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NO 92 JUNE-JULY 2002
| UN UPDATE | NGO & OTHER NEWSNEWS | FOCUS |
| WFP Sounds the
Alarm Viera de Mello named High Comm.. Anna Tibaijuka named Habitat Ex. Dir. World Bank Donors Increase... Security Council Adopts Resolution... SG Speaks on Globalization and Role.. UNCTAD SG: Policy Space for Dev.. Open Letter fails, Bush withholds Funds Optional Protocol to Torture Conv.. Preview of World Economy UNECA Economic Report on Africa Arab Human Development Report IASC Warns of Funding Shortage Conference on Disarment holds 2nd.. First World Day Against Child Labour CEDAW Holds 24th Session UN Publishes Study on Abortion Polic.. New Basel Guidelines to Improve Cycl. World Day to Combat Desertification State of African Environment INC-6 on Persistent Organic Pollutants UN Introduces Internet Oceans Atlas UNESCO Launches Global Alliance ODCCP Releases Report on Illicit Drug WHO Releases Draft Text of Tobacco.. |
AI: No
Trade-off Between Human Rights & Security PAN Celebrates 20th Anniversary Anti Slavery International Releases Report "We The People" Campaign" Other News African Union Launched USCR Says Number of World's UprootedGrowing Zimbabwe Invokes TRIPs and Health Delaration Latino Farmworkers Face Greater Cancer Risk |
World
Food Programme Sounds the Alarm World Food Summit: Five Years later UNCTAD Proposes Alternative Approach to Poverty Reduction ECOSOC High Level Segment on Education and Health Care G-8 Summit Addresses African Development Assistance Civil Society and the G-8 ILO Holds 90th Labour Conference High Level Meeting Focuses on Digital Divide Meetings on the UN Millenium Development Goals Calendar Guest Editorial:Ambassador Anwaral Karim Chowdury(High Representaive for Least Developed countries) |
| WORLD FOOD PROGRAMME SOUNDS THE ALARM | |
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With southern Africa facing its worst food crisis in a decade, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) has launched a massive international appeal to feed millions of hungry people in six countries. However, unlike the devastating drought of 1991-1992, a variety of factors—ranging from high prevalence rates of HIV/AIDS infection, to rising levels of poverty and a succession of poor harvests, to regional economic decline and governmental mismanagement—has contributed to current food shortages. WFP is asking for US$507 million to fund close to one million tonnes of food, enough to feed 10.2 million people in Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique, Lesotho, and Swaziland until the next main harvest in March 2003. WFP—which has been providing emergency food aid in the region since last year—says it has only one-quarter of the food it needs for the next three months. “This is WFP’s largest emergency operation but it needs donations to succeed and those donations are needed now,” said WFP Executive Director James T. Morris. “Southern Africa is already facing an extremely severe crisis, which will only worsen in the coming months. However, it is still possible for the international community to avert a catastrophe by responding rapidly to this appeal.” WFP says that already, from June to September 2002, seven million people need food aid, rising to just over 11 million from September to November, and peaking at 12.8 million from December until March 2003. Until now, WFP has been targeting 4.6 million people. Warning that these numbers could easily rise as the crisis becomes more acute, WFP says the current figures are based on a number of assumption s on issues such as expected commercial food imports, effective government agricultural policies, winter harvest production, and affordable maize supplies. Democratic Republic of Congo With the farming season currently in progress, WFP and NGOs plan to also airlift much needed seeds and agricultural tools to enable families with access to their fields to cultivate it.> Angola WFP says that many people, especially women and children, are in extremely poor condition and face starvation unless food supplies are urgently increased. Over recent weeks, WFP has started feeding an extra 120,000 desperately hungry people who were until recently completely cut off from aid due to the war. The agency says it needs US$241 million to feed up to 1.5 million people over the next 18 months, and that in spite of its growing activities in Angola, pledges from international donors have been sporadic. Afghanistan About one million refugees returning from neighbouring countries have also benefited from WFP food support over the past few months, but due to funding shortages WFP had to cut down the food package to the returning families to one-third of the original ration. Indonesia “The operation is designed to solve at least one problem for these people—getting enough to eat—so they can grapple more effectively with serious setbacks of poverty, unemployment and poor health,” said Mohamed Saleheen, WFP Country Director for Indonesia. “We are working with what are called the ‘ultra poor,’ a designation which means that they spend over 75% of their income on food but consume less than 75% of the minimum daily calorie requirement,” he added. “It is a losing battle unless we step in and help fill the food gap for them.” Noting that wages for unskilled urban labourers are half what they were before the 1998 economic meltdown, Mr. Saleheen explained that a large proportion of WFP’s target group has no access to government social safety nets because they are illegal settlers in a shadow existence on the fringes of the economy. Contact: Jeff Rowland, Public Affairs Officer, WFP, Via Cesare Giulio Viola 68, I-00148 Rome, Italy, telephone +39-06/6513 2971, fax +39-06/6513 2840, e-mail <Jeffrey.Rowland@wfp.org>, website (www.wfp.org). |
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| WORLD FOOD SUMMIT: FIVE YEARS LATER | |
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The World Food Summit: five years later (WFS:fyl) took place at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) headquarters in Rome from 10-13 June, where a large number of Heads of State and Government met to adopt a political declaration reaffirming the commitment made at the World Food Summit in 1996 to reduce the number of hungry people in the world by half (from 800 million to 400 million) by 2015. Introduction In his opening speech, FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf called for an International Alliance Against Hunger to mobilize the political will needed to put the hungry at the centre of the concerns of governments, parliaments, communities and civil society. Also addressing the opening session, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said, “Hunger is one of the worst violations of human dignity. In a world of plenty, ending hunger is within our grasp. Failure to reach this goal should fill every one of us with shame. The time for making promises is over. It is time to act. It is time to do what we have long promised to do—eliminate hunger from the face of the earth.” Negotiations After difficult late-night negotiating sessions, the main sticking points were a US proposal on the positive role of biotechnology in the fight against hunger, and an EU proposal on a Code of Conduct on the Right to Food and the implications of using the term “International Alliance Against Hunger” to connate what had been agreed in Rome. An initiative by middle-income developing countries to have their hunger problems specifically recognized and addressed by the international community did not meet with success. In the end, after over 80 hours of negotiations, a consensus text was adopted on the evening before the opening of the Summit on Monday, 10 June. The Declaration The agreed language resulting from the negotiations on a Code of Conduct on the Right to Food is found in paragraph 10, which says, “We invite the FAO Council to establish at its One Hundred and Twenty-third session an Intergovernmental Working Group, with the participation of stakeholders, in the context of the WFS follow-up, to elaborate, in a period of two years, a set of voluntary guidelines to support Member States’ efforts to achieve the progressive realization of the right to adequate food in the context of national food security; we ask the FAO, in close collaboration with relevant treaty bodies, agencies and programmes of the UN system, to assist the Intergovernmental Working Group, which shall report on its work to the Committee on World Food Security.” With regard to the role of biotechnology in addressing hunger, paragraph 25 states: “We call on the FAO, in conjunction with the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and other international research institutes, to advance agricultural research and research into new technologies, including biotechnology. The introduction of tried and tested new technologies including biotechnology should be accomplished in a safe manner and adapted to local conditions to help improve agricultural productivity in developing countries. We are committed to study, share and facilitate the responsible use of biotechnology in addressing development needs.” The United States lodged a reservation with