Giving Complex challenges
and New ideas a home
The TASC Platform develops tools, shares perspectives and advances new capabilities to help policymakers make sense of change, strengthen resilience and develop people-focused policy responses.
The Alignment Challenge: Reconnecting Policy at the Trade-Labour Nexus
Dr. Maria Mexi, Senior Advisor on Labour and Social Policy at the TASC Platform, explores how trade and economic policies intersect with labour outcomes in an era of digital and green transitions. Drawing on case studies from Kenya’s digital economy and Indonesia’s nickel value chain, she highlights the growing challenge of aligning economic transformation with labour governance, showing why policy coherence and effective implementation are essential to ensure that global transitions deliver decent work and inclusive development.
Incubate, Test and Refine: Where are We on the Arc to Social Development?
Jason Judd, Executive Director of the ILR Global Labor Institute at Cornell University, sets the scene for the dialogue by tracing how trade policy has evolved over three decades, from NAFTA’s loosely attached labour provisions to more integrated approaches such as USMCA and emerging due diligence frameworks. Framing this evolution as a long process of incubating, testing, and refining ideas, he asks a central question: are these new tools truly delivering better outcomes for workers and social development?
Digital Dividends or Dependency? Industrial policy in the age of digital economies
In their contribution to the International Institute for Sustainable Development’s Trade and Sustainability Review, Maria Mexi and Kitrhona Cerri unpack how platforms, data and algorithms are redefining industrial policy, and the risks of falling into digital dependency. Drawing on Kenya’s digital economy, they examine what it takes to turn digital growth into broader local benefits.
Advancing social justice in practice: From coalition to action
On World Day of Social Justice, our Director, Marie-Laure Salles of the Geneva Graduate Institute, underscores the urgency of mobilising academia and the wider research community. She positions universities as catalysts for knowledge, connection, and concrete action within the Global Coalition for Social Justice.
EU Omnibus-isation: Simplification or Structural Drift?
Reporting from Strasbourg and the European Parliament, Maria Mexi examines the EU’s accelerating “Omnibus-isation” and asks whether regulatory simplification risks becoming structural drift. By tracing what this shift could mean for AI regulation, data rights and labour protections, she considers how Europe’s wider AI governance model balances competitiveness, protection and accountability.
Can we leverage uncertainty?
Our Co-Chair, Professor Gudela Grote shares how uncertainty-as-enabling mindsets can equip leaders to navigate complex transitions and strengthen cooperation across institutions and the multilateral landscape.
An Equitable Future in the Making
Shruti Merin Lal shares insights from our Futures Balance work, exploring intergenerational equity in policymaking during Building Bridges Week.
Responsible Business in Conflict: Why Heightened Human Rights Due Diligence Can’t Wait
Annika Erickson-Pearson brings three key takeaways from our Business & Conflict Community of Practice Annual Meeting, highlighting what responsible business in conflict demands today.
Geneva Dialogue on Trade and Labour
The Geneva Dialogue on Trade and Labour, hosted by the TASC Platform and the World Economic Forum Trade and Investment Team at the World Economic Forum headquarters on 27 October 2025, brought together country missions and institutional partners to reflect on how trade and labour policies can evolve together in times of transition.
From Connectivity to Capability: A Country Perspective from Panama
Ms. Sally Bardayan Rivera, Deputy Permanent Representative of the Panama Mission to the WTO highlighted how deeply trade and labour are intertwined in Panama’s national story. From the transformative power of the Panama Canal to the role of skills, services, and logistics in sustaining global trade today, she underscored the need to design trade systems that invest in people and not just in markets.
Strengthening Multilateral Coherence: A Country Perspective from Switzerland
Ambassador Valérie Berset Bircher, Deputy Head of International Labour Affairs at the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), called for renewed multilateral cooperation to better connect trade and labour agendas, underscoring the importance of institutional coordination and policy coherence, particularly in a context of climate transition, automation, and shifting global competitiveness.
Inclusive Trade and Labour Transitions: A Country Perspective from Kenya
H.E. Ambassador James Ndirangu Waweru, Deputy Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of the Republic of Kenya to the United Nations Office in Geneva, spoke to the urgency of aligning trade and labour agendas in the context of Africa’s fast-evolving economic transitions.
Aligning Trade & Labour: A Country Perspective from Bangladesh
H.E. Ambassador Ms. Nahida Sobhan, Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the UN and other International Organizations in Geneva, shared how Bangladesh’s own experience makes the case for formalising the trade and labour nexus through forward-looking policy reforms in which economic integration goes hand in hand with social inclusion.
AI Futures: Reimagining Learning & Work
Take-aways from the third in our series of AI Futures workshops at the ITU's AI for Good Global Summit, this year in collaboration with NACCE and SolveCC. We discuss best-practice solutions towards the realization of AI futures scenarios.
Who Answers When AI Misbehaves?
These discussion highlights capture key governance insights from Aligning Control and Accountability in the New AI Supply Chain: Who Answers when AI Misbehaves?, a high-level workshop convened by the TASC Platform, on the eve of the AI for Good Global Summit 2025 in Geneva. Bringing together perspectives from ETH Zurich, Cognizant, UC Berkeley, UNI Global Union, Source Transitions and the International Association for Safe & Ethical AI, the discussion explored how accountability and control are distributed across increasingly complex AI systems.
Champions for Social Justice: The Unique Power of Academia
Marie-Laure Salles, Director of the Geneva Graduate Institute shares her highlights from convening the first meeting of academic partners of the Global Coalition for Social Justice and her perspective on the unique power of academia as a lever for social cohesion and legitimacy.
Protecting Workers in Digital Supply Chains
Mekhla Jha shares a teaser of insights from our joint case study with the World Economic Forum and Africa Practice, building on extensive interviews exploring the promise and precarity of Kenya's digital transition for trade and labour.
National Voices for Transnational Governance
Keynotes from Miriam Caterina Roquel Chavez, Minister of Labour and Social Welfare, Guatemala and Lutfey Siddiqi, Special Envoy for International Affairs, Bangladesh, ground aspirations for transnational labour standards in national realities and bring to life the power of values-driven transitions.
Anchoring Economic Growth and Development in the Pursuit of Human Flourishing
Richard Samans, Senior Fellow at the TASC Platform, outlines why global economic priorities must shift toward human well-being, resilience, and inclusion. His latest article connects this agenda to the Global Social Summit, calling for coordinated action to reshape growth and development models worldwide.
A four-part “G3” US-Europe-China accord to address global economic imbalances
Richard Samans, TASC Senior Fellow at Geneva Graduate Institute,
In his latest Brookings article, Richard Samans argues that while global economic rebalancing is necessary, tariff-led strategies are the wrong tool—calling instead for coordinated fiscal, monetary, trade, and social policies.
