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Al-Ahram Weekly 6 - 12 July 2000 Issue No. 489 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 6 - 12 July 2000 Issue No. 489
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region Focus International Economy Opinion Culture Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Five steps backward
By Gamil Ibrahim
It was supposed to be the Copenhagen-plus-five. It was more like Copenhagen-minus-five. Last week, high-powered delegations from over 180 countries converged on the Swiss city of Geneva to assess national governments' commitment to eradicate poverty and achieve full employment since the 1995 Copenhagen Social Summit.
The five-day UN General Assembly special session, which opened in Geneva on 26 June, focused on evaluating progress that has been made since Copenhagen, but such posturing was vehemently rejected by many non-governmental organisations (NGOs). As expected, representatives of the rich nations of the North backtracked on promises made five years ago pledging increased aid and the opening up of the North's markets to primary products and manufactured goods from the South.
It was apparent in Geneva that the industrially advanced nations of the North lack the will to fight Third World poverty. The North insisted on linking the issue of trade liberalisation with international labour standards and blamed the governments of the South for corruption and an unwillingness to tackle poverty.
A chorus of protesters blasted the globalisation-minded Geneva meeting well ahead of its opening session. Parallel to the UN summit, an "alternative summit" convened as the Geneva 2000 Forum and gathered representatives of labour unions, left-wing political parties, community groups, and more than 100 NGOs. The group denounced globalisation policies that deprive developing countries of progress and demanded accountability for governments' failure to abide by the Copenhagen platform. "We want to remind states that these commitments must be effectively honoured," explained Cristophe Aguiton, one of the organisers of the alternative summit.
Critics contend that poverty is on the rise since globalisation forces have begun to snowball out of control. Protesters and NGOs point to the dismantling of trade barriers and slashing of social security systems -- ostensibly promoted by Western-led monetary organisations to keep the lid on fiscal spending -- as instrumental in the increase of poverty levels worldwide.
The UN Social Summit in Geneva, organised to follow-up on the commitments made at the 1995 Copenhagen Social Summit, concluded that the Copenhagen aims to eradicate poverty have not been fulfilled. Three billion people -- half of the world's population -- currently subsist on two dollars a day
(photo: AFP)
Featuring prominently among the voices of dissent was the UN-affiliated International Labour Organisation (ILO). "Globalisation can no longer be given the benefit of the doubt, and has flunked in helping to meet demands for social development," declared ILO Director-General Juan Somavia. "In five years poverty has increased, work is more precarious and inequality has grown."
Five years after the assembled governments of 117 nations in Copenhagen solemnly pledged to join efforts and eradicate global poverty, the record appears dismal. UN estimates put the number of people in absolute poverty -- ie, living on less than a dollar a day -- at 1.3 billion, up from one billion in 1995. Three billion people -- a staggering half of the globe's population -- survive on less than $2 a day. In 1988 alone, 11 million children died from mostly avoidable causes and 7.7 million children died before reaching their first birthday. Of these 7.7 million, only 100,000 of them were from high-income countries; 2.3 million were in sub-Saharan Africa and 2.7 million in south Asia. A recent World Bank report noted that these figures will not decrease over the next eight years unless governments take drastic poverty alleviation actions.
Namibian Minister of Foreign Affairs and UN General Assembly President Theo-Ben Guirab bemoaned the dreary assessments of progress since Copenhagen, which ranged from "uneven to discouraging," to "disappointing, to disastrous and abysmal." Among the rich countries that pledged to donate 0.7 per cent of their Gross National Product to public aid development, only four countries have actually made good on their commitment.
"The developing countries of the South expect the conference to re-evaluate the implementation measures," Algerian Minister for Industry Bukuruh Nur Al-Din told Al-Ahram Weekly. "We do not have time to spare for theoretical questions. We want to implement the Copenhagen and Geneva conferences' recommendations immediately. Funding these projects are of utmost importance and are very urgent," he demanded.
"In the aftermath of World War II, an economically and socially-ruined Europe was rescued by the Marshall Plan. There is a dire need today in the developing countries for such a funding mechanism that will regenerate their economies," the Algerian minister added.
Cynical representatives of developing nations feel they have been backed against the wall. Handouts are not reform, but even basic pledges of aid have not come through. "There were fears that the conference's recommendations will not be taken seriously, perhaps ignored altogether. Grants and aid cannot be considered an alternative to opening up the markets of the North to exports from the South," Amir Salim, of the Cairo-based Centre for Human Rights Studies and Information, told the Weekly.
Addressing the summit, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged member nations to seriously recommit themselves to the struggle against "human misery" and go beyond the summit's goal to halve the proportion of people living in extreme poverty by the year 2015. "Fifteen years from now, will there still be tens of millions of primary-age school children who are not in school?" asked Annan. "Will small children and pregnant women still be dying every minute from malaria and other preventable diseases?"