regard to the reference to the Right to Food in the Declaration, on the familiar grounds that it could have legal ramifications under the US Constitution. The US also made known its interpretation of the reference to the International Alliance Against Hunger as not implying the establishment of any new structures or funding. In the week preceding the Summit, FAO launched an “Anti-Hunger Programme,” arguing that to reach the 1996 WFS goals would require additional public investment in agriculture and rural populations of some US$24 billion per year, a figure strongly supported by Jeffrey Sachs, Special Advisor to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who referred to the programme as a business plan for development assistance and the only realistic chance to reach the Summit’s goal. Conceived as a partnership between developing and rich countries, US$12.8 billion would be provided by official development assistance (ODA), and US$11 billion would be provided by developing countries. While the programme did not receive the endorsement of the major donor countries, the Summit Declaration, in paragraph 27, calls upon member countries, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, the private sector and others to consider voluntary contributions to FAO’s Trust Fund for Food Security and Food Safety, established in July 2001, with a target of US$500 million and to which Italy has contributed US$47 million. Coming as it did just a few weeks after the United States Government announced a new farm bill that will provide US$180 billion in support to US farmers over the next ten years, developing countries, members of the Cairns Group, and the EU took the opportunity to broadly criticize the US for going back on commitments to liberalize made at the World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial meeting in Doha last November. During the four days of the meeting, the US and EU delegations took every opportunity to denounce each other’s agricultural policies and defend their own, and also sought to outdo each other on their generosity as aid donors. Some of the African leaders present at the meeting took the opportunity to promote the New Economic Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). Non-governmental and other participants held a series of side events at FAO headquarters over the four days of the Summit. CGIAR held a seminar in the presence of Norman Borlaug, the so-called father of the Green Revolution, which firmly endorsed biotechnological approaches to increasing agricultural production. On the third day a multistakeholder dialogue was held, a first for FAO. A great majority of the interventions were made by NGOs/CSOs with rather few from governments despite the encouragement of the co-chairs, Norwegian Minister for International Development Hilde Johnson, and Sorojeni Rengam of Pesticide Action Network. In one moving testimony, a woman from the Korean consumer movement explained how she had unknowingly fed genetically modified food to her children and how ashamed it had made her feel. Addressing the US delegation she asked why, if genetically modified foods were safe, was there opposition to labelling them as such. NGO/CSO Forum The main sub-theme of the Forum was “hunger is not a problem of means but of rights,” under which banner the Forum discussed the impact of world trade patterns on food sovereignty; the object of having the Right to Food enshrined in international law; and the need to increase recognition and support for ecological approaches to agriculture. The Forum comprised two segments. An official segment comprised some 500 representatives of social movements, farmer and fisher organizations, and other NGOs from developing country regions, who had met together at the regional level during the preparatory process for WFS:fyl. The organizers had identified 450 participants from developing countries and 150 from the OECD region, although a large number of developing country representatives failed to show, due to “visa problems,” according to the organizers. The other NGOs/CSOs present were able to organize workshops and other thematic and regional meetings on issues such as genetically modified organisms (GMOs), the WTO, NEPAD, organic agriculture, etc. Participants who had been present at the fourth Preparatory Committee for the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Bali (Indonesia) from 27 May-7 June, made linkages between the two processes. FAO, the World Food Programme (WFP), and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) also held a number of briefings and information sessions each day at the Forum. In its Declaration to the Plenary of the WFS:fyl, the NGO Forum expressed its “collective disappointment in, and rejection of, the official Declaration of the World Food Summit: five years later. Far from analyzing and correcting the problems that have made it impossible to make progress over the past five years toward eliminating hunger, this new plan of action compounds the error of ‘more of the same failed medicine’ with destructive prescriptions that will make the situation even worse.” NGO and civil society activists were particularly concerned by the uncritical and non-precautionary embrace of biotechnology in the document, the lack of mention of alternative, ecological approaches to raising agricultural production, and the weakening of the language on a Code of Conduct—although NGOs are committed to monitoring and lobbying the two-year process to establish the voluntary guidelines agreed at the Summit. The NGO Forum also adopted a plan of action, Food Sovereignty: An Action Agenda with over 130 proposals for action in the coming years. In the final meeting of the IPC, it was agreed to maintain and build on the regional focal point system created in the preparation for the Forum and maintain a coordinating presence in Rome to interface with the Rome-based UN food agencies. Contact: Nora McKeon, Resources and Strategic Partnerships Unit, Food and Agriculture Organization, Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, I-00100 Rome, Italy, telephone +39-06/5705 3852, fax +39-06/5705 5175, e-mail <TCDS-NGOs-CSOs@fao.org>, website (www.fao.org/tc/NGO). International Focal Point: Antonio Onorati, Coordinator, Associazione ONG Italiane (Italian Host Committee), Via Angelo di Pietro 21, I-00165, Rome, Italy, telephone +39-06/3937 7764, fax +39-06/3937 7758, e-mail <ngoforum@libero.it>, website (www.forumfoodsovereignty.org). |
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Where extreme poverty is as pervasive as it is in most least developed countries (LDCs), poverty reduction strategies should not target only the poorest but seek to raise living standards for the majority through development. This is one of the key messages of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in its Least Developed Countries Report, 2002, which proposes an alternative to the prevailing approach, one that addresses broader structural problems, including what it defines as the “international poverty trap.” Over a billion people, including at least two-thirds of those in the 49 least developed countries (LDCs), are currently taking part in a massive social experiment, UNCTAD says. Their governments are preparing and implementing Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) as a condition for aid and debt relief. How this experiment works in practice will be critical for the lives of at least one billion people and for achieving the global poverty reduction goals agreed by the international community. The PRSP process is the centrepiece of the approach to international development cooperation for low-income countries introduced in the late 1990s by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank. The UNCTAD report argues that the central insight of the PRSP approach—that more effective poverty reduction will come not from national policies imposed by donors but from allowing countries to formulate and implement their own policies—is the right one. It also agrees with the key judgement underlying the shift in international development cooperation, which is that the structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) of the 1980s and 1990s were not doing enough to reduce poverty in poor countries. Using a new set of poverty estimates, the report shows that on average the incidence of extreme poverty did not fall in LDCs undertaking SAPs, even in the group of countries where they were well implemented. Where productive capacities, markets and an entrepreneurial class investing in production are all underdeveloped, SAPs do not deliver accelerated and sustained economic growth at rates sufficient to make a significant dent in poverty. However, the initial experience with PRSPs in the LDCs shows that the creative potential of the new approach is not being realized, according to the report. Like the old adjustment programmes, the emerging PRSPs still give priority to short-term stabilization over long-term development, with tight credit ceilings and restrictive fiscal policies. They continue to broaden and deepen past structural reforms in the belief that an economy where four out of five people are living on US$1 a