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The 2000 UN Millennium Declaration, from which the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) emerged, focuses on development and poverty eradication, through peace and security, human rights, democracy and good governance. It identifies the fundamental values of freedom, equality, solidarity, tolerance, respect for nature and shared responsibility. Through the Declaration, UN Member States pledge to ensure greater coherence in policies across the international system towards common development goals. The Declaration builds on earlier international commitments, such as productive and freely chosen employment, which were the outcome of the 1995 World Summit for Social Development, held in Copenhagen.

The Decent Work Agenda of the International Labour Organization (ILO), comprising employment creation, rights at work, social protection and social dialogue, is an integrated approach that embraces all these elements. Freely chosen and productive employment with a fair income is the principal way out of poverty and is fundamental to peace and security, and above all to human dignity. Rights at work help empower individuals to escape from poverty and guarantee a path of development that does not allow labour abuses. Social protection, both at work and in the absence of work, safeguards against falling back into poverty. And social dialogue is the basis for democracy and good governance, ensuring the participation of both employers' and workers' organizations in shaping government policies for poverty reduction.

The goal of decent work for all and the pledges in the Millennium Declaration go hand in hand. The ILO Constitution stresses that "poverty anywhere constitutes a danger to prosperity everywhere" and that "universal and lasting peace can be established only if it is based upon social justice". Together with other partners in development, the ILO efforts towards decent work for all aim at the "more peaceful, prosperous and just world" envisaged in the Declaration.

Decent work deficits. According to recent ILO estimates, more than half of the world's 3 billion labour force is either unemployed or live on less than $2 a day. Youth unemployment is around 80 million, almost 40 per cent of the total unemployed. Women in most parts of the world still remain an underpaid and overworked human resource and constitute 60 per cent of the working poor -- a ratio that is unfortunately showing an increasing trend. The growing number of natural and man-made crises has had a disastrous impact on employment in parts of the world where decent jobs are most needed.

Besides the underutilized labour force, a large number of people -- about one third of the working-age population worldwide -- are not participating in labour markets at all. For the last ten years, this inactivity rate has remained much higher for women than men, with only two out of ten working-age men inactive, compared to five out of ten women. This shows that a large female labour force potential remains untapped. Moreover, in many parts of the world, most individuals work in the informal economy and carry a higher risk of being unprotected, without social security or a voice at work. Over 70 per cent of the workers in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia are forced to survive in such vulnerable employment conditions. Indeed, 80 per cent of the world's population has little access to social protection.

Decent work is declining in many parts of the world despite considerable rates of economic growth. Redressing the imbalance between growth and quality job creation is key to achieving the MDGs. The need for policy coherence is crucial. Too often, mandates and policies intersect, but advice is sometimes conflicting. As we in the United Nations family strive for common development goals that address different aspects of economic and social policy, we must have a coherent voice. Economic policy should not be designed without consideration of its social implications. Likewise, social policy development should integrate economic concerns.

Need for a fair globalization. There is also an important longer-term issue bearing on global labour market developments. The quickening pace of globalization has increased fear and apprehension among peoples in both developed and developing worlds on how they can preserve their jobs and incomes. The current turbulence in international financial markets, with potentially severe consequences for investment, growth, government budgets, employment and poverty reduction, is causing serious concern among policymakers, business leaders and trade unions around the world. At the same time, globalization also offers hope of accelerated economic progress as new markets are opened up and new technologies allow countries to leapfrog intermediate stages of development.

As the 2004 report of the World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalizaton, established by the ILO, forcefully argued: "The current process of globalization is generating unbalanced outcomes, both between and within countries. Wealth is being created, but too many countries and people are not sharing in its benefits. They also have little or no voice in shaping the process. Seen through the eyes of the vast majority of women and men, globalization has not met their simple and legitimate aspirations for decent jobs and a better future for their children."

In the three years since the World Commission issued its report, A Fair Globalization: Creating Opportunities for All, its main proposal, that decent work should become a global goal of the multilateral system to take advantage of the gains from globalization and minimize its negative impact, has found global resonance. It is for this reason that the need for furthering the decent work agenda is voiced in a variety of intergovernmental and interagency fora as essential to development in general, and the achievement of the MDGs in particular.

Decent work as a global goal towards achieving the MDGs. In General Assembly resolution 60/1, the Heads of State and Government declared their support at the 2005 World Summit: "We strongly support fair globalization and resolve to make the goals of full and productive employment and decent work for all, including women and young people, a central objective of our relevant national and international policies, as well as our national development strategies, including poverty reduction strategies, as part of our efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals."

This commitment was reaffirmed by the UN Economic and Social Council in 2006 and 2007 and was followed by statements at the highest level by the African Union, the Organization of American States, the Council of the European Union, the European Parliament and the European Commission, as well as the Inter-Parliamentary Union, among others. They have forcefully emphasized the central role of full and productive employment and decent work for all in national and international policies. It is now imperative to translate this commitment into concrete and measurable results. We are making progress. The new formulation of the monitoring framework for the MDGs now includes under Goal 1 -- eradicate extreme poverty and hunger -- a new target: "achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all, including women and young people".

In April 2007, the UN Chief Executives Board for Coordination (CEB) fully endorsed the Toolkit for Mainstreaming Employment and Decent Work, developed by the ILO in close collaboration with other CEB member agencies, and agreed to proceed with its application. The Toolkit will allow a self-assessment process so that each agency will analyse how its policies and programmes affect employment and decent work, and how they can enhance these outcomes. Each agency will then formulate its own action plan based on self-assessment, which will then feed into a UN system-wide action plan by 2009, with a view to monitoring progress in 2010 and 2015. In addition, there is work underway to apply the Toolkit at the country level.

There is no single solution to wiping out poverty. But decent work -- the promotion of rights, employment, social protection and dialogue -- will always be at the heart of successful policies to get there. The ILO is contributing not just with a vision but with concrete policy and evaluation tools to determine what works and what does not, and to empower people to find their own solutions, adapted to national and local conditions, through social dialogue. By pooling our efforts to respond to people's demand for a fair chance at a decent job, we will go a long way in eradicating poverty and meeting the Millennium Development Goals.