As is well-known, SDG8 is devoted to full and productive employment and decent work for all. The Elgar Companion to Decent Work and the Sustainable Development Goals, edited by Madelaine Moore, Christoph Scherrer, and Marcel van der Linden, unpacks this as a host of methodological, policy and political challenges. Questions include: How is unemployment…
Read MoreCategory: ideas & commentaries
The centrality of work that is decent
The majority of adults – 2 billion workers – are caught in the so-called informal economy, with the trend towards casualisation of work tendentially increasing this number. Women are particularly affected, both because of the gendered inequitable nature of their employment, and their multiple roles in the care economy, as are other socially marginalised groups.…
Read MoreWhy care about care?
As mentioned in an earlier post, the UN and its member countries are preparing a World Summit for Social Development, to take place in November in Doha, 30 years after the original social summit (often referred to as the Copenhagen Summit). The geopolitical situation has deteriorated palpably on all counts since then. But, we also…
Read MoreUN Summit for Social Development in Doha
30 years ago, the UN convened a summit for social development, devoted to social justice, decent work, social integration and participation. This November, a – much weakened – UN will convene a review summit in Doha, Qatar, 4-6 November. As Isabel Ortiz, Odile Frank and I argue in our Global Social Justice op-ed, published in…
Read MoreConference Panel on the Challenges of Decent Work and the SDGs
Chair(s): Christoph Scherrer (University of Kassel, Germany)Discussant(s): Nicolas Pons-Vignon (University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland) The panel highlights contributions from The Elgar Companion to Decent Work and the Sustainable Development Goals, edited by Madelaine Moore, Christoph Scherrer and Marcel van der Linden. This reader critically investigates the ILO’s Decent Work Agenda and how it relates to…
Read MoreA summary of the Hans Singer Symposium
The City of Wuppertal, the Johannes Rau Research Community and the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy convened a symposium on the legacy of Professor Hans Singer (1910-2006) in early May 2025. Wuppertal is an understated locus of ideas, innovation and social reform. In the industrial revolution, it was a centre of weaving and…
Read MoreMay 2025: Remembering the persecuted
80 years ago, Germany was liberated from Nazi fascism, and in this spirit, there are many commemorative events this month. One that touched me deeply was a concert on the eve of 8 May, with a haunting piece composed by Karl Amadeus Hartmann (1905-1963). It was one of his compositions dedicated to the concentration camp…
Read MoreSome updates on social policy
A coherent analysis of poverty is absent from the 2030 Agenda. While the agenda does address redistribution, social rights, and resource consciousness, and makes important contributions to social protection and care policy, it makes only superficial reference to the need for regulating of the economy. The 2030 Agenda and eradicating poverty: New horizons for global…
Read More“Feminist foreign policy?”
“Feminism needs tectonic plates to shift, not a trendy make-over” (Bernardine Evaristo) In recent years, a number of countries have re-labelled their foreign policy as ‘feminist’. Sweden introduced the concept 8 years ago. Spain, Canada, France, Luxemburg, Mexico, Chile, and Libya, and others have issued feminist foreign policy statements. Germany has a commitment to feminist…
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Watching the 2025 global commitments pipeline
Multilateralism is weak (to put it mildly), but global summitry remains strong in 2025 nevertheless, with a string of meetings at heads of state/government level, and forceful progressive civil society presence and pressure. Thus, for instance, feminists celebrated the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action at the Commission on the Status of Women…
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