The ILO is launching its centenary year with the launch of a report (here) produced by a group of independent experts that should lead it to a rethink of its role in light of the ever-faster pace of work transformations. The report is not just a theoretical summary account of the world of work, it is a penetrating document that seeks to prioritize actions and calls on the ILO to examine its own role as well as inviting national governments to adopt national strategies on the future of work. The report delivers ten recommendations that seek both to bolster individuals’ own capacities to handle the transformations and create an economic environment that prioritizes human rights. The ten points are however also to serve as inputs to the debate on a new roadmap for the international organization that was set up in 1919 with the core mission being of ensuring social justice.
The ten recommendations navigate around three primary axes namely, strengthening individual capabilities, employment institutions, with the third focusing on economic models.
The first recommendation on developing individual capabilities is very concrete in so far as it strongly supports the idea of ‘a universal entitlement to lifelong learning that enables people to acquire skills and to reskill and upskill.’ The report emphasizes that ‘all social partners, as well as educational institutions, have complementary responsibilities in building an effective and appropriately financed (formal/informal) lifelong learning ecosystem, that enables people’s development throughout their life course.
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