Global Commission on the Future of Work

The formation of a ILO Global Commission on the Future of Work marks the second stage in the ILO Future of Work Initiative. Its job is to undertake an in-depth examination of the future of work that can provide the analytical basis for the delivery of social justice in the 21st century.

The Commission's role

The Commission on the Future of Work has produced an independent report on how to achieve a future of work that provides decent and sustainable work opportunities for all. This report has been launched in Geneva on January 22nd and will later be submitted to the Centenary session of the International Labour Conference in June 2019.

Over the past 18 months, the ILO’s tripartite constituents – governments, employer and worker organizations – have held national dialogues in over 110 countries in the run-up to the launch of the Global Commission.

The work of the Commission has been organized around four "Centenary conversations":

  • Work and society
  • Decent jobs for all
  • The organization of work and production
  • The governance of work

Chairpersons

Select a commissioner from the list to learn more about them.

Members

 
Professor Enrico Giovannini
Professor Enrico Giovannini
University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, Italy
Mr Giovannini is an Italian economist and statistician, member of the Club of Rome and of the World Academy of Arts and Science. Since 2002 he is full professor at the Rome University “Tor Vergata” and professor of Public Management at the LUISS University. He was Minister of Labor and Social Policies in the Letta Government (2013-2014), President of the Italian Statistical Institute (2009-2013) and Director of Statistics and Chief Statistician of the OECD (2001-2009). He is the founder and Director of the Italian Alliance for Sustainable Development (ASviS), a coalition of more than 170 civil society organizations established in December 2015 to implement in Italy the 2030 Development Agenda. He is Senior Fellow of the LUISS School of European Political Economy, member of the European Statistical Governance Advisory Board responsible for supervising the functioning of the European Statistical System, member of the High-Level Expert Group on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress (HLEG) established by the OECD and of boards of several Italian and international institutions. Over the last few years, he was Vice-president of the High Level Group on Competitiveness and Growth of the European Council, Visiting Fellow at the European Political Strategy Centre of the European Commission, Co-Chair of the “Independent Experts Advisory Board on Data Revolution for Sustainable Development”, member of the Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi Committee, President of the Global Council of the World Economic Forum on the "Evaluation of Societal Progress" and Chair of the Conference of European Statisticians. In October 2014, the President of the Italian Republic made him “Cavaliere di Gran Croce al Merito della Repubblica”, the highest ranking honour of the Italian Republic.
-cAnRRaq86M
 
Sra Rebeca Grynspan
Sra Rebeca Grynspan
Ibero-American Secretary-General
Ms Grynspan is the Ibero-American Secretary-General, an international multilateral institution which brings together the 19 Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries of Latin America plus Spain, Andorra and Portugal. Ms Grynspan was born in Costa Rica, on December 14, 1955, and prior to this appointment she held the post of Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations and Associate Administrator of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) since February 2010. As a recognized leader in promoting human development, she has greatly helped to focus the attention of the world and Latin America on critical issues such as the reduction of inequality and poverty, gender equity, South-South cooperation as tools for development and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, among others. Previously, from 2006 to 2010, she was Deputy Secretary General of the UN and UNDP Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean. Before joining the United Nations, she served as Vice President of Costa Rica from 1994 to 1998. She was Minister of Housing, Minister Coordinator of Economic and Social Affairs and Deputy Minister of Finance; also, she was a member of the High Level Panel on Financing for Development convened by the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in 2001. She has contributed to key UN initiatives such as the Millennium Project on Poverty and Economic Development, and the High-Level Panel on Financing for Development. She was also delegate to the United Nations Commission for the Reconstruction of Haiti.
3Kpg9LZS5Ss
 
Ms Reema Nanavaty
Ms Reema Nanavaty
Former General Secretary, Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), India
Ms Nanavaty has been working with the Self Employed Women’s Association since 1984 and was elected as the General Secretary in 1999. She managed to expand SEWA’s membership to new heights making it the single largest union of informal sector workers. She negotiated the first ever International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) loan to rebuild lives and livelihoods of 60000 earthquake affected rural women, and is running post conflict economic reconstruction for 40000 members affected by 2002 riots; she is leading rehabilitation programmes in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, providing vocational training in agro and rural livelihood. She is expanding the activities of the Trade Facilitation Centre (TFC) making women’s voice and contribution central to world trade decisions. Currently she is replicating the Trade Facilitation Centre model in all the SAARC countries, building social enterprises of home-based women workers. She initiated the food security programme which covers one million households through its rural distribution network, named RUDI, where women farmers and workers trade their products with each other. She is spearheading the Hariyali – Green Energy and Livelihoods Initiative to provide 200,000 women farmers access to renewable energy tools such as cooking stoves and solar lights. She oversees 3200 self-help groups, 110 co-operatives and 15 federations totalling 428,281 members. She focuses on women’s economic empowerment by building women owned enterprises, building women led supply chains in energy, agribusiness, food processing, waste recycling, textile and garmenting. Ms Nanavaty is currently member of the Advisory Council on Gender of the World Bank Group.
dzGP9uQ4r3Q
 
