Business Daily meets: ILO Director-General Gilbert Houngbo
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 29 March 2024
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Founded in 1901, the International Labour Organisation works with governments of over 180 countries, to help promote internationally recognised labour rights. In all of its 105 year-history, Gilbert F. Houngbo is the first African to be in charge of the UN agency.
In this programme, the ILO leader talks to Rahul Tandon about what he's doing to try to tackle some of the biggest global challenges the world currently faces - from unemployment, to migration, to artificial intelligence.
And we hear about Mr Houngbo's own journey; from a rural upbringing, to studying in Canada, and how he felt when he was asked to serve as Prime Minister of Togo.
(Picture: Gilbert F. Houngbo. Credit: Violaine Martin/ILO)
Presenter: Rahul Tandon Producer: Amber Mehmood and Olie D'Albertanson
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Where to be a Woman is the podcast celebrating the best of women's well-being. |
| 0:05.7 | Listen now, wherever you get your BBC podcasts. |
| 0:11.0 | Hi, I'm Rahul Tandand, and welcome to Business Daily here on the BBC World Service. |
| 0:16.0 | Well, today we're meeting Gilbert Ongbo, Togo's former Prime Minister and the current Director General |
| 0:21.8 | of the United Nations International Labour Organisation, or as it's known, the ILO. |
| 0:27.5 | Well, what does it do? Well, it works with governments in more than 180 countries |
| 0:31.6 | to help promote internationally recognised labour rights. |
| 0:36.2 | From monitoring wage trends, working hours, work-life balance and other emerging issues, |
| 0:41.4 | the ILO plays an important role in promoting decent employment. |
| 0:46.2 | But how far can it go in enforcing those standards? |
| 0:49.6 | Most of the cases, we do get results on that positive result. |
| 0:54.0 | But I must say that you could come to a certain level where you feel powerless. |
| 1:00.1 | We're going to ask Yilbert-on-Bo, what he thinks is the biggest challenge facing economies today. |
| 1:06.3 | Right now, 53% of the world population. |
| 1:10.0 | So we talk about more than 4 billion people have zero social |
| 1:15.9 | protection in their country, zero. And how is artificial intelligence disrupting the job market? |
| 1:22.7 | I'm afraid it started already replacing blue and white color I like. |
| 1:29.1 | Plus, we'll find out how he went from being the Prime Minister of Togo |
| 1:32.5 | to being the head of a global organization responsible for the world of work. |
| 1:37.7 | It's true that for me, education, education, education. |
| 1:42.7 | It doesn't matter what education is the first step to get out of it. |
| 1:48.6 | This is Business Daily from the BBC World Service. I'm Rahal Tandon, in conversation with |
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