The Global Partnership for Effective Development should endorse policies which reduce inequalities and reinforce women, workers and human rights

The High Level Meeting of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation came to a close on 16th April 2014.

The Meeting was a two-day dialogue in which trade unions had the opportunity to portray their vision of sustainable development.

The most divisive issue of the Meeting was how businesses bring development. « Many representatives of the Partnership disagreed with the idea that private investment is the silver bullet to bring about development and that companies profits automatically trickle down to the poor, » commented Jan Dereymaeker, head of the trade union delegation in Mexico.

« Businesses need to be held accountable for their activities, and respect international standards, especially on human and workers’ rights », said Marita Gonzalez, TUCA, who spoke in the plenary on the role of the private sector in development on behalf of the labour movement.

Human rights are determining for development: poverty is the lack of human and workers rights. « We are concerned by the few references to human rights during the meeting debates. For instance, the communiqué of the High Level Meeting puts little emphasis on human rights. Development should be based on distributive justice and the possibility for workers and citizens to claim their rights» said Paola Simonetti, ITUC, who coordinated a focus session on the human rights based approach to development.

Kjeld Jacobsen, TUCA, referred specifically to the situation of middle-income countries where equality and decent work have to be core drivers for development. To bring this development, unions in Latin America have created a development platform for the Americas, PLADA.

The Global Partnership has to improve its commitments for genuine social, economic and environmental development. Trade unions, as new members of the Partnership Steering Committee, are ready to work with the Global Partnership and the United Nations on the future sustainable development framework post+2015.