day will behave like a perfectly competitive market, and economic activities will automatically spring up if the government gets out of the way and the national “market” opens up to the rest of the world. Although there is one new anti-poverty component—more closely tracked public expenditure being channelled into basic health, education and local infrastructure projects—the overall approach, says UNCTAD, is still not the best way to combat poverty in the LDCs. In fact, “there is a possibility that with these new strategies, countries will end up with the worst of all worlds. The new policies will increase exposure to intensely competitive global markets but without facilitating the development of the productive and supply capacities necessary to compete. At the same time, there will be increased aid dependence through arm’s-length international guidance of social welfare.” Genuine National Ownership and Policy Autonomy The report notes that developing country governments know from past experience that if there are interruptions in aid flows and delays in debt relief, the incidence of poverty is bound to rise. Therefore, realizing the full potential of the PRSP approach will require fewer and more flexible conditionalities, as well as greater open-mindedness on the part of international financial institutions to alternative poverty reduction strategies, with donors firmly aligned behind those strategies. The report advocates the introduction of donor performance-monitoring indicators at the recipient country level to provide incentives for, and monitor progress towards, increased ownership and partnership, and thereby aid effectiveness. Rebuilding key State capacities—particularly in such areas as financial auditing and accounting, economic forecasting and debt management—is also essential. An Alternative Approach The overall goal should be to promote sustained economic growth in order to double average household living standards; if this happens, the incidence of extreme poverty will then fall sharply. This doubling will be best achieved through mutually interacting investment and export growth that expands productive capacities and generates sustainable livelihoods. UNCTAD’s alternative approach builds on earlier research on the policies that facilitated sustained economic growth over a long period in East Asia and how these policies can be applied in sub-Saharan Africa. The approach is based on establishing a dynamic investment-export nexus through the creation of profitable investment opportunities, reducing the risks and uncertainty of investment activity, and ensuring the availability of finance so that entrepreneurs are able to invest in expanding production. Key elements of the approach are more growth-oriented macro-economic policies, sectorally focused productive development policies, export promotion policies and policies to ensure that marginalization within LDCs does not occur as economic growth takes place. Private enterprise has a leading role to play in development-oriented poverty reduction strategies, the report says. But the development process should be catalyzed and guided by a developmental State that, through effective governance of markets, harnesses the profit motive for the purposes of national development and poverty reduction. Creating effective States, and also a dynamic domestic entrepreneurial class willing to commit its resources to domestic investment rather than to luxury consumption or holding wealth abroad, remains a central institutional issue. The International Poverty Trap At the domestic level, five main interrelationships are identified in the report: The report emphasizes the need for increased and accelerated debt relief delivered through a simpler mechanism than the current enhanced Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC II). Under HIPC II, the annual debt service relief in 2003-2005 for the 20 LDCs that have qualified for debt relief will be only 5.5% of net official development assistance (ODA) disbursements to those countries in the year 2000. The forecasts of a sustainable exit from the debt problem through the Initiative are systematically and simplistically overoptimistic, UNCTAD argues. With falling commodity prices, the enhanced HIPC Initiative is on a knife-edge, and the fledgling PRSPs will be derailed if debts and arrears accumulate again. Unsustainable external debt also undermines aid effectiveness, the report finds. “There is now clear evidence that the build-up of external debt has influenced donor behaviour,” it says. “Official donors, who are also the major creditors, have been supplying aid to ensure that official debts can be serviced.” There is an urgent need for increased and more effective aid. The report notes that it is a positive sign that the sharp decline in aid flows to the LDCs that began at the start of the 1990s was halted during 1998-2000. But in real per capita terms, net ODA disbursements to the LDCs were still 46% lower in 2000 than they were in 1990. The poverty-reducing impact of relaxing, to different degrees, the financial constraint within which PRSPs are framed should be jointly explored by developing country governments and donors. Productive sectors, notably agriculture, and economic infrastructure, which have both been relatively neglected in the context of declining aid flows, are likely to receive greater attention in the type of poverty reduction strategy advocated by UNCTAD. Aid effectiveness will be greatly increased if aid inflows are geared to government priorities, delivered through government systems unless there are compelling reasons to the contrary, and provided on a more stable, long-term basis. International Commodity Policy The ability of international trade to act as an “engine of growth” and poverty reduction is being short-circuited by a persistent fall and instability of world commodity prices, the report points out. At the end of 2001, real non-fuel commodity prices had plunged to one-half of their annual average for the period 1979-1981. The report reviews past efforts to mitigate excessive instability through economic measures in international commodity agreements (ICAs), which it says have been successful only for limited periods of time. In view of this mixed record and the lack of political will to implement such economic measures, the report suggests that their reintroduction into ICAs appears unlikely. One possible approach, UNCTAD suggests, is the promotion of arrangements between buyers and sellers that are based on longer-term commitments rather than on daily dealings. “All parties must accept, however, that attaining some degree of stability may mean forgoing short-term gains,” UNCTAD stresses. The introduction of at least some aspects of “fair trade” principles into mainstream trade may be an avenue to explore in this regard. But for this to happen, incentives need to be provided by governments and cooperation between the NGO community and large business concerns must exist. The report cites a joint UNCTAD/International Development Research Centre project that is exploring modalities in this area, with an initial focus on coffee. It notes that some firms, such as Starbucks, have already decided to procure part of their supplies under “fair trade” arrangements, and the marketing of Max Havelaar products through the Migros supermarket chain in Switzerland has been a determining factor in achieving significant market shares, notably in bananas. The report also refers to price risk management financial instruments as a way to limit the incidence of instability for producers and trades, but warns that ongoing application of these instruments in some LDCs is likely to reveal both the problems and the potential of this approach. The report emphasizes that the international community, in discussing a new developmental approach to international commodity policy, must reconsider the use of compensatory financing for export earnings shortfalls. This is a particularly important aspect in addressing what the 2001 UN Programme of Action for the Least Developed Countries (paragraph 86) calls the “structural causes of indebtedness.” In this regard, the report notes that the IMF contingency credit line would not be available to a country that is borrowing from any other IMF facility, while the costs of accessing the IMF Compensatory Financing Facility are so prohibitive that they would breach the standard concessional borrowing ceilings in Poverty Reduction Growth Facility programmes. It goes on to review the European Union’s so-called “B envelope” funding, designed to replace its STABEX and SYSMIN (the EC’s compensatory finance scheme to stabilize export earnings of the African, Caribbean, and Pacific group of States for agricultural goods and the mining sector) and export shortfall compensation windows. While B envelope funding is more flexible, the terms governing access to this finance are very restrictive, requiring shocks equivalent to a 10% drop in export earnings as well as a 10% worsening of the budget deficit. “The design of appropriate contingency financing facilities for LDCs and other low-income countries is urgent,” UNCTAD insists. In terms of the causes of long-term decline in world primary commodity prices, the report cites improvements in yields and productivity (the benefits of which have largely accrued to buyers), and the entry of new producers into primary commodity markets. The report highlights strategies that could help producers in capturing more of the benefits of yield and productivity improvements. It also suggests that international commodity policy should include modalities for regular consultations among international organizations, including international commodity bodies, and governments, designed to help in directing efforts to increase production away from crowded markets to more dynamic products. Contact: Charles Gore, Senior Economic Affairs Officer, Office of the Special Coordinator for LDCs, UNCTAD, Palais des Nations, CH-1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland, telephone +41-22/917 5944, fax +41-22/917 0046, e-mail <charles.gore@unctad.org>, website (www.unctad.org). |
