economic recovery. It is the only sustainable way of stimulating the demand for goods and services without which investments will not take place, factories and businesses cannot be revived and the decline in trade will not be reversed."

The Prime Minister also called on leaders to support the ILO Committee of the Whole on Crisis Responses but added that knowledge transfer to developing regions must be a part of an integrated plan.

"I urge the world's leaders to consider the establishment of a Global Development Initiative incorporating programmes that already exist but introducing new programmes and additional resources. It must involve a major emphasis on education and training, the transfer of technology, investment-linked infrastructure and a structured programme tied to multilateral loan financing and appropriate investment guarantees to encourage and facilitate private sector investment to provide real jobs, create real output and build sustainable prosperity," he said.

Mr. Golding noted that the role of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had been overshadowed by commercial interests. He said, "The role of the IMF as the sentinel of the world's financial practices has been usurped by rating agencies whose assessment of some market instruments itself contributed to the financial meltdown. World Bank lending has not kept pace with the demand for development financing with the result that countries have turned increasingly to the commercial markets where short-term deposits are aligned to long-term lending through variable rate instruments."

The Prime Minister said that the current global financial situation was the result of no regulation in international finance and the estimated $50 trillion in losses would cause deep harm to countries caught in the fallout.

"If governments are to absorb these losses, the impact on fiscal deficits and debt burden will militate against economic recovery and growth...The recent decision by the G20 to provide $1 trillion in emergency funding through the multilateral institutions will allow some quick transfusion to developing and emerging economies whose finances are haemorrhaging and is to be commended. I suggest, however, that what is needed is much broader than access to loans. For many countries it is painful to have to borrow, so already heavily indebted they are."