South–South Cooperation Must Guarantee Workers’ Rights and Advance Economic Transformation that Creates Decent Work
Jakarta, 17 July 2026 — Civil society organizations comprising the International NGO Forum on Indonesian Development (INFID), the Transnational Institute (TNI), The PRAKARSA, Publish What You Pay (PWYP) Indonesia, and Sahita Institute believe that the 2026 BRICS Labour and Employment Ministers’ Declaration fails to address the most fundamental challenge facing the world of work today: how to ensure that economic transformation generates decent work, protects workers’ rights, eliminates gender-based violence in production supply chains, and reduces poverty and inequality, rather than merely increasing productivity and economic competitiveness.
The declaration was adopted during the 12th BRICS Labour and Employment Ministers’ Meeting, held in Hyderabad, India, on 15 July 2026. While it prioritizes the expansion of social protection, labour market formalization, women’s participation in the workforce, skills development, and digital transformation, these commitments are not matched by a stronger commitment to the protection of workers’ rights.
The meeting took place amid a global economic slowdown driven by geopolitical tensions, technological disruption, the energy crisis, and currency depreciation against the US dollar in many countries, including Indonesia. As a bloc representing more than 40% of the world’s population and roughly one-third of the global economy, BRICS must demonstrate a strong commitment to transforming economic systems in ways that create decent employment while ensuring the protection of workers’ rights.
“BRICS must not become merely a new economic bloc that pursues growth through technocratic discussions alone. It must become an alternative force that demonstrates development can go hand in hand with respect for workers’ rights, the reduction of inequality, and social justice,” said Siti Khoirun Ni’mah, Executive Director of INFID.
Weak Commitment to Workers’ Rights
Civil society welcomes BRICS’ commitments to expanding social protection, increasing women’s participation in the workforce, and strengthening skills development. However, skills development commitments must be accompanied by concrete efforts to address the significant skills readiness gap, particularly in green skills needed to build sustainable green industries in Indonesia.
Indonesia’s proposal within BRICS to map future skills needs must be followed by an inclusive and targeted reskilling strategy. At present, Indonesia’s vocational education curriculum remains heavily oriented toward a conventional extractive economic model. Data show that only 3.1% of vocational high school (SMK) programs are relevant to the energy sector, and less than 1% specifically focus on renewable energy. Without serious intervention, the green transition risks leaving millions of coal miners and coal-fired power plant workers in uncertainty and creating structural unemployment in resource-producing regions.
The energy transition must therefore be just, not merely a technological shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy. It must guarantee equal access to reskilling opportunities for existing workers and vulnerable groups in affected regions.
The declaration also fails to provide a firm commitment to the protection of workers’ rights, including the rights of workers in the energy sector, freedom of association, collective bargaining, living wages, labour protection, and binding accountability mechanisms for businesses.
South–South Cooperation Must Deliver Justice, Not a Race to the Bottom
Civil society emphasizes that South–South cooperation cannot be limited to technology exchange, investment flows, or industrial competitiveness. It must instead be directed toward building a development model that differs from the global economic system that has long relied on cheap labour, labour flexibilization, and the exploitation of natural resources. Such cooperation must also include mechanisms that ensure the protection of workers’ rights and strengthen accountability in the business sector.
BRICS countries have an opportunity to build a shared agenda that:
- expands universal social protection;
- strengthens social dialogue among governments, workers, and businesses;
- raises regional labour standards;
- promotes public financing for the creation of decent jobs; and
- ensures that the benefits of development are distributed fairly across society.
South–South solidarity should therefore be measured by its success in protecting people, not merely by increasing investment.
Green Industrialization Must Create Decent Jobs, Not Just Increase Exports
As a country with some of the world’s largest strategic mineral reserves, Indonesia has a major opportunity to use its BRICS membership to build a green industrial policy capable of creating millions of quality jobs. The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that the transition to a green economy could generate 24 million new jobs globally by 2030 if supported by appropriate policies. Conversely, without a just transition, climate change could eliminate millions of jobs, particularly in agriculture and fisheries, while worsening workers’ vulnerability. Yet the industrial capacity gap among BRICS countries remains significant, especially in technological capabilities.
Rachmi Hertanti, researcher at the Transnational Institute, stressed that BRICS cooperation on energy transition will not automatically produce welfare and development justice if it merely reinforces dependence on extractive exports without inclusive cooperation in creating domestic value-added production across Global South countries. The creation of formal, decent jobs based on sustainability, equality, and justice is the key to a just energy transition. Without mechanisms that ensure fairness in technology transfer, market access, and value-added distribution, South–South cooperation risks replicating the unequal North–South relationship.
“If BRICS cooperation continues to follow a model of extracting natural resources from developing countries—from lithium and cobalt to other critical minerals—without meaningful technology transfer and without creating quality industrial jobs, then BRICS South–South cooperation will simply perpetuate what is increasingly called ‘green extractivism’. A bloc that should become a force for South–South solidarity would instead become another space for the exploitation of green resources to serve the consumption and industrial interests of advanced economies or the more powerful BRICS members,” Rachmi stressed.
Victoria Fanggidae, Executive Director of The PRAKARSA, added, “The success of downstream industrialization cannot be measured solely by export values or incoming investment. Evidence from mining areas such as Bangka Belitung shows that critical minerals underpinning the global energy transition can trigger green extractivism, where safety risks and social burdens are externalized onto workers and local communities without adequate occupational safety standards or social security.”
Indonesia’s nickel downstreaming experience also reveals the paradox that industrialization promoted as supporting the green transition can, in practice, place local communities and workers among the greatest bearers of the costs—from massive deforestation and pollution to occupational safety risks. Downstreaming must not become merely a showcase for the global energy transition; it must become an instrument of transformation that genuinely benefits the people.
“Follow the money, and we will see who profits from this downstreaming agenda. Follow the decision-making process, and we will see who is truly sitting at the table,” said Aryanto Nugroho, National Coordinator of PWYP Indonesia.
Industrialization linked to a green economic transformation—particularly in critical minerals and downstream industries—must therefore avoid reproducing old extractivist patterns. This requires transparency across the entire value chain, disclosure of beneficial ownership, and recognition of communities and workers as rights-holders, not merely stakeholders.
Indonesia Must Champion the Decent Work Agenda in BRICS
As a BRICS member, Indonesia has a strategic opportunity to promote a more inclusive development agenda. Civil society therefore urges the Indonesian government to use the BRICS forum to advocate for:
- Decent labour protection standards, including for energy-sector workers, aligned with workers’ rights such as living wages, the elimination of gender-based violence, and the rights to organize and assemble;
- South–South cooperation that strengthens universal social protection, rather than merely increasing investment flows;
- Green industrial policies oriented toward creating decent jobs and fostering inclusive and sustainable economic transformation; and
- Joint accountability mechanisms so that BRICS labour commitments do not remain political declarations, but become measurable and enforceable policies.
“BRICS will lose its relevance if it becomes only a new economic forum operating with old development patterns. The world today needs cooperation that places people, workers’ rights, and social justice at the center of economic transformation,” Siti Khoirun Ni’mah concluded.
Media Contact
Siti Khoirun Ni’mah
snimah@infid.org
Organizations Endorsing the Statement
- International NGO Forum on Indonesian Development (INFID)
- Transnational Institute (TNI)
- The PRAKARSA
- Publish What You Pay (PWYP) Indonesia
- Sahita Institute