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| ECOSOC HIGH LEVEL SEGMENT ON EDUCATION AND HEALTH CARE | |
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The UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) opened its annual substantive session with a high-level segment where top Member State officials, heads of international agencies and other senior UN officials addressed the segment’s main themes—education and health care—termed “the surest antidote to strife and the strongest foundation for long-term economic growth,” by ECOSOC President Ivan Simonovic (Croatia). At the meeting, held from 1-3 July 2002 at UN headquarters in New York, Ministerial participants concentrated their discussion on the contribution of human resources development to the process of development, and concluded the high-level segment with the adoption of a Ministerial Declaration on the subject. Many embraced the implementation of the Millennium Declaration as the central organizing framework for their development efforts and recognized that a funding gap needed to be closed in order to meet the targets. United States Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, recently back from his tour of Africa with activist rock star Bono, highlighted three investments that he said were vital to realizing human potential and making an immediate difference in people’s lives: clean water, primary education, and fighting HIV/AIDS. He said that the US was increasing its contributions largely through the Millennium Challenge Account, which was launched during the International Conference on Financing for Development (ICFFD) held in Monterrey (Mexico) in March 2002 (see NGLS Roundup 91). Mr. O’Neill noted that the Account represented a 50% increase over the next three years in US official development assistance (ODA) and was being used to assist countries that “govern justly,” “invest in people” and “encourage economic freedom.” Mr. O’Neill echoed Mr. Simonovic’s comments regarding the need for investment in impoverished countries through grants. “We must avoid creating the next generation of highly indebted poor countries,” Mr. O’Neill said. “The reality is that essential investments in sectors such as education and health care cannot directly generate the revenue to service new debt. These projects should be funded by grants, not loans.” Rubens Ricupero, Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), delivered a withering critique of the international response to the spread of economic instability, particularly in Latin America, noting that even after several episodes of painful crises in emerging markets, the international community still lacked a realistic strategy for dealing with financial instability and the debt problem. Just “muddling through” had cost Latin America the entire decade of the 1980s, he said, and a similar lack of procedures had recently exposed Argentina. Uncertainty, he noted, continued to surround the modalities of official intervention in the financial crisis, adding to the overall volatility. It was time to end ad hoc approaches, Mr. Ricupero said, and get on with genuine reform of the international financial architecture. Only multilateral action could effectively deal with the debt problem and only cooperation among the major economic powers could deliver the degree of currency stability needed by developing countries to ensure that trade and financial flows complemented their domestic efforts. NGO Input Two weeks prior to the high-level segment, the Conference of NGOs in Consultative Status with the UN (CONGO) collaborated with the ECOSOC Secretariat to coordinate an “NGO Forum” that consisted of a panel and a workshop to discuss input for the Ministerial Declaration. The first recommendation made by the Forum was that the gender aspects of human resources development needed more attention, as investments in girls’ education and health had a long-lasting and mutually reinforcing impact on poverty reduction. The Forum also suggested that all types of education—formal, informal and non-formal—needed to be considered in this connection and that each should be relevant for employment. In the area of health, NGOs applauded the new Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria but urged that more financing be committed to it. NGOs also highlighted the need to build up infrastructures for health care, safe water supply, sanitation and waste disposal, to help prevent avoidable diseases. The Forum additionally called on the Bretton Woods institutions to prioritize capacity building, education and job creation in their financial assistance. Regarding their evolving relationship with ECOSOC, NGOs said they appreciated being able to make direct input to the high-level meeting and expressed a desire to be more involved in the monitoring and evaluation of progress on health and education targets and work related to the Millennium Development Goals. Contact: Division for ECOSOC Support and Coordination, United Nations, Room DC1-1428, New York NY 10017, USA, telephone +1-212/963 3068, fax +1-212/963 1712, e-mail <lehtinen@un.org>, website (www.un.org/esa/coordination/ecosoc). |
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| G-8 SUMMIT ADDRESSES AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE | |
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Leaders of the Group of Eight (G-8) most industrialized countries held their annual summit from 26-27 June 2002 in the resort of Kananaskis, Alberta (Canada). Although nearly overshadowed by discussion about conflict “hot spots,” anti-terrorism issues, and industry and farm subsidies, aid to Africa did prove to be a major focus of discussion, as promised by Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien. In the first appearance by African leaders at a G-8 meeting, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade and South African President Thabo Mbeki, as well as UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan met with G-8 leaders to discuss development assistance to Africa. The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) provided the focus for the summit discussions. NEPAD, an action plan devised by the African leaders and based on partnership, calls for US$64 billion in annual investment and support to sustain an economic growth rate of 7% for 15 years in conformity with goals set by northern institutions on poverty reduction, education, health and sustainable development. It also creates a peer-review mechanism, under which African countries would monitor each other’s progress. Among the G-8 countries, Canada and the United Kingdom led the fight for more aid to Africa, with Mr. Chrétien calling on G-8 countries to reduce trade barriers to African farm products, textiles and footwear, and pushing for increased support for education, agriculture, fresh water, government and judicial restructuring, foreign investment, and the fight against HIV/AIDS and malaria. British Prime Minister Tony Blair pushed for more trade access and debt relief, pledging to increase British aid to the region to over US$1.5 billion by 2006. Mr. Chrétien was unable to secure agreement on getting half of the US$12 billion pledged by G-8 countries earlier this year to be devoted to Africa. Although Canada and European countries agreed to the US$6 billion target, Japan and the US refused to commit themselves. G-8 countries also only offered vague assurances they would reduce subsidies for their farmers, which African leaders have complained reduces the competitiveness of their agricultural exports. Promising a “new beginning” for Africa, G-8 leaders ultimately signed a historic action plan backing NEPAD and increasing aid to the continent by billions of dollars. In addition, the G-8 approved US$1 billion in debt relief for as many as 22 African countries under the World Bank’s Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative. Activists criticized the move as insufficient, however, with some NGOs saying the amount barely countered a fall in prices of commodities such as coffee and cotton, vital to developing countries. Andrew Graham, a spokesman for CARE Canada, said the US$1 billion represented only 50 days of debt repayment by poor countries. “Poverty is killing more people every