Trade unions and civil society stress decent work’s need for sustainable development of UNECE region

Held virtually over the Internet due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, the 2020 edition of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE)’s Regional Forum on Sustainable Development took place on 19 March 2020. The Forum is the annual space to monitor progress on SDGs in the countries covered by UNECE.

Countries VNRs still show major weaknesses in identifying gaps on SDGs implementation, lack of full engagement of all sections of society and failure in addressing the human rights dimension in particular.

Key priorities of trade unions have been voiced in the civil society forum statement:

The Forum was also the opportunity for the UNECE Statistical Division to launch its first annual SDG progress report, entitled ’Towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals in the UNECE region’. The report calls for investing in data for the full implementation of the 2030 Agenda and provides useful insights from the labour perspective, for instance, by highlighting that the average share of labour income in GDP has decreased in UNECE countries over recent years.