TUAC & L20 at the G20/ OECD Task Force on Institutional Investors and Long-Term Financing

The TUAC has prepared a Submission on the implementation of the G20/ OECD High Level Principles on Long-term Investment Financing by Institutional Investors.

It focuses on the priority areas identified by the G20/ OECD Task Force, for which further guidance is requested. These comments were presented by the TUAC and ITUC General Secretary, Sharan Burrow, representing the L20 at the meeting yesterday. In fact, the Task Force attributed a special session on TUAC/ BIAC/ L20/ B20 perspectives, which is a welcome step towards enhanced dialogue between social partners and the G20 on this topic.

In her remarks, Sharan Burrow flagged the need to have impact assessments on quality job creation and on social, environmental and governance risks before engaging institutional and workers’ capital in investment schemes. Focussing on infrastructure investment and job creation, Burrow referred to the St. Petersburg Summit commitments on jobs and asked for the implementation of the investment principles to include the ILO decent work agenda . She said that long-term investment should not put citizens and workers at risk but benefit them. Therefore, risk should be moderated at the early stages of infrastructure programmes without restricting the capital dividend. Furthermore, the G20 should look at developing countries that often are subject to market bias against risk rating but need energy and social infrastructure.

In developing the principles and their implementation further, TUAC had recommended to take guidance from the OECD Principles for Public Governance of Public-Private Partnerships , as they include a robust set of principles on fair and transparent risk sharing. This equally applies to the UN Principles for Responsible Investment in view of accountability and transparency of operations along the investment chain, led by asset managers. Amongst other things, asset owner should be more directly engaged and informed.

In conclusion, Burrow said that there needs to be an end to short-termism, while ensuring transparent and fair risk-sharing mechanisms and allow for the creation of sector-wide pension schemes, developed jointly between social partners. On the issue of SMEs, the B20 and L20 agreed that even more than investment, these need support for more affordable finance. The L20 and TUAC particularly welcomed suggestions for stronger cooperation between this Task Force and other G20 Taskforces on Employment and Infrastructure, as well as further social partners consultations prior to Brisbane.