The 42nd ADB Board of Governors Annual Meeting was held in Bali from 2 to 5 May 2009. Nearly eighty leaders of PSI and its affiliated unions in Asia and Pacific with other global unions, Building and Wood Workers’ International (BWI) and Union Network International (UNI), attended the meeting and various series of seminars/forums.

The global unions representatives and civil society organisations met on the commencing day of 42nd ADB Annual Governor Meeting on 2nd May 2009. Engaged in an“one hour” dialogue with President of the ADB, Mr. Haruhiko Kuroda, they asked him to answer on the issues of environment, resettlements, gender equality, 2020 strategy of ADB, economic crisis and its impacts on job losses, ADB procurement policies, Public-Public Partnerships (PUPs), and they again brought up the issue of the establishment of a labour desk. During the meeting, members of global unions protested the 2020 Strategy of ADB and considered it is fundamentally flawed. The protest was manifested by wearing goggle with 2020 question mark during the presentation. Further, global unions opined that ADB should rethink the 2020 strategy. The global unions called for the ADB to ensure that public investment is an essential part of all economic recovery strategies. Public investments should create and improve jobs and rebuild public services and infrastructure to make QPS available, accessible and affordable to all. On the issue of financial crisis, the global unions urged ADB that attaining the goal of poverty reduction in Asia, ensuring decent work has to be at the centre of ADB agenda. Decent work can only be achieved with full participation of workers. ADB should undertake an urgent review of the labour safeguard in the operational guidelines through the compliance of all core labour standards of ILO.

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Source:
PSI Asia Pacific Regional Organisation