Countries affirm Global Accelerator as a key platform for advancing social justice at Global Coalition's Annual Forum
Geneva – The Global Coalition for Social Justice hosted its third Annual Forum on 16-17 September, bringing together governments, workers’ and employers’ organizations and international partners to demonstrate the Coalition’s value in fostering collaboration, strengthening policy coherence and supporting coordinated action across the multilateral system. Over the two days, Coalition members pointed to the Global Accelerator on Jobs and Social Protection for Just Transitions as an important avenue for putting this ambition into practice through integrated action on decent jobs and social protection.
The Global Accelerator is one of the key interventions of the Global Coalition for Social Justice, both of which were acknowledged as mechanisms for implementing the Doha Political Declaration, which was adopted at the Second World Summit for Social Development in November 2025.
Opening the Forum, the ILO Director General, Mr Gilbert F. Houngbo, set the stage by emphasizing the importance of translating international commitments into sustained and coordinated action, through multilateral collaboration by initiatives of the Coalition, like the Global Accelerator.
The Forum also featured several pathfinder countries, including Namibia, Pakistan, the Philippines and Uzbekistan, which shared concrete examples of action being taken under the Global Accelerator at the country level and how these efforts are contributing to advancing social justice.
Mr Botir Zakhidov, Minister of Employment and Poverty Reduction, Uzbekistan, recognized the Global Accelerator’s contribution in bringing together employment, social protection, skills development, and support for entrepreneurship as an integrated approach for poverty reduction. "Our national roadmap brings four closely connected priorities together – reducing informality, strengthening inclusive social protection, and ensuring the just, green and digital transitions," he stated, while underscoring the importance of building social justice into economic transformation to create meaningful and lasting opportunities for all.
The Philippines spotlighted the greater coherence the roadmap has brought to its employment and social protection efforts by bringing together 42 existing programmes and projects, with mapped indicators, that provide a more focussed basis for implementation, monitoring and accountability. "The Global Accelerator’s value is in its ability to bring together employment, social protection, skills development and economic transformation that are often addressed separately, and aligning them toward the common objective of ensuring that economic transitions create opportunities for all," highlighted Mr Lennard Constantine C. Serrano Assistant Secretary of Labour and Employment, Philippines.
Pakistan reflected on how commitments made at the global level can be translated into tangible change in the lives of people and presented their engagement with the Coalition and the Global Accelerator as a realization of this ambition. "Pakistan has backed its commitment to the Global Accelerator with an allocation of 1 billion PKR towards employment, skills, social protection and gender responsive labour reforms," stated Mr Chaudhry Salik Hussain, Minister for Overseas Pakistanis, Human Resource Development and Religious Affairs, Pakistan.
Workers play an active role in the Global Accelerator. Mr Mahongora Kavihuha, Secretary-General, Trade Union Congress of Namibia (TUCNA), Namibia, highlighted how the international collaboration with other social partners and development partners has created a platform for mobilizing finances, while also elevating the jobs and social protection agenda.
The country experiences were matched by strong messages of international support, with development partners underscoring the role of sustained cooperation and financing in turning the Global Accelerator’s ambitions for social justice into results at scale.
Closing the social protection gap by 2030 requires global collective action, which Ms Lilian Tschan, State Secretary, Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, Germany, underscored as the raison d'être for the country’s EUR 47 million investment into the Global Accelerator and the M-GA partnership.
Spain echoed the Philippines’ sentiment, while recalling the country's EUR 10 million contribution to the initiative to advance its mandate. "The Global Accelerator’s greatest strength is that it breaks down silos. It doesn't deal with employment, social protection, environmental transition, the care economy and formalization as separate problems but deals with them together,” stated Mr Jaime Iglesias Sánchez-Cervera, Special Commissioner for the Social Economy, Ministry of Labour and Social Economy, Spain in his remarks.
As the Global Accelerator advances into the fourth year of its implementation and its geographic scope expands, the reflections by the Coalition’s members reaffirm the importance of its approach in achieving social justice – of working on jobs and social protection together, to ensure that no one is left behind.