Earth Today | New report urges attention for nature-based solutions and decent work
Published:Thursday | December 15, 2022 | 12:17 AM
A NEW publication from the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has championed the need for deliberate actions to safeguard access to decent work, even as efforts are made to save the planet from climate change and other disasters through nature-based solutions (NbS).
NbS, the report explains, take account of “actions to protect, conserve, restore, sustainably use and manage natural or modified terrestrial, freshwater, coastal and marine ecosystems, which address social, economic and environmental challenges effectively and adaptively, while simultaneously providing human well-being, ecosystem services and resilience and biodiversity benefits”.
“Some but not all work in NbS can be considered decent work. Moreover, because not all NbS work is decent work, only part of all employment opportunities in NbS are truly green jobs,” reads the 2022 report, titled Decent Work in Nature-based Solutions.
“Yet there is great potential for NbS to contribute to decent work and green jobs, as well as to the achievement of national and global climate and biodiversity goals. We need to understand not only the full range of benefits they can deliver, but also the potential risks if NbS are not implemented appropriately,” it added.
The report suggests that the ILO Just Transition Guidelines, together with the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature) Global Standard for NbS are useful tools for this purpose.
“The ILO Just Transition Guidelines provide a framework to leverage opportunities for decent work and green jobs in NbS, while providing a platform to enable the full participation of social partners, women, and indigenous peoples,” it said.
“Interventions along the nine policy areas of the guidelines – macroeconomic and growth policies, industrial and sectoral policies, enterprise policies, skills development, occupational safety and health, social protection, active labour market policies, rights, and social dialogue and tripartism – could help ensure that employment in NbS is decent,” the report added.
ROLE OF NbS
At the same, it has said that it is necessary to understand the role that NbS can and do play in employment creation, including among vulnerable people.
“Understanding the risks and benefits of the potential options requires the definition and monitoring of different work outcomes associated with NbS actions,” the ILO-UNEP report said, and has put forward options for assessing work in NbS, which could be improved over time.
Also requiring attention, the report noted, is increased investment in NbS, which can, in turn, help to fuel the growth in green jobs and decent work – and this includes “for responding to climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction, food security or other social and economic challenges”.
It also championed “reskilling and upskilling through just transition skills policies”; enabling private-sector capacity towards greater implementation of NbS; and the inclusion of “the importance and potential of NbS for decent work into global initiatives, such as the UN Decade for Ecosystem Restoration and Climate Action for Jobs”.
“The international institutions engaged in these initiatives as lead agencies and partners should consider closer collaboration and partnership initiatives that specifically promote decent work in NbS, and a just transition approach to promoting NbS should be better integrated into National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans, National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), and Nationally Determined Contributions, including more concrete, evidence-based NbS targets,” the report said.
Also important to keep top of mind is that “poor and vulnerable people are often highly dependent on natural resources for their lives and livelihoods, especially in rural areas”, the ILO-UNEP report said.
“They also depend disproportionately on income from formal and informal work (as opposed to investments, savings, inheritances, the state or other sources of household income) to support their families. Informal work is particularly important for poor and vulnerable groups,” it explained.
“To date, the socio-economic benefits of NbS have been largely described using qualitative measures related to livelihoods and well-being, rather than quantified measures related to employment and formal or informal work. A better understanding of the role that NbS do and can play in creating employment, especially for the poorest and most vulnerable people, is needed,” the report added.