Keywords and definitions

Aids for Trade commitments: The term refers to a “firm obligation, expressed in writing and backed by the necessary funds, undertaken by an official donor to provide specified assistance to a recipient country or a multilateral organisation (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development [UNCTAD], 2025).

Aids for Trade disbursement: The term refers to the “release of funds to or the purchase of goods or services for a recipient; by extension, the amount thus spent. Disbursements record the actual international transfer of financial resources, or goods or services valued at the cost to the donor” (UNCTAD, 2025).

Child Labour: The International Labour Organization (ILO, n.d.b) defines child labour as any work activity carried out by children that is “mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful to children; and/or interferes with their schooling by: depriving them of the opportunity to attend school; obliging them to leave school prematurely; or requiring them to attempt to combine school attendance with excessively long and heavy work”.

Decent Work: The United Nations (n.d.) define decent work as “opportunities for everyone to get work that is productive and delivers a fair income, security in the workplace and social protection for families, better prospects for personal development and social integration”.

Economic Growth: The term economic growth denotes “an increase in the size of a country’s economy over a period of time” (Reserve Bank of Australia, n.d.).

Employment Rate: The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, n.d.a) defines the employment rate as “the extent to which available labour resources (people available to work) are being used”. It is calculated as the ratio of the employed to the working age population (OECD, n.d.a).

Forced Labour: The International Labour Organization C029 - Forced Labour Convention (1930) defines Forced Labour as “all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily. Article 2 of the Forced Labour Convention specifies all cases that shall not be included in this definition.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP): GDP indicates the total production of goods and services in the economy and it is commonly used to measure the size of an economy (Reserve Bank of Australia, n.d.)

Gross Domestic Product per capita (GDP per capita): GDP per capita is obtained by dividing the annual or period GDP at current market prices by a country’s population (United Nations Division for Sustainable Development, 2004).

Informal economy: “The informal economy comprises (i) the production of goods and market services of households; and (ii) the activities of corporations (illegal, underground) that may not be covered in the regular data collection framework for compiling macroeconomic statistics” (UNCTAD, 2025).

Informal Employment: The ILO (2023) defines informal employment as “any activity of persons to produce goods or provide services for pay or profit that is -in law or in practice- not covered by formal arrangements such as commercial laws, procedures to report economic activities, income taxation, labour legislation and social security laws and regulations providing protection against economic and personal risks associated with carrying out the activities”.

Labour force: The ILO (2016) defines the labour force as “the sum of persons in employment plus persons in unemployment”. The labour force effectively represents the aggregate labour supply in the economy. 

Labour productivity: Labour productivity is a widely used yet not so standardized measure. It measures “the amount of goods and services produced by each member of the labour force or the output per input of labour” (Eurostat, n.d.). Although specific methods to measure labour productivity may vary across different countries or organizations, it is commonly measured “...by gross domestic product (GDP), expressed in terms of the purchasing power standard (PPS), either relative to the number of employed people or to the number of hours worked” (Eurostat, n.d.).

Material Footprint: The United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD, n.d.) defines Material Footprint as “the amount of primary materials required to meet a country’s needs”. The Material Footprint therefore provides an indication of the burden placed upon the environment to sustain economic activity and satisfy the material needs of the people (UNSD, n.d.).

NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training): According to the OECD (n.d.b), “Youth not in employment, education or training (NEET) refers to the share of young people who are not engaged in any form of employment, formal education, or training activities”. 

Unemployment rate: The International Labour Organization (n.d.a) defines the unemployment rate as “the share of persons who are unemployed as a percent of the labour force”. Unemployed persons are defined as persons of working age that are neither employed nor self-employed, currently available for work, and actively seeking work (International Labour Organization, n.d.a)

List of references

Eurostat. (n.d.). Glossary: Labour productivity. Retrieved September 7, 2026, from https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Glossary:Labour_productivity

International Labour Organization C029 - Forced Labour Convention No. 29, June 28, 1930, https://www.refworld.org/legal/agreements/ilo/1930/13972

International Labour Organization. (2016, April 14). Labour force. Retrieved September 7, 2026, from https://www.ilo.org/resource/labour-force

International Labour Organization. (2023). Resolution concerning statistics on the informal economy (ICLS/21/2023/RES. I). https://www.ilo.org/resource/resolution-concerning-statistics-informal-economy

International Labour Organization. (n.d.a). Data, Snapshot: Unemployment rate, ILOSTAT. Retrieved September 7, 2026, from https://ilostat.ilo.org/data/snapshots/unemployment-rate/ 

International Labour Organization. (n.d.b). What is child labour. Retrieved September 7, 2026, from https://www.ilo.org/topics/child-labour/what-child-labour

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (n.d.a). Employment rate. Retrieved September 7, 2026, from https://www.oecd.org/en/data/indicators/employment-rate.html

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (n.d.b). Youth not in employment, education or training (NEET). Retrieved September 7, 2026, from https://www.oecd.org/en/data/indicators/youth-not-in-employment-education-or-training-neet.html

Reserve Bank of Australia. (n.d.). Economic Growth. Retrieved September 7, 2026, from https://www.rba.gov.au/education/resources/explainers/economic-growth.html

United Nations. (n.d.). Promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth, employment and decent work for all. Retrieved September 7, 2026, from https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/economic-growth/

United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. (2025, June 26). Glossary 2024. Retrieved September 7, 2026, from https://sdgpulse.unctad.org/glossary-2024/

United Nations Division for Sustainable Development. (2004, December 15). Gross Domestic Product per Capita. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Retrieved September 7, 2026, from https://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/natlinfo/indicators/indisd/english/chapt2e.htm

United Nations Statistics Division. (n.d.). Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Retrieved September 7, 2026, from https://www.oecd.org/en/data/indicators/employment-rate.html