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Mercy Global Concern - 2005
Mercy Global Concern: Briefing paper Number 2 - January 2005
NGO Forum Declaration for the Commission for Social Development
Forty-third session, 9 – 18 February
2005
Spoken Submission
to CSD
Introduction
- Mr. Chairman,
We, international NGOs who are and have been providing direct
social services in health, education and social welfare for
decades
upon decades across the continents of the globe, join together
to commemorate and animate the commitments of The World Summit
for Social Development (Copenhagen.)
- We welcome this opportunity
to participate in the 2005 review of the implementation of
these commitments and to share our expertise
for the challenges that face us in 2005.
- We state with utmost
determination and urgency that the surest pathways to security
among human communities and nations will never
come from military dominance. Lasting security is built on assurance
of human rights, equitable access to the basic necessities of life – food,
health care, shelter, education, employment - and participation
in the development of one’s community. Such basic necessities,
even in this age of extraordinary wealth and rapid technological
progress, elude millions of persons across all national boundaries.
This is the focus of our attention: human security for all, human
dignity and development for each member of every community.
Overview of Principles and Concerns
- In preparation for the 2005 review, NGOs have considered the
Copenhagen commitments and the social reality of our world from
many thematic viewpoints. While each topic must receive its own
due attention, we think it important to appeal from an overriding,
holistic approach to social development that will be integrated
within the framework of implementation of the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs.)
- Commitment to social development is nothing more
than the moral commitment that binds us to a common humanity.
The exclusion of
any individual or group from the benefits of progress in any area
of social development is a marked failure of human responsibility.
- Principles that ensure the best progress in social development
are:
*
People and human rights are at the center of all development
implementation;
* Economic development is not detached from human dignity;
* Inclusion and participation of those affected by policies and
projects are imperative;
* Political will toward social development is sustained through
open partnerships that require ongoing work and creative adaptation.
- We will claim progress and success only when
all of the human community, each community in its own uniqueness
and diversity,
shares fairly and fully in the distribution of basic resources
such as food and clean water, as well as a full range of social
benefits derived from the application of prevailing macro-economic
principles and technological progress.
- Mr. Chairman, changing
the ways we think and act, altering familiar patterns of planning
and decision-making is a difficult endeavor.
But, at this critical time in human history, implementation of
the Millennium Declaration and the Copenhagen commitments will
require such revision and reorganization. Amplification of the
principles we state underscore this obligation.
People and human rights are at the center of all development implementation.
-
To place human well-being at the center of development strategies
is to consciously subject every economic policy to the test
of its effect on human rights. Half of the world’s population,
that is, women, suffers discrimination as a group. Despite
some areas of progress, huge economic, educational, and social
disparities
continue for women. In today’s global reality, poverty
is not simply an unfortunate phenomenon that occurs in some
areas or to some people. The creation and ingrained patterns
of poverty
are inherent in the very economic structures that create excessive
wealth in some sectors of the world. The systems and structures
that sustain poverty must be changed.
- To acknowledge the number
and increasing rate of children who suffer from HIV/AIDS is
to acknowledge the failure of political
will, the failure of equitable distribution of resources, the failure
of rich, donor countries to meet commitments they have made, the
failure of application of human rights principles, and the failure
of creative solution-based actions. Communicable diseases and high
infant mortality rates continue to plague much of the globe. The
goal of Copenhagen to promote and attain “the highest attainable
standard of physical and mental health, and the access of all to
primary health care” is far from realized at the dawn of
this new millennium. Such failure of political will must be analyzed
and, more importantly, changed.
- Likewise, in a world where so many receive such exceptionally
good education and access to technology, the failure to provide
universal primary education is inexplicable. One only need look
at the gender-gap in girls' education to be able to calculate
that discrimination and poverty will continue well into this
new century.
- We also note that one third of the world's work force
does not have stable or decent employment. Lack of social standards
in the formal sectors of employment, trade, and corporate
regulation
require acknowledgement and modification.
Civil Society has repeatedly called for coherence in policy,
holistic programming, and use of NGO expertise. Neither political
will nor economic policies, nor creative programming have emerged
with substantial and comprehensive responses to the failures
and gaps identified.
Economic development is not detached from human dignity.
-
The harmonization of social needs with economic policy-making
is one of the great challenges of our day. It calls for renewed
political will and effective partnerships across all social
sectors. Structural adjustment programs, debt formula, Official
Development Assistance (ODA), and trade rules must take account
of human realities and programmatic effects on issues of poverty,
employment, and human dignity. Global institutions, government
agencies, UN agencies and Commissions must work together to
join economic spheres and social considerations in integrated
processes that foster measurable social advancement. This calls
for redistribution of the world's wealth and new criteria of
policy formation
-
Such cohesion cries for immediate implementation in Africa,
where the human crisis is blatantly apparent and where
social progress, or lack thereof, will impact the future
of the whole
human community. Immediate international action on
debt cancellation and greater coherence from Africa’s
development partners in trade and aid are of overriding and
urgent importance for
this region and the globe.
Inclusion and participation of those affected by policies and
projects are imperative.
-
Discrimination against women is an exclusionary dynamic that
is operative throughout many social sectors. This exclusion is
doubly acute for those who live in conditions of poverty and
are denied access to education, economic stability, and political
involvement. Among the most vulnerable of these are the elderly,
indigenous peoples, children, girl-children, and persons with
disabilities. Are we to wait until these members of the global
society achieve economic success before allowing them entrance
into the human conversation? The same question can be posed in
relation to poor countries that are excluded from the negotiation
of international financial and trade agreements that become,
in effect, imposed upon them.
Political will toward social development is sustained through
open partnerships that require ongoing work and creative adaptation.
-
This is simply to say that all initiatives, all international
Human Rights agreements, all Declarations, documents, and resolutions,
ought to be subject to review, analysis and measurement by broad
democratic principles. This requires respect for the diversity
of communities. It requires acknowledgement of vulnerabilities
in populations, such as children.
Special vulnerabilities call for forceful implementation of specific
human rights instruments, such as the UN Conventions on the Rights
of the Child (CRC.) It requires support for structures that empower
families and educate citizenry. It requires the sharing of political
power in broad and participative ways. It requires new formulae
for inclusion of civil society in political processes as well
as new standards for the conduct of corporations and free enterprise.
And, of course, the resources directed to each initiative must
be attentively allocated and transparently administered.
In Summary
Mr. Chairman,
-
We support the animation and implementation of the principles
of Copenhagen. We urge that they be applied with
a new urgency to both long-standing social ills such as
poverty, under-education,
and gender discrimination as well as to new social
phenomena such as AIDS, the trafficking of human beings,
and patterns
of migration. We repeat that successful solutions
will call for fundamental changes in the ways we think
and act.
-
In this age of rapid globalization, national boundaries do
not confine climate deterioration, the spread of disease, terrorism,
or economic upheaval. Survival depends on a vision based on mutual
interdependence and international political responsibility, beyond
mere national sovereignty. National security cannot be separated
from global security and national well-being is intricately tied
to global well-being created through global justice.
-
We call all governments to abandon empty words and forego
lengthy and grand documents. We call on all governments to accept
the complex but creative and essentially human project of social
development.
-
We NGOs are ready to be partners in specific policy formation
and creative solutions to the issues spoken of here. Our members
and associates who live in political or economic marginalization,
insist that you use your status and your power for action, based
on the well-stated principles of Copenhagen, to bring a millennium
of collective peace and security to all.
"We have the means and the capacity to deal with our problems,
if only we can find the political will".
Kofi Annan
Sept 2004, General Assembly #59
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