GO BETWEEN 2001: no. 84
January-February
UN UPDATE
RIO+10 IN SOUTH AFRICA
The United Nations will hold a major summit in South Africa in 2002 to assess and continue the work of the Earth Summit, held in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). The World Summit on Sustainable Development (Rio+10), to be held in Johannesburg, will assess the state of progress and examine obstacles preventing implementation of the Earth Summit agreements.
The decision on Rio+10, which was approved by the General Assembly in resolution A/RES/55/199 in December 2000, calls for reinvigorating at the highest political level the global commitment to a North-South partnership for sustainable development. Rio+10 will seek to adopt time-bound measures, including institutional and financial requirements, to overcome implementation obstacles and address new issues that have emerged since the Earth Summit.
Global preparations for Rio+10 will take place under the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development. Preparatory meetings in New York will begin in April/May 2001 and continue in January 2002 and March/April 2002. A final preparatory meeting will take place at