Business Response to Covid-19
The Business and Industry Major Group hosted a digital conference on the Business Response to Covid-19.
The distinguished panel discussed how critical it was that both private and public sectors work together on tackling the many challenges around this crisis.
Scott Ratzan, Director, BPSD discussed the evidence around the pandemic and summarized the various partners’ roles and responsibilities. He statedstressed that Business plays a critical role in responding to this crisis and its aftermath. Indeed,and tha Employers are key in the communication around the coronavirus. They are considered the most credible source of information, according to a recent Edelman ten-country study; accurate information on travel bans, quarantines, personal protection efforts, and social distancing is essential.
Roberto Suárez Santos, IOE Secretary-General, highlighted the importance of partnership between social partners and governments during this unprecedented time. In fact, IOE was currently working closely with ITUC, B20, G7, ILO, IMF to coordinate responses. He referred to the recent estimates by the ILO on job loss that ranged from 5.3 million at the low level to 24.7 million at the higher level and stated reskilling of employees for possible new jobs would be critical. Companies were responding to the crisis in many ways from encouraging teleworking, issuing Occupational Health and Safety (OSH) advice and guidance to revising paid leave and sick policies.
Shamina Singh, Founder and President of the Mastercard Centre for Inclusive Growth and Executive Vice President of Sustainability at Mastercard announced that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Wellcome and Mastercard committed recently up to $125 million in seed funding to speed-up the response to the Covid-19 epidemic by identifying, assessing, developing, and scaling-up treatments. She stressed that the partners were committed to equitable access, including making products available and affordable in low-resource settings with an emphasis on countries in most need.
