United Nations Comission on Sustainable Development: Sustainlabour prepares a side event

A new policy session of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (CDS) takes place in New York from 4th to 15th May. The session is focused in Africa, agriculture, drought and desertification and rural development, among others. Last year politics were reviewed and now it is time to approve recommendations to deal with these issues.

Sustainlabour and the International Trade Union Confederation, in partnership with Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, organise a side event on the 11th in United Nations building. The event will be focused on hunger and changes in agriculture in the contexts of crisis. ITUC will also present a report on the Food Crises “A Recipe for Hunger. How the World is Failing on Food”.

On 6th May, Laura Martín, director of Sustainlabour, spoke to the plenary in representation of trade unions groups to call for the inclusion of fundamental issues such as the need to increase the incomes on rural and urban workers and guarantee that agriculture works for their communities. She also defended the need to include occupational health issues in the final text. Martín expressed trade unions disappointment because there was just a single minute for civil society interventions, and thanked United States governments for its attempt to increase trade unions participation.