Mr Richard Samans
Mr Richard Samans
Managing Director, World Economic Forum
Mr Samans is a Member of the Managing Board of the World Economic Forum (WEF). He is responsible for the Forum’s action and policy oriented multistakeholder initiatives on major global challenges, relations with intergovernmental and civil society organizations and portfolio of public-private cooperation projects. He also co-directs the Forum’s new Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. From 2011 to 2013, he served as Director-General of the Global Green Growth Institute, where he led the organization’s transformation from a start-up non-governmental organization to a treaty-based intergovernmental institution active in over 20 countries. Before an earlier stint at the World Economic Forum from 2001 to 2011, Mr Samans served in the US White House as Special Assistant for International Economic Policy to President Bill Clinton and Senior Director for International Economic Affairs at the National Security Council. Prior to that, he was Economic Policy Adviser to US Senate Democratic Leader Thomas A. Daschle and served in a range of roles in other public, private, and research institutions. Since 2007, he has also served as Chairman of the Climate Disclosure Standards Board, a consortium of business and environmental organizations that has established a common framework for reporting of carbon-related corporate performance and risks in mainstream reports to the investment community.
6gaEpC0NJbY
 
Dr A. Didar Singh
Dr A. Didar Singh
Former Secretary-General, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, India
Dr Singh, author and former civil servant, retired as Secretary to Government of India, was appointed in November 2012 as Secretary General of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICC). From September 2017, he has been the Principal Adviser to the President of the FICCI. Dr Singh functions as Chair of the Diaspora group of KNOMAD (Knowledge Network on Migration), World Bank and in March 2017 was named as Global Fellow at the IC2 Institute of the University of Texas, USA. He has served on the International Experts Group of the World Bank for Pandemics Preparedness (2016-17). Dr Singh is presently member of the Governing Councils of St. Stephens Hospital and Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University in Delhi. Dr Singh served as a member of the Global Agenda Council on Migration (2011-15) of the World Economic Forum (WEF) and has been conferred an Award for his service to the Indian Diaspora by the Global Organization of People of Indian Origin (GOPIO International) (). He was named as Distinguished Alumnus of the St Stephen's College, Delhi in 2012 and was awarded Honorary Doctorate from the University of Birmingham in July 2014. He served as a Member on the India-Indonesia Eminent Persons Group (EPG), nominated by the Ministry of External Affairs of India (2016-17). Dr Singh has a Bachelors and Masters from St. Stephens College; a Masters in Development Administration from Birmingham University, UK; and has the distinction of having done the first PhD in India on the Policy and Administration of e-Commerce (Panjab Univ, 2006). Dr Singh has four books and several publications to his credit and has given talks and lectures in over 50 Institutions and 20 countries around the world.
ESJ1ScaByBI
 
Mr Darren Walker
Mr Darren Walker
President, Ford Foundation
Mr Walker is President of the Ford Foundation, the nation’s second largest philanthropy, and for two decades has been a leader in the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors. He led the philanthropy committee that helped bring a resolution to the city of Detroit’s historic bankruptcy and chairs the U.S. Impact Investing Alliance. Prior to joining Ford, he was Vice President at the Rockefeller Foundation where he managed the rebuild New Orleans initiative after Hurricane Katrina. In the 1990s, as COO of Harlem’s largest community development organization, the Abyssinian Development Corporation, Darren oversaw a comprehensive revitalization program of central Harlem, including over 1,000 new units of housing. He had a decade long career in international law and finance at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton and UBS. He is a member of the Commission on the Future of Riker’s Island and serves on the boards of Carnegie Hall, New York City Ballet, the High Line, the Arcus Foundation and PepsiCo. Educated exclusively in public schools, Darren received the “Distinguished Alumnus Award,” the highest honor given by his alma mater, the University of Texas at Austin. In 2016, TIME magazine named him to its annual list of the “100 Most Influential People in the World.” He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the recipient of thirteen honorary degrees and university awards.
huw6b5fDJfc
 
Mr Wang Xiaochu
Mr Wang Xiaochu
Vice-Chairperson, Foreign Affairs Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC), China
Mr Wang is currently the Vice Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC) of the People’s Republic of China after being elected as a deputy of the 12th NPC in 2013. He is also the President of the China Association for Continuing Engineering Education (CACEE), and a Commissioner of the International Civil Service Commission (ICSC) of the United Nations. Mr Wang received his Master of Science degree in information management from the Graduate School of Library and Information Science of the Simmons College in the United States in 1983. He joined the Chinese public service in 1977 and has worked in the Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (ISTIC) under the State Science and Technology Commission, the Department of International Exchange and Cooperation of the Ministry of Personnel, the Permanent Mission of China to the United Nations (UN) in New York and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security. He was Vice Minister of the Ministry of Personnel from 2003 to 2008 and Vice Minister of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security from 2008 to 2014, responsible for national policies and programs on human resources development and management as well as personnel system reform in public institutions. Mr Wang served in China as a member of the National Coordination Group on the Work for Talents, Vice Chairperson of the State Leading Group for Education System Reform, and member of the Leading Group for Culture System Reform.
D_1K3WxKN_M