day than terrorism,” Mr. Graham added. “We have acted collectively to make sure globalization benefits all and no nation is left behind,” Mr. Annan said as he welcomed the plan. “If Africans really stick to the commitments they have made in NEPAD to themselves, and to each other, and if the G-8 really carry out the action plan they are announcing today, this summit might come to be seen as a turning point in the history of Africa, and indeed of the world,” he said. In the view of many NGOs, however, the G-8 leaders are simply unleashing more of the conditions that have spawned economic regression in Africa. “Isn’t it amazing that a few African countries sat down and mapped out a future for Africa that looks exactly like structural adjustment programmes of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization, to be presented to the rich nations?” asked Njoki Njehu of the anti-poverty campaign “50 Years is Enough Network” in an interview with InterPress. To critics like Ms. Njehu, NEPAD allows the G-8 to place the responsibility for Africa’s future on Africa itself and to thereby evade responsibility for an international system that plunged the continent into deep poverty in the first place. Critics also expressed dismay at what they saw as NEPAD’s reinforcement of the notion that the North has a monopoly on monitoring or certifying progress—or its lack—in the South. Even the peer review mechanism, they said, would ultimately report to northern financial institutions and donor governments in order for them to disburse aid and loans. “It is an identical blueprint and has all the components of economic restructuring, privatization, and trade programmes pushed in other arenas through structural adjustment programmes by the multilateral financial institutions,” Ms. Njehu told InterPress. “This shows the lie and the hypocrisy in saying that this is an African-owned thing. It is neither something that comes from the grassroots nor is it something that is organically African.” Contact: The 2002 Summit, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, G8 Summit Management Office (G8C), 125 Sussex Drive, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1A 0G2, telephone +1-888/316 2002, website (www.g8.gc.ca/menu-e.asp). |
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After surveying another decade (1991-2001) of what it calls “poor economic performance in Africa,” an independent panel of 12 eminent personalities, named by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and chaired by Ghana’s former Finance Minister Kwesi Botchwey, has found that Africa has made some impressive strides in democratization in recent years, but also says that a sharp drop in development aid, unfavourable markets for African exports, devastating conflicts and continuing poor governance have greatly hindered progress.
The panel found that economic growth in Africa for the decade of the 1990s averaged only about 3%, down from the 6% target set in 1991 by the now-concluded United Nations New Agenda for the Development of Africa (UN-NADAF)—created to serve as a catalyst for Africa’s development in the 1990s. The panel also found that official development assistance (ODA) to Africa fell from US$28.6 billion in 1990 to US$16.4 billion in 2000, a 43% decrease.
Other factors affecting Africa’s economic growth during the UN-NADAF period were the proliferation of wars and civil strife; the spread of major diseases, especially HIV/AIDS; structural adjustment programmes—although liberalization, privatization and market-based reforms were believed to have helped improve the macro-economic situation in Africa somewhat; and the low representation of women in parliaments and decision-making bodies, among other factors.
Mandated to consider whether the UN should develop another agenda or programme to extend or follow UN-NADAF, it concluded that recent international agreements to promote peace and development in Africa have essentially failed, while noting that some 80 million more Africans live in poverty today than at the start of the 1990s.
The panel has recommended that the United Nations put its support behind African leaders’ new initiative, NEPAD, which focuses on issue around democratization, infrastructure development and investment. The panel noted that, however, that NEPAD is “still an evolving process,” and said that greater consensus needs to be achieved on NEPAD’s priorities through intensive engagement with African democratic institutions and civil society.
The panel added, “NEPAD’s potential also reflects its fragility. While an African initiative, NEPAD’s charter also candidly acknowledges its substantial dependence on external assistance in order to realize many of its aspirations. Donors, from whom such assistance is sought, would need to play their partnership role in the NEPAD framework with a renewed commitment to the assurance of African leadership and the avoidance of a return to old-style conditionality that has been counterproductive in the past.” For NEPAD and other efforts to have greater success in the future, the panel argued, rich countries need to increase their aid commitments, provide greater debt relief and open their markets to African exports.
The panel cited lessons learned that point to the conditions for success in the future as including: African ownership, where each African country “must evolve its own development strategy;” and peace efforts, which “must be the primary responsibility and highest priority of African countries, individually and collectively.”
Contact: Wiseman Nkuhlu, NEPAD Steering Committee Chairman, NEPAD Secretariat, PO Box 1234,
Midrand Halfway House, Midrand 1685, South Africa, telephone +27-11/313 3672, fax +27-11/313 3684,
e-mail <wiseman@sbsa.org>, website (www.nepad.org).
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| CIVIL SOCIETY AND THE G-8 | |
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A significant step was taken by the Canadian Government in preparation for the Kananaskis Summit, when it undertook a wide range of outreach activities and consultations with interested citizens and groups in an effort to make the G-8 Summit process and priorities more transparent. Among the major events was a meeting coordinated by the Montreal International Forum (FIM), held in Montreal and Ottawa from 21-23 May 2002 with assistance from the Ford Foundation. FIM is a global alliance of individuals and organizations with the goal of improving the influence of international civil society on the UN and the multilateral system. In convening this meeting, FIM sought to concentrate on the means of improving the process of dialogue between civil society and the G8, recognizing that it was a long-term process and at the same time emphasizing that it did not wish to confer legitimacy upon the G-8 as a global governance mechanism." Some 15 participants from around the world were invited in their personal capacity and on the basis of their knowledge and experience with international civil society dealings with multilateral bodies. They met with G-8 government representatives and officials from the G-8 Summit policy office, presenting a history of multistakeholder dialogues as well as African perspectives on the NEPAD experience, with special attention given to the role to date of African civil society. The participants delivered a blistering critique of the NEPAD consultative process, noting that it did not have wide African support, nor was it a one-time opportunity. “It is seriously flawed,” they said, “with a total lack of gender analysis. Its underlying macro-economic framework has been put into question, and its resource mobilization strategy may well be unworkable. The NEPAD process needs to be opened up,” they said. With regard to future G-8 civil society dialogue, participants emphasized the underlying principles of good governance, transparency and legitimacy. “The G-8 cannot continue to hide from its constituents,” they said. Contact: Forum International de Montréal, 407 rue McGill, Bureau 800, Montreal, Quebec H27 2G3, Canada, telephone +1-514/499 9468, fax +1-514/987 1567, e-mail <info@fimcivilsociety.org>, website (www.fimcivilsociety.org). |
