In Global Peace Through The Global University
System
2003 Ed. by T. Varis, T. Utsumi, and W. R. Klemm
University of Tampere, Hameenlinna, Finland
EXPLORING THE HIGH ROAD TO TECHNOLOGY
AND GLOBALIZATION *
Juan Somavia
Director-General
International Labour Office (ILO)
* This greeting is based on a transcript on Video Intervention, Opening Ceremony, Workshop on "Emerging Electronic Global Distance Learning" at the University of Tampere, Finland (9 to 13 August 1999).
In bravely addressing the two
great challenges of the next millennium - new technology and globalization - there are three crucial questions for which we do not yet have all the answers.
- How
can we orient and shape the new technological wave to enhance both
economic and social development?
- How
can technology and globalization become key factors of increased equity
and contribute to a new awareness of personal identity and human rights?
- How
can we generate new visions and cultures, which are capable of meeting
these new challenges?
What is becoming increasingly clear is that there is nothing pre-determined in this process of change. There is room for maneuver, and different choices are available that are of particular strategic importance in the design and planning phases. Development at work and in society is consequently not just the result of uncontrollable forces such as globalization, intensified competition and technical change. It is, instead, primarily the result of political, economic and social choices.
The original approach to
technological innovation, largely built upon technological determinism,
short-term returns and downsizing, is progressively giving way to a high-road
approach where human capital, imaginative use of technological innovation and
new forms of work organization become fully interlocked to transform
information into knowledge and then into productivity growth, competitive
advantage and better conditions of work and life.
Though the high road is often only
a path, especially in developing countries, it is increasingly possible to
develop win-win solutions meeting at the same time the needs of the industry,
of the workers and of the community at large.
The ILO is looking at these
opportunities with great attention and commitment.
Teleworking:
Reaching the Critical Mass
After long years of unmet
expectations, teleworking is reaching its critical mass. Nowadays the number of teleworkers
exceeds 15 million worldwide. In
the United Kingdom, workers in call centres alone are more than those in the
car, steel and coal industries put together. Experts argue that rather than just a new form of work,
teleworking is likely to be the way an increasing majority of people will work
in the future. At the ilo, we have been at the forefront in
monitoring these changes with a path-breaking report in 1990, and plan to
inaugurate the year 2000 with a new report on the subject.
A mixed blessing, teleworking may
increase isolation, marginalization and social dispersion, unprotected jobs;
gender disparity; and fragmentation among the workforce. However, teleworking offers unique
opportunities for employment, development and special care of vulnerable
groups.
Teleworking can greatly contribute
to the development of a new type of entrepreneurship based on creativity, the
ability to network, openness to virtual environments and intangible assets,
high levels of agility, immediate responsiveness and the continuous
accumulation of new knowledge.
This type of entrepreneurship is considered the winning one for modern
enterprises and a great facilitator in new jobs creation.
The large majority of information
and communication technologies (icts)
related occupations are expected to grow rapidly as an effect of further
technological advancements. In the
United States, several of the 30 fastest-growing occupations are found in the
very rapidly expanding computer and data processing services industry, which is
expected to more than double its employment size to 2.5 million workers by
2006. These are typically
teleworking occupations.
Meeting this challenge requires
immediate action in the area of education, training and retraining. It also requires tapping into all
available resources and retaining available ones. Teleworking can play a key role in this respect. By bringing the work to their workers,
rather than the reverse, teleworking organizations gain access to workers
anywhere in the world and offering unique opportunities for disadvantages
groups/areas.
Teleworking can also foster the
development of new work in remote areas.
It can help in attracting and developing work in rural areas. Telecottages and telecentres are the
emerging answer. Particularly
suitable for small communities in isolated areas, telecottages and telecentres
have been spreading fast in recent times.
There is a history of attempts to
develop telecottages and telecentres in developing countries based on the idea
of the direct passage from agriculture to high technology that is of great
fascination, but this has proved to be very difficult to apply in the past.
Technological advances now make it
increasingly feasible to place a communication point in isolated villages, which can be run with cheap solar
energy and linked by satellite connection and Internet to the entire
world. This would be a place where
young people could familiarize themselves with the new information and
communication technology; where tele-education and teletraining could take
place; where crucial weather forecast for survival and growth could be
provided; where telemedicine could be administered; where farmers could gain
access to much needed advice and services.
In December 1997, 16 telecentres
were collectively inaugurated at a ceremony in the grade school library at
Erongaricuaro, state of Michoacan, Mexico. Many have failed or still struggle to survive. However successful stories start
emerging. In the bustling town of
los Reyes, one of the axes of the booming avocado export market, people will
tell you how the telecentre has established its credibility by linking the
local avocado producers with potential markets worldwide via Internet.
For people with disabilities,
teleworking offers an entire new range of work opportunities. A new powerful disability strategy is
emerging which abandons the traditional idea of rehabilitation as adaptation of
the disabled to the traditional workplace and looks, instead, at a new and open
workplace where people, both disabled and not, find a real chance to fully
express their working abilities and overcome discrimination. The ilo
is actively engaged in knowledge-sharing and global networking in this
area. It is responsible for
overall management of infobase, the major database worldwide within the global
applied disability research and information network.
