G20 leaders pledged in their final Declaration to “support progress on the implementation” of the UN Global Accelerator, a UN initiative led by the ILO that aims to bring together UN Member States and a wide range of public and private sector partners to help create 400 million decent jobs.

“I heartily welcome the G20’s endorsement of the Global Accelerator and its potential to deliver change and better working lives for hundreds of millions of people. The creation of the working group on women’s empowerment is also an historic step forward,”said  ILO Director-General, Gilbert F. Houngbo.

 “The G20 leadership has made progress on some of the most crucial future of work issues facing us if we are to build a sustainable and equitable future. We must build on this momentum, particularly at the UN SDG Summit later this month,” Houngbo added.  

According to the pledge, the leaders will create  a new Working Group on the Empowerment of Women. Moreover, they reaffirmed the importance of gender equality and the promotion of, “full, equal, effective and meaningful participation of women in the economy as decision-makers”, adding that such investment “has a multiplier effect in implementing the 2030 Agenda”.  

The G20 leaders committed themselves to promote sustainable, quality, healthy, safe and gainful employment, address skill gaps, and ensure inclusive, adequate and sustainably financed social protection policies. Moreover, they also  endorsed a set of policy priorities for “adequate and sustainable social protection and decent work for gig and platform workers”. 

In a statement by ILO Houngbo also addressed the issue of the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the labour market by saying “AI increases the need to invest in skilling people,” he said. “And it also increases the need to strengthen protections and employment for platform economy workers. Productivity gains from AI will need to be shared by all, in order to promote the development of society in the direction of increased social justice.”