SDG #8 is to “Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.”Within SDG #8 are 12 targets, of which we here focus on Target 8.8:Protect labour rights and promote safe and secure working environments for all workers, including migrant workers, in particular women migrants, and those in precarious employmentTarget 8.8 has two indicators:Indicator 8.8.1: Fatal and non-fatal occupational injuries per 100,000 workers, by sex and migrant statusIndicator 8.8.2: Level of national compliance with labour rights (freedom of association and collective bargaining) based on International Labour Organization (ILO) textual sources and national legislation, by sex and migrant statusThis target gets us a little closer to understanding what SDG #8 means by “decent work.” We can measure decent work, like we can with all topics covered in the SDG targets and indicators. We need work to be decent to achieve the other Goals relating to poverty reduction and to fulfil the equality aspirations of the SDGs. For all work to be safe and secure helps to further this aim.In an earlier instalment in this series, we explored two treaties which put the Universal Declaration of Human Rights into effect. Article 22 of one of these, the ICCPR, enshrines freedom of association into international law by its parties: “Everyone shall have the right to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and join trade unions for the protection of his interests.”Some of the International Labour Organization conventions which guide international labour law include:Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention of 1948Abolition of Forced Labour Convention of 1957Protection of Wages Convention of 1949Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention of 1949Equal Remuneration Convention of 1951Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention of 1958Migration for Employment Convention of 1949Migrant Workers (Supplementary Provisions) Convention of 1975Domestic Workers Convention of 2011Relevant human rights instruments adopted by the UN General Assembly include:International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial DiscriminationInternational Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their FamiliesAlso relevant are two protocols supplementing a UN convention against Transnational Organized Crime:Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children of 2000Protocol Against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and AirMany of the countries which may have been at highest risk of fatal occupational injuries don’t have data as of 2021. Though among those who do, the highest is Egypt, with 10 per 100,000 workers. For non-fatal occupational injuries, the highest is Costa Rica, with 9421 per 100,000 workers.When measuring level of national compliance with labour rights, the world has scored 4.5 out of 0-10 measure, with 0 being the best. The worst performers as of 2021 were Iran and UAE with a score of 10, followed by China, scoring 9.
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SDG Target #8.7
SDG #8 is to “Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.”Within SDG #8 are 12 targets, of which we here focus on Target 8.6:Take immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its formsTarget 8.7 has one indicator:Indicator 8.7.1: Proportion and number of children aged 5–17 years engaged in child labour, by sex and ageFirst, at the time of writing, we’re six months shy of 2025, and haven’t ended child labour in all its forms, so this aspect of this target is already foregone.This target encapsulates the work of several UN labour and human rights agreements protecting the welfare of children:International Labour Standards, overseen by the International Labour Organization1973 Minimum Age ConventionConvention on the Rights of the Child, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1989Declaration on the Protection of Women and Children in Emergency and Armed Conflict, adopted by the General Assembly in 1974ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at WorkILO Forced Labour ConventionSupplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, adopted in 1956Slavery Convention, adopted in 1926Worst Forms of Child Labour ConventionAs of 2020, UNICEF estimated 160 million children worldwide were in child labour, with an 8.4 million increase in the preceding four years.The countries with the highest rates of child labour among those with data as of 2022 were Chad with 31% and Togo with 33%. Disaggregated by sex, in Togo, more boys were in child labour than girls by 3%, and in Chad, the gender difference was 6%. The biggest gender gap among countries with 2022 data was Senegal, with 8% of girls in labour and a quarter of boys.
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SDG Target #8.6
SDG #8 is to “Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.”
Within SDG #8 are 12 targets, of which we here focus on Target 8.6:
By 2020, substantially reduce the proportion of youth not in employment, education or training
Target 8.6 has one indicator:
Indicator 8.6.1: Proportion of youth (aged 15–24 years) not in education, employment or training
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SDG Target #8.5
SDG #8 is to “Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.”Within SDG #8 are 12 targets, of which we here focus on Target 8.5:By 2030, achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men, including for young people and persons with disabilities, and equal pay for work of equal valueTarget 8.5 has two indicators:Indicator 8.5.1: Average hourly earnings of employees, by sex, age, occupation and persons with disabilitiesIndicator 8.5.2: Unemployment rate, by sex, age and persons with disabilities Only a couple dozen countries have data for employees’ average hourly earnings. The highest among them was Switzerland. By sex, the greatest difference was in South Korea, where the average hourly earnings of male employees of $23.96 and $15.91 for women.The global unemployment rate as of 2022 was 5.3%, with gender differences only a fractional difference.
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SDG Target #8.4
SDG #8 is to “Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.”Within SDG #8 are 12 targets, of which we here focus on Target 8.4:Improve progressively, through 2030, global resource efficiency in consumption and production and endeavour to decouple economic growth from environmental degradation, in accordance with the 10-Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production, with developed countries taking the lead Target 8.4 has two indicators:Indicator 8.4.1: Material Footprint, material footprint per capita, and material footprint per GDPIndicator 8.4.2: Domestic material consumption, domestic material consumption per capita, and domestic material consumption per GDP Material footprint is a measure of the tonnage of natural resources extracted from the Earth. This includes metal ores, fossil fuels, minerals or living matter from plants and animals. Many of these are finite and non-renewable resources.By contrast, the concept of domestic material consumption is a measure of materials used within a country’s economy.It’s important we understand that the economy, which is the basis upon which we all prosper, itself rests upon an environment foundation. This begs the question how is the environment to cope as we live on a planet with a spiking increase in resource use? What is the pathway out of this pattern, to unlink economic growth from scarce resource use and extraction?The world’s material footprint per capita was 12.44t as of 2019, the same figure as 2015. Thus, there has been no improvement on this indicator, as the target has asked of us. Indicator 8.4.1 asked us to measure by GDP as well as per capita. The world’s material footprint in 2019 was 1.14kg per US dollar, with not much of a change since 2015.The domestic material consumption per capita for the world was 12 tonnes as of 2019, about the same since 2015. The target asked for developed countries to take the lead. As a proxy, we can use Europe and Northern America. This region had 18t of domestic material consumption in 2019, which has also remained the same since the start of the SDGs.The global domestic material consumption is equal to 1.13kg per dollar. Once more, this is little changed from 2015, with a similar trend for Europe and Northern America.
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