Teletraining:
Making
the Turin Centre a Centre of Excellency
Increasingly, distance learning
appears as a privileged tool in enhancing the accessibility to higher level,
longer duration and more responsive training activities to meet the growing
needs for more shared knowledge.
The international training centre
of the ilo in Turin has a long
tradition of international and tripartite education. It is now enriching its traditional role with leading
functions in the area of distance learning and training.
Latin America is the first target
area. Current distance learning
programmes at the Turin centre include an advanced course on design, management
and evaluation of flexible learning systems addressed to Latin American
professional trainers and a virtual training programme designed to promote local
development and to support people and institutions working in this area. In the year 2000 a new major
telelearning programme on compared industrial relations, initially targeted at
labour relations professionals and specialists from Latin American countries,
will be launched.
Further initiatives in the area of
distant training are envisaged in the near future aiming at developing and
implementing distance learning courses in all technical areas of the core
mandate of the ilo. We are committed to making the Turin
centre a centre of excellency in this area.
Online
Advocacy Against Child Labour
Perhaps the fastest-growing area
of technology that increasingly affects the ilo's work is the Internet. The global
online audience is now estimated to be about 200 million people.
As a result of this electronic revolution, the Internet is rapidly growing into a major strategic communications tool for reaching a wide-ranging audience. Our web site on child labour has been, in the last years, a crucial means of information and dissemination. This is the most visited ilo technical website. During the first six months of 1999, the site has received 280,000 hits.
But the ILO is quickly moving
beyond this into online advocacy and campaigning.
Our ratification campaign for the
new convention on the worst forms of child labour will use the World Wide Web
as a means of building awareness and support for this effort. We are aiming for an interactive
website, which will be both the largest centre of online information on child
labour and an electronic centre for advocacy.
Looking Forward at Lessons To Be
Learned
Learning, especially continuous
learning, is the pre-condition to the development of new knowledge, skills and
competence in the leading areas of teleworking, teletraining and telecare. These are high priority areas for the ilo. We look forward with extreme interest to the results of this
conference to help us in the difficult search for the "high road"
towards the global aim of securing decent work for people everywhere.
Author Biographical Sketch
|
Juan Somavia Director-General, ILO United Nations, Geneva E-mail: cabinet@ilo.org Web: http://www.ilo.org/ |
|
Juan Somavia was elected to serve as the ninth Director-General of the ILO by the Governing Body on 23 March 1998. His five-year term of office began on 4 March 1999, when he became the first representative from the Southern hemisphere to head the organization. An attorney by profession, Mr. Somavia has had a long and distinguished career in civil and international affairs, His wide experience in all areas of public life - as a diplomat and academic - and his involvement in social development, business and civil organizations have all helped shape his vision of the need to secure decent work for women and men throughout the world, The following is a list of the many positions he held in the United Nations and other inter-governmental organizations before joining the ILO:
1990-99: Permanent Representative of Chile to the United Nations in New York;
1993-94, 1998-99: President of the United Nations Economic and Social Council;
1996-97: Representative of Chile on the United Nations Security Council, including President of the Security Council in April 1996 and October 1997;
1993-95: Chairman of the Preparatory Committee for the World Summit for Social Development, Copenhagen;
1991-92: Chairman of the Social Committee of the United Nations Economic and Social Council;
1990-91: Chairman of the United Nations Third Committee on Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Affairs;
1970-73: Executive Secretary of the Latin American Free Trade Association in Chile; Ambassador of Chile to the Andean Group; Member and Chairman of the Governing Body of the Andean Group;
1968-70: Ambassador and Adviser to the Foreign Minister of Chile on Economic and Social Affairs, responsible for multilateral issues including the ILO.
Since taking office in 1999, Mr. Somavia has taken up the challenge that the rapidly changing economy presents to the ILO. In 1999, he submitted his Decent Work Agenda to the International Labour Conference, which was subsequently endorsed by the Governing Body and the Conference. The work of the Office has been reorganized around four strategic objectives that make it possible to establish targets and indicators to measure progress and provide the basis of accountability.
Mr. Somavia began his career as an academic. From 1967-68, he was lecturer on economic and social issues for GATT's trade policy courses in Geneva, In 1971, he was appointed Professor of International Economic and Social Affairs in the Department of Political Sciences at the Catholic University of Chile, where he highlighted the ILO and its tripartite structure as a case study in international cooperation. Between 1976 and 1990, he was Founder, Executive Director and President of the Latin American Institute of Transnational Studies (ILET), during which time he undertook a number of studies on trade union and social movements in Mexico City and Santiago. From 1996-99, Mr. Somavia was Chairman of the Board of the United Nations Research for Social Development (UNRISD). Throughout his career, he has written and lectured widely on trade issues and labour and human rights and holds numerous citations and awards for his work in the areas of peace, human rights and social development.
Mr. Somavia participated actively in the restoration of democracy in Chile. Not only was he President of the International Commission of the Democratic Coalition in Chile but also founder and Secretary-General of the South American Peace Commission (1986-90). For his contribution to peace and human rights, he was awarded the "Leonides Proano Peace Prize" by the Latin American Human Rights Association.
Mr. Somavia is married to Adriana Santa Cruz and they have two children.