Ex officio members

 
Mr Mthunzi Mdwaba
Mr Mthunzi Mdwaba
Employers’ Vice-Chairperson, Governing Body of the ILO
Mr Mdwaba, a BA (Industrial Sociology) and LLB graduate from Wits University is an entrepreneur, businessman, executive and passionate advocate for business in all its diverse forms and across developing and developed nations. He is a fierce defender of skills development, the conditions required for sustainable enterprises and business and human rights. He is the founder, President and CEO of TZoro IBC, an investment and business consultancy. Until November 2010, Mr Mdwaba held the post of Group Chairman & CEO of Torque IT, South Africa. Under his leadership Torque IT won numerous business awards annually, including “Cisco Partner of the Year” for 7 years in a row. Mr Mdwaba has also personally won numerous business awards, nominated by his peers, including IT personality of the year (2004), and businessman of the year by two organisations (2009) among numerous others. Within organized business in South Africa he has held numerous leadership positions. He has held the position of Chairman of Employer Organisations, namely, the BITF (Black Information Technology Forum) made up of black IT professionals in South Africa and for two terms was President of the ITA (Information Technology Association), made up of all the major IT & Telecoms companies such as Cisco, SAP and Siemens. He subsequently held the positions of firstly, Vice-President for Professionals, made up of all members of the professional organisations of BUSA (Business Unity South Africa) and, subsequently, Vice-President of the Uni-sectoral Sector, made up of the technology, hospitality, banking and mining sectors. He was until recently, a board member of the Business Women’s Association in South Africa. He currently holds many strategic positions within the global employer arena, including that of International Organization of Employers (IOE) Vice President for the ILO, making him the Global Spokesman for Employers in the ILO and consequently, the Vice Chairman of the ILO’s Governing Body. He is also a member of the B20 Task Force on Employment; Chairman of the CSR & Business and Human Rights Policy Working Group of the IOE; Chairman of the University of the Western Cape, as well as Chairman of Productivity SA.
hRloYU-dyko
 
Mr Mthunzi Mdwaba
Ambassador Claudio Julio de la Puente Ribeyro
Chairperson, Governing Body of the ILO
Born in 1955, Ambassador De la Puente is a Peruvian career diplomat; he has a Bachelor’s degree in Law from the Pontificia Universidad Católica and the University of San Martín de Porres in Lima, and graduated in International Affairs at the Diplomatic Academy of Peru (1977). Post graduated in International Trade at the Ecole Solvay at ULB Brussels University. He served as Secretary at the Peruvian embassy in the United States (1981-1985); Charge d’Affaires in Denmark (1985-1986); Counsellor and Deputy Chief of Mission in Brussels 1990-1994 (Belgium and the EU); Minister and Deputy Head of Mission in Bogota (1997-1999) and Washington D.C. (DCM 1999-2001). From 2005 to 2010 he served as Peruvian Ambassador to Australia and later (2015-2017) Ambassador to the United Kingdom. In October 2017 Ambassador De la Puente was appointed Peruvian Permanent Representative to the United Nations and the WTO in Geneva, and then elected Government’s Vice-Chairperson in the Governing Body of the International Labour Organization. During his career, Ambassador De la Puente has held different positions at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Lima, including Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Director General for the Americas, Director of South American Affairs, Director General Security and Defense Affairs, Chief of Cabinet of the Prime Minister, Advisor to the Congress Foreign Affairs Committee, among others.
EfqvTOYLI-4
 
Mr Guy Ryder
Mr Guy Ryder
ILO Director-General
Born in Liverpool (UK) in 1956, Mr Ryder studied Social and Political Sciences at the University of Cambridge and Latin American Studies at the University of Liverpool. He started his professional career in 1981 as assistant at the International Department of the Trade Union Congress in London. From 1985, he held the position of Secretary of the Industry Trade Section of the International Federation of Commercial, Clerical, Professional and Technical Employees (FIET) in Geneva. In 1988, Mr Ryder became Assistant Director and – from 1993 - Director of the Geneva office of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU). Mr Ryder first joined the International Labour Organization in 1998 as Director of the Bureau for Workers’ Activities and, from 1999, as Director of the Office of the Director-General. In 2002, he was appointed General Secretary of the ICFTU. He was elected as first General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) when it was created in 2006. He headed international trade union delegations to high level talks with the UN, IMF, World Bank and WTO and to the G20 Leaders’ Summits. In September 2010, Mr Ryder came back to the ILO in Geneva as Executive Director, responsible for international labour standards and fundamental principles and rights at work. Mr Ryder was elected as ILO Director-General by the ILO's Governing Body in May 2012 and was re-elected as ILO-DG on 7 November 2016.
n7QkxkwHhI0

Secretariat

The Commission will be serviced technically and operationally by the ILO.