Report 1 (Part 1) Report of the Director-General. Growth, employment and basic needs in Latin America and the Caribbean
Anonymous
Report 1 Part 1 Report of the Director General Growth, employment and basic needs in Latin America and the Caribbean: 88
1979
Document Number: 422374
In focusing on poverty, unemployment and basic needs, the Report put before the Conference the central issues of the ILO's concern with the present conditions and future developments in the Third World. Primary responsibility for achieving economic and social development rests with the individual countries themselves but, in addition, international co-operation is needed to attain the goals of development with the necessary rapidity. National measures to bring about rural development, increase productive employment and meet basic needs must lead to greatly increased access by the poor to land, credit and know-how as well as to increased public services in such fields as health and education. While beneficial to the poor, such reorientations are liable to go against the interests of other groups and to be opposed, perhaps violently. Furthermore, the practical implementation of new policies often involves a degree of experimentation with some risks of failure. In other cases, the main problem of implementation may be lack of skilled personnel to design and manage projects in such fields as rural development. The Report gives illustrations of problems of this kind and of ways in which they might be overcome. It is divided into six chapters: (1) Employment, incomes and basic needs: situation and inter-relationships (the present situation, the relationship between employment and the satisfaction of basic needs, appendix: estimates of poverty); (2) National strategies of development, employment and social progress two different strategies, diversity of situations and basic elements of strategies, the role of industrialization in the creation of productive jobs and the satisfaction of basic needs, the Cuban experience; (3) Employment and income policies for the most disadvantaged socio-economic groups (low income farmers, micro industries in the manufacturing sector, small-scale trade in foodstuffs in some Latin American cities, low-income wage earners, employment of women); (4) Public policies and employment: scope of redistributive services (access of poor groups to state services, organization, participation and basic needs); (5) International dimensions (migration); (6) The role of the ILO.