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The International Labour Organization (ILO) concluded its 90th annual International Labour Conference after adopting measures designed to promote a more rigorous approach to meet the challenges of globalization and to create a wider base for personal security through poverty reduction, job creation and improved workplace health and safety. ILO’s annual Conference, held from 3-20 June 2002 in Geneva, brought together governments, workers and employers representing ILO’s 175 Member States in order to adopt and oversee compliance with international labour standards, establish the budget of the ILO, and elect members of the Governing Body. The Conference elected Jean-Jacques Elmiger, Secretary of State of the Federal Department of the Economy of Switzerland, as its President. ILO Director-General Juan Somavía said this year’s Conference was marked by an “exceptionally rich” discussion surrounding globalization, child labour and other issues and saw a “broad and steadily deepening consensus over the goal of decent work for all.” Mr. Somavía stressed, “Until we see a globalization that prioritizes the creation of employment and the reduction of poverty, the whole concept is going to remain dogged by controversy and division.” The Conference also considered a wide range of issues, including decent work in the informal economy, child labour, safety and health, and the situation of workers in the occupied Arab territories. Globalization Speaking on globalization, the Director-General said the world was experiencing a “yawning decent work deficit,” with more than a billion women and men unemployed, some 120 million migrants seeking work abroad, and that an estimated 500 million news jobs will be needed over the next decade to absorb new entrants to the labour market, largely youth and women. “The present form of globalization has not produced enough jobs for all who seek them or in the places where they are most needed,” he said. “This is probably its biggest failure.” Mr. Somavía proposed a five-point plan aimed at combining public and private policies to address the work deficit, including: promoting local development, markets, entrepreneurship, social protection and coping capacity; releasing the creative potential of women and men trapped in the informal economy; enhancing basic economic and social security for all people and their families; promoting policy coherence and pluralism on economic reform, reducing poverty and job creation; and maintaining a “rhythm of change” at the ILO by “listening to a wide range of opinions: from those who like our work and also from our critics.” The Conference also adopted a Recommendation on the Promotion of Cooperatives, which replaces ILO Recommendation 127 adopted in 1966, which was limited to developing countries. The Recommendation asks members to adopt measures to promote cooperatives in all countries to create employment, develop their business potential, increase savings and investment, and improve social wellbeing. Members are asked to consider the promotion of cooperatives as one of the objectives of national and social development, and to reflect on measures to create an enabling environment to promote the growth of economically viable and democratically managed cooperatives. ILO says that cooperatives are one of the most powerful tools to fight social exclusion and to further sustainable development. Ivano Barberini, President of the International Co-operative Alliance, stressed “cooperatives are a form of enterprise that put people first.” Ranging from small-scale to multimillion-dollar businesses across the globe, cooperatives are estimated to employ more than 100 million women and men, and have more than 800 million individual members. In his concluding remarks, the Director-General noted that delegates had urged the ILO to “set increasingly rigorous performance indicators that relate to the needs of constituents and be more aggressive in evaluating how our intervention can best help to redress decent work deficits in a globalizing world.” Informal Economy ILO says there is great difficulty in defining the term “informal economy.” In principle, the term refers to “all activities of workers and economic units that are ‘in law or in practice’ not covered by formal arrangements,” operating outside of the scope of the law. In some countries the term refers to the private sector, while in others it is another name for the “underground” or “shadow” economy, even if the workers in the informal economy produce legal goods and services. There is also an area between the two where economic activity involves characteristics of both the formal and informal economy, for instance when formal workers receive undeclared remuneration. According to experts at the Conference, the growth of the informal economy is more a result of poor governance than of globalization, which they attribute to “inappropriate, ineffective, misguided or badly implemented macro-economic and social policies.” ILO says that in order to reduce the informal economy, it is essential that structural adjustment, restructuring and privatization policies take into account the need to promote employment creation. ILO warns that the multitudes of workers in this category are not recognized, registered, protected by legislation, or covered by social security. The absence of health and safety guarantees, as well as low and irregular incomes for long hours of work, place workers in a situation of varying degrees of dependency, leaving them vulnerable to harassment, including sexual harassment of women, and various forms of exploitation and abuse, such as corruption and bribery. The Conference adopted a call for a new ILO programme of work that would focus on the issues of employment generation, social protection and poverty reduction for those in the informal economy. The new programme is intended to provide a roadmap for future ILO activities aimed at extending rights to those who need them and access to the benefits of labour standards and the global economy. Child Labour “The plight of children who cannot play and learn because they work touches a raw nerve everywhere. I am sure all of us wish we had the powers of Harry Potter to wave a wand and change their lives,” said the Director-General. The conference also launched the World Day Against Child Labour, celebrated on 12 June, aimed at reinforcing the global movement to abolish child labour. Safety and Health In the report Decent Work–Safe Work, Introductory Report to the XVIth World Congress on Safety and Health at Work, the ILO says the number of estimated annual deaths among workers has clearly increased since 1990, mainly because work-related communicable diseases were not counted previously and the number of cases of work-related cancer and circulatory diseases have increased. During this same period, figures for fatal accidents went up slightly in developing countries but decreased in most industrialized countries. The Conference adopted a new Protocol to the Occupational Safety and Health Convention No. 155, adopted in 1981, and a Recommendation updating a 22-year-old list of occupational diseases. The Protocol asks ratifying Member States to establish and review requirements and procedures for the recording and the notification of occupational accidents and diseases, dangerous occurrences and commuting accidents. It also asks Member States to publish annual statistics following classification schemes that are compatible with the latest international schemes of the ILO or other relevant international organizations. The Recommendation asks Member States to establish a national list of occupational diseases for the purpose of prevention, recording, notification and compensation. The Situation of Workers in the Occupied Arab Territories “The present situation cannot continue and only dialogue can lead to peace,” the Director-General said in his address to the Conference. “I appeal to Palestinian and Israeli constituents to take the risk of embarking on social dialogue across the present divide in their specific areas of competence. We shall assist and support you in all possible ways.” “The whole of the ILO has a responsibility and we cannot shirk it,” Mr. Somavía continued. “Beyond the ILO, the international community must respond to the aspirations of all families in the region: parents at work, children at school, security in the streets and peace in the community.” Conclusion Mr. Somavía said that 347 speakers addressed the plenary sessions, but noted with “disappointment” that only 45, or 13%, were women. He urged governments, workers and employers to consider ways of ensuring “a stronger participation of women” at the annual Conference, and suggested the ILO might consider “setting a target in the coming years” for addressing gender imbalance among the speakers. Contact: Department of Communication, ILO, 4 route des Morillons, CH-1211 Geneva 22, Switzerland, telephone +41-22/799 7940, fax +41-22/799 8577, e-mail <presse@ilo.org>, website (www.ilo.org). |
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| HIGH LEVEL MEETING FOCUSES ON DIGITAL DIVIDE | |
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The UN General Assembly held a high-level information and communication technologies (ICT) development meeting from17-18 June in New York, bringing together ministers and other government representatives, chief executive officers of digital corporations, information technology experts and representatives of civil society to address the digital gap. The high-level meeting sought to promote coherence and collaboration between regional and international ICT initiatives, discussed the United Nations ICT Task Force (see Go Between 88) and also contributed to the preparation of the 2003 World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS, see NGLS Roundup 95) held in Geneva from 1-5 July. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in his opening statement, said the world was still far from ensuring that ICT benefits were available to all, stressing that efforts to reverse that situation must be based on the real needs of those requiring help and that better ways must be found to ensure the participation of developing countries at all stages. President of Senegal, Abdoulaye Wade, head of the ICT activities in the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), said the struggle to harness the benefits of new technologies was well under way but stressed that partnerships must provide equal opportunities to all countries, for all men and women. An estimated two-thirds of the world’s population are excluded from the benefits of the digital revolution. Yoshio Utsumi, Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), said that while ICT initiatives in many regions were making the notion of a “global village” a reality, many of the world’s inhabitants were being excluded and said every effort must be made to extend ICT to every citizen of the world, adding that ICT may help poor countries “leapfrog” development opportunity. José María Figueres-Olsen, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for ICT and Chair of the UN ICT Task Force, said that the meeting sought to further the bridge building between his Task Force and other efforts, particularly with the private sector. In parallel with the plenary, two informal panels were held to discuss how ICT can foster development to meet the Millennium Summit goals, building on broad partnerships for promoting digital opportunity; and to address the role of the United Nations in supporting efforts to promote digital opportunity, in particular in Africa and the least developed countries. A number of suggestions were brought forth by delegates addressing the meeting. Kenshiro Matsunami, Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs of Japan, warned that the digital divide could result in a further widening of the economic gap between industrialized and developed countries. He stressed the importance of making full use of private sector energy in order to use ICT effectively for development, and called on developing countries to establish an environment “congenial to private sector activities” in order to attract foreign investment, demonstrate ownership, and make efforts to improve the environment for business and investment. Orlando Jorge Mera, President of the Institute of Telecommunications of the Dominican Republic, said the right to knowledge was inherent to all citizens and that exclusion only contributed to despair. He said that what the developing countries needed was for new technologies to reach them at an affordable cost and in an equitable manner. He called on the international community to strengthen global education systems and elaborate clear rules and regulations on the use of ICT to ensure an equitable information society. Costa Rican representative Bernd Niehaus said the only way for developing countries to close their digital gap with the developed world is through strong political commitment in poor countries to investing in the future and to building the necessary infrastructure to engage the technological revolution. Cuba’s Orlando Requeijo Gual and Brazil’s Luis Tupy Caldas de Moura, however, said most developing countries need to devote their limited resources to poverty eradication. Because these countries are forced to concentrate on more urgent needs such as raising nutritional levels and eradicating illiteracy, the West should provide assistance to offer technology to the poor, Mr. Requeijo Gual said. In his statement, General Assembly President Han Seung-soo called for the problem to be addressed from both sides. Although the information technology needs of poor countries will “require support from the international community,” he said, “the potential of collaboration among developing countries (South-South cooperation) should also be fully explored.” He said technological advances can “bridge the distance between rural and urban populations” and “significantly strengthen the global fight against diseases such as HIV/AIDS and malaria,” as well as empowering women, the elderly and the disabled. Computer giant Microsoft joined the World Economic Forum’s CEO Charter for Digital Development, under which it agrees to earmark at least 20% of its philanthropic budget to providing technology for development. Hewlett-Packard (USA), Vivendi Universal (France), MIH Group (South Africa), Masreya (Egypt) and Equitable Cardnetwork (Philippines) are already taking part in the programme. The UN ICT Task Force supports and promotes the CEO Charter, which is mandated to develop and propagate creative public and private sector initiatives to transform the digital divide into an opportunity for growth. Contact: Interim Secretariat of the United Nations ICT Task Force, telephone +1-212/963 5796, fax +1-212/963 1712, e-mail <icttaskforce@un.org>, website (www.unicttaskforce.org.) Julianne Lee, World Economic Forum, 91-93 route de la Capite, CH-1223 Cologny (Geneva), Switzerland, telephone +41-22/869 1214, e-mail <julianne.lee@weforum.org> website (www.weforum.org). |
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| MEETINGS ON THE MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS | |
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The UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), adopted as part of the Millennium Declaration, committed signatories to achieving, by 2015, ambitious objectives in halving world poverty and hunger, controlling killer diseases, achieving universal education, and reversing environmental degradation. The two following meetings are an example of the growing number of initiatives that are building the profile of the MDGs. The MDGs are potentially very useful tools that can focus energies on sustainable development, provided they open debates on national policy and generate sufficient political will and financial commitments. These were some of the views expressed at a policy dialogue on the MDGs between civil society and non-governmental organizations (CSOs/NGOs), government ministers and UN officials organized by the German Foundation for International Development (DSE) in cooperation with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) held in Berlin from 27-28 June 2002. UNDP Administrator Mark Malloch Brown said that the International Financing for Development Conference held in Monterey last March gave a big boost to the international commitment on resources (see NGLS Roundup 91). Citing an emerging consensus across party lines in the United States that higher levels of development assistance are critical, Mr. Malloch Brown said that US aid is up by 50%, and EU aid levels as a proportion of gross domestic product (GDP) have risen from 0.33 to 0.39%. “We are moving in the right direction, the political templates are changing, but there are no commitments yet on getting anywhere near the amount needed,” he said. The ambition of the MDGs–through national reports coordinated by UN country teams and civil society campaigns–is to change policies in developing countries to reduce poverty and improve the access of the poor to basic services. “We want the numbers in those reports to shock voters in the rich countries into demanding more of their governments,” Mr. Malloch Brown said. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has given UNDP the task of campaign manager and scorekeeper on the MDGs. United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Deputy Executive Director Kul Gautam stressed the imperativeness of forging alliances and partnerships, and emphasized the need for a system of public monitoring and accountability on the goals, one that is not confined to expert analysis but involves the participation of communities. Monitoring should be designed to provoke public debate in parliaments and assemblies and avoid unintended discrimination. CSOs/NGOs with campaign and advocacy experience present at the meeting affirmed the centrality of civic engagement in advancing the MDGs, saying this could take various forms, such as national monitoring, as in the Philippines, or stimulating public debate and campaign strategies through regional forums, as in West Africa. Whatever the type of engagement, it is always key to link local discourse to the global level, said Sheela Patel, Director of the Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centres (SPARC) in India. Consensus building has to be horizontal, she said. “The local constituency is not there only to react, without being involved. The poor make a lot of investments in their development and we must take account of their aspirations.” Social Watch and ActionAid said they are already using the MDGs in their global policy and advocacy reports and are well placed to participate in the national reporting on the goals. The 2002 Social Watch report (www.socialwatch.org) measures progress on the goals and ranks countries in terms of official development assistance (ODA) and social expenditures on basic services and also charts the ratification of international treaties cited in the Millennium Declaration. Roberto Bissio of Social Watch called on the UN to create more space for genuine civic engagement in the global monitoring and reporting on the MDGs in the General Assembly. CEA SURF Forum on the MDGs in Central and Eastern Africa The meeting sought to raise awareness of the MDGs and to discuss the various components