A/HRC/36/40 Report 2016/17; World Employment and Social Outlook — Trends 2017). The ILO further estimates that there will be only slight improvements for those at the bottom of the income scale in 2017. Close to 43 per cent of workers worldwide will remain in a situation of vulnerable employment and almost 29 per cent in “working poverty”. The fair and effective integration of migrants and refugees into labour markets is also a key concern, as these populations are often vulnerable to unemployment, low quality jobs and social exclusion. 7. The IFIs currently predict that the economies of emerging and developing countries will grow more than twice as fast as developed countries, which as a whole have grown at an average annual rate of only 1.6 per cent since 2010. Indications of increased joblessness and slowing wages in emerging economies identified by the ILO will undermine the IFIs’ predictions of improved growth prospects for the entire global economy in 2017 and 2018. 8. Some IFI forecasts note that political developments over the past year will further complicate attainment of a sustainable growth path for the global economy. The rise of right-wing nationalism in several countries is of great concern to trade unions around the world, but the response of policymakers should not be to ignore the growing lack of confidence in the global economic system. For years, some international institutions including the IFIs have shrugged off the adjustment costs from trade liberalization and the losses suffered by a significant number of working people from trade and investment agreements. Further liberalization without fairer rules for all is not the way forward. As a recent Trade Union Statement to G20 Finance Ministers 2 noted, policymakers must correctly identify the direction of causality between trade and growth when they formulate policy responses: “The recent trend of trade slowing down is mainly caused by weak domestic demand (prompted by austerity, internal devaluation, debt deleveraging), not by a surge in protectionism. Ignoring this causality by trying to push for more trade runs the risk of falling into the ‘competitiveness’ trap where economies depress wages in order to try to export themselves out of the crisis, which ends up deepening the global lack of demand, further slowing down trade dynamics.” 9. The IMF and World Bank should endorse a rebalancing of investors’ rights and obligations in trade and investment agreements by supporting the inclusion of enforceable labour provisions based on ILO standards, as well as the repeal of investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms that undermine governments’ right to regulate. To respond to the global lack of aggregate demand, growing inequality and the challenge of climate change, Global Unions urge the IFIs to support an extensive programme of public investment in energy efficient infrastructure and quality public services, and coordinated wage increases. Promote gender equality through decent work and public investment in social infrastructure 10. Gender equality and female labour force participation efforts must deliver lasting economic empowerment for women. Working women around the world are often concentrated in precarious, low-wage jobs in the service sector, domestic work and the bottom end of global value chains, and women are more likely than men to have informal jobs. Meaningful progress on decent work and transition from the informal to formal economy will be a particular boon for women and drive inclusive development. The global economy currently functions through the underpaid and unpaid work of women. Increasing female labour force participation in isolation from a decent work agenda will fail to adequately address gender equality. 11. Progress on gender equality is undermined by policy advice and conditionality involving austerity for social programmes, public sector retrenchments, labour market deregulation, cutbacks in public services and dismantling of collective bargaining systems. In Greece, labour market reforms and austerity applied at the behest of the IMF and EU creditors disproportionately affected women through job losses in the majority-female public sector, increased precarious work and a spike in gender-based firings. Women suffer 2 TUAC, March 2017 (http://www.tuac.org/en/public/e-docs/00/00/13/2C/document_doc.phtml). 35