Gambia-l,
I thought this might be of interest to some of you.
Momodou camara
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*** 20-Jun-0* ***
Title: DEVELOPMENT: Civil Society Forum Sets The Agenda
By Judith Achieng'
COPENHAGEN, Jun 20 (IPS) - Is shame the name of the game?
This is the question posed by civil society representatives meeting in the
Danish capital this week to evaluate progress made since countries committed
themselves to improve social and economic standards for their populations in
1995.
Five years after the World Social Summit took place here, the movement notes
that inequalities between rich and poor nations has increased.
They say employment continues to be scarce and resources
allocated to social services, like education and health, are further
diminished.
"The lack of progress is shocking," notes Bjorn Forde,
secretary general of Mellemfolkelight Samvirke ( MS - the Danish Association
for International Co-operation), the organisers of the meeting.
"The magnitude of poverty is alarming and poverty is increasing in most
countries," he said while commenting on country reports compiled by civil
society groups in Africa, Latin America and Asia.
The civil society forum is part of the ongoing Solidarity 2000, organised by MS
to debate progress made in key areas of social development in developing
countries.
The forum, which includes delegates from nine MS project
countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, will also assess the impact of some of the decisions made in Copenhagen in 1995 ahead of the second World Social Summit to be held in Geneva, Switzerland next week.
The countries represented include Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Lesotho, Mozambique, Nepal, Nicaragua, Zimbabwe and Zambia.
Participants noted that in most of the developing world, the 10 goals set at Copenhagen in 1995 for achieving social development, have largely been unmet due to a combination of internal and external factors.
"We urge our governments to significantly invest in the social sector to improve poor people's access to basic services such as health, education, and water," says Zambia's Martin Kalungu-Banda.
"A healthy, educated and well fed population is an
indispensable ingredient and asset to any development process," he adds.
Edward Oyugi, representing Kenyan Non Governmental
Organisations, NGO's, says the East African country's goals for social development would have been met if it were not for the "colonial" political structures and corruption within the government.
More than 45 percent of Kenyans live below the poverty line.
Oyugi says African countries have abundant "idle" labour and financial institutions which, if utilised properly, could develop the region's countries to the level of their developed counterparts.
For example, Kenya's National Social Security Fund (NSSF), he says, "is playing the disgraceful role of acting as the gravy train for politically connected individuals when it could have taken over from the IMF and the Wo
rld Bank as the main sources of capital," he told the meeting here.
Diogo Milague of Mozambique is worried about the future of social development in his country especially with the decline in the price of agricultural exports on the global market.
"It is not possible to eradicate poverty when our cotton costs less and less on the international market due to the fact that the countries in the north subsidise agriculture," he says.
Mozambique is one of the few African countries in which there has been noticeable political will to improve social development since the peace agreement was signed between the Frelimo and Renamo, the two main belligerents
in the country.
But the southern African country, which is reeling from a recent flood disaster, has been faced with numerous economic problems as a result of World Bank led structural adjustment programmes and globalisation.
"We have not been able to create and mobilise national savings when our raw materials continue to be exported to developed countries," he says.
In Nepal, the social caste system, which condemns whole groups of people to a lifetime of poverty, has not improved the situation.
This is despite the government's efforts to eradicate
traditional attitudes, which undermine social exclusion.
"Many of the commitments are unlikely to be fulfilled by the medium term, social justice and equity in particular," notes Chatinaya Mishra a civil society representative from Nepal.
In Zimbabwe, the land crisis and other man-made and natural catastrophes, like HIV/AIDS, has further ravaged a once stable economy, pushing the southern African country into a deep energy and fuel crises.
Currently over 70 percent of Zimbabweans live below the poverty datum line while an estimated one out of every five adults is infected with the HIV virus that causes AIDS.
"What is required in Zimbabwe is a well focused land reform programme, macro economic stability, genuine democracy and better support without strings attached from the international community," notes Charles Mutasa of Zi
mbabwe's Poverty Reduction Forum.
The core issues being discussed at the forum include evaluation of programmes set by different countries aimed at addressing poverty, unemployment and social disintegration.
Also under the microscope is why these programmes have failed, five years after the World Social Development Summit (WSSD) in Copenhagen.
The role of the Bretton Woods institutions, corruption,
increased poverty, conflict resolution and gender development, issues of global trade and finance and their effects on developing countries, are some of the main issues to be debated at the forum.
While chiding the south for failing to meet the requirements of the 1995 Copenhagen summit, Forde also accuses the north of making it even more difficult for the south to meet the goals.
"While it must be recognised that each country is overall responsible for social development and eradication of poverty, it should once again be emphasised that they cannot succeed without
an enabling environment," he notes.
"Such an environment should include additional resources
committed to pro-poor sustainable development, in general, and social development in particular."
He notes, however, that the performance of the north has been "shamefully poor" with declining official development assistance and their reluctance to put in place speedy debt relief programmes.
"The World Bank and the IMF notion of the struggle against poverty continues to be bound to economic growth, as though it were simply a matter of diminishing the amount of poor people as an outcome of the growth of the na
tional product, measured by micro economic indicators that fail to reflect the social
differentiation and injustice," says Milagros Barahona from Nicaragua.
There has been some progress though in a number of countries, like Uganda, particularly in the areas of gender development and human rights.
President Yoweri Museveni's government has put into place a number of structures to investigate abuse of human rights in Uganda and at the same time elevated women into decision making positions.
Uganda also has new laws that address the unequal distribution of land and property especially among the East African country's women.
Delegates called for the renewed global dialogue to correct the failures of social development goals set in 1995.
The key areas for dialogue are mainly in balancing the global power structure and addressing globalisation and new trade regulations, which marginalise the poor in developing countries.
By the end of the week, the forum is expected to draft a
manifesto - a declaration reflecting the civil society common position - to be presented at the Copenhagen + 5 summit in Geneva. (END/IPS/ja/sm/00)
Origin: Harare/DEVELOPMENT/
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[c] 2000, InterPress Third World News Agency (IPS)
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