required for carrying them out, with topics ranging from country level reporting and costing to campaigning, monitoring and evaluation. Discussion focused on the challenges CEA countries face in meeting the MDGs and the types of steps necessary to achieve them. Country delegations were able to develop their own national strategies outlining key actions and possible time frames to reach the goals by 2015, with most strategies coinciding as they addressed alignment and consistency between the MDG process and others, such as the poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSPs). Other common elements included developing a clear communication strategy, the mobilization of domestic resources, and capacity building. Participants proposed that poverty reduction be the main thrust of the MDGs, and identified “bad” governance; lack of peace and security; cross border issues such as refugees; HIV/AIDS; low capacity; and lack of financial and human resources as the main barriers to successfully achieving the MDGs. Delegates identified community development; mobilizing domestic resources; debt relief, particularly multilateral debt (for least developed and medium-income countries); and capital flight as key issues to tackle. Participants endorsed a draft statement of action and declaration during the final session of the forum. The declaration recognizes the challenges faced by the countries in the region, such as poverty and the prevalence of HIV/AIDS, but also calls attention to more positive notes such as returning stability and peace in the region, and more concerted efforts by governments to address poverty within their own countries. CSOs/NGOs Building the capacity of CSOs/NGOs and the importance of an enabling environment emerged as the principal issues among the CSOs/NGOs as both are viewed as critical to their engagement in the MDG process. CSOs/NGOs expressed the need to position themselves as partners in the development process and emphasized their role in sensitizing and sharing information at the community level. More interaction between northern and southern CSOs/NGOs was encouraged, especially in the areas of information exchange and capacity building. It was recommended that a mechanism for consultation be established between donors and CSOs/NGOs and that a joint strategy for monitoring be developed. CSOs/NGOs said that MDGs need to popularized and that local and traditional authorities should be engaged, while noting that the campaign surrounding the MDGs would define their success or failure. Contact: Jan Vandermoortele, Principal Advisor and Group Leader, Social Development Group, United Nations Development Programme, 1 UN Plaza, Room DC1-2042, New York NY 10017, USA, telephone +1-212/906 5862, fax +1-212/906 5857, e-mail <jan.vandermoortele@undp.org>, website (www.undp.org/mdg). Social Watch, c/o The Third World Institute, PO Box 1539, Montevideo 11000, Uruguay, e -mail <socwatch@socialwatch.org>, website (www.socialwatch.org). |
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| CALENDAR | |
| DISARMAMENT | |
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—Conference on Disarmament, 3rd part, 29 July-13 September, Geneva |
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ECOSOC/GENERAL ASSEMBLY |
| —General Assembly, 57th session, September-December, New York | |
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—Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (CGRFA), acting as the interim committee for the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture,
9-11 October, Rome —9th regular session, Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, 14-18 October, Rome |
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| HUMAN RIGHTS | |
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—Subcommission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, Working Group on Communications, 19-30 August, Geneva Rights of the Child |
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| NARCOTIC DRUGS | |
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—International Narcotics Control Board, 75th session, 30 October-15 November |
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| REFUGEES | |
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—Pre-Executive Committee Consultations with NGOs, 25-27 September, Geneva —Executive Committee, 53rd session, 30 September-4 October, Geneva |
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| SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT | |
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—World Summit on Sustainable Development, Basel Convention Convention on Migratory Species Framework Convention on Climate Change Global Environment Facility (GEF) Ramsar Convention on Wetlands |
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| TRADE, FINANCE AND DEVELOPMENT | |
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International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Women |
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AMBASSADOR
ANWARAL KARIM CHOWDURY; Least developed countries (LDCs) and development partners met in Brussels in May 2001 for the Third United Nations Least Developed Countries Conference (UN LDC-III), and adopted the Brussels Declaration and the Programme of Action (POA) for the Least Developed Countries for the Decade 2001-2010. The Brussels Declaration reaffirms the collective responsibility of the international community to uphold the principles of human dignity, equality and equity, and to ensure that globalization becomes a positive force, as set out in the Millennium Declaration. When we look back at the First and Second United Nations Least Developed Countries Conferences (1981 and 1991), it is disappointing that these two conferences produced little impact in the LDCs. According to UN estimates, the number of people living on less than US$1 a day in the LDCs will reach at least 420 million by 2015 if current trends continue. In the second half of the 1990s, almost nine out of ten people in African LDCs were living on less than US$2 a day. These countries, with over 600 million people, face formidable obstacles, which include high population growth, lack of infrastructure and environmental constraints–including water shortages–declining terms of trade, barriers to market access for their products, declining external resource flows, and external debt problems. UN LDC-III was considered a turning point in many ways. The Brussels POA differs from the earlier programmes in terms of its objectives, orientation, scope and follow-up arrangements. It provides a framework for a strong global partnership to accelerate sustained economic growth and sustainable development in these countries, as well as a framework for putting an end to marginalization. Poverty eradication, gender equality, employment, governance, capacity building, and the challenges faced by LDCs affected by conflict, are singled out in the POA as cross-cutting issues. The ultimate goal of the POA is to achieve substantial progress towards meeting the Millennium Declaration goal of reducing extreme poverty by half by 2015, and promote sustainable development.
The POA is focused on seven specific areas of commitment: (i) fostering a people-centred policy framework; (ii) good governance at the national and international levels (iii) building human and institutional capacities (iv) building productive capacities to make globalization work for the LDCs (v) enhancing the role of trade and development (vi) reducing vulnerability and protecting the environment (vii) mobilizing financial resources. My Office will begin with a three-pronged approach: (i) placing the issue of LDCs, LLDCs and SIDS high on the intergovernmental agenda through appropriate legislative mandates, as needed (ii) centering its focus on Africa, and (iii) establishing country-level mechanisms for implementation. It will promote linkages with civil society including NGOs involved in development efforts of LDCs as well as the private sector, academia and foundations, in an attempt to forge closer cooperation to respond more capably to LDC concerns. With its mandate of coordination and advocacy for the effective implementation of the Brussels POA, the OHRLLS is eager to promote dialogue with the NGOs and civil society. NGOs, with their experience in collaborative and participatory approaches, can help build bridges and establish channels of communication and cooperation between people and communities on one side, and governments, development institutions, and funding agencies on the other. NGOs have the ability and commitment to work with the poor and other excluded segments of society, but they also need support to enhance their capacity and means to fulfil their job.
On many occasions in the past few years, we have seen how NGOs from the LDCs and developed and developing countries came together using new technology such as e-mail and the Internet, and have built coalitions, such as the campaign to ban landmines, and the coalition for the International Criminal Court (ICC). And, perhaps the most impressive of all was the Jubilee 2000 debt cancellation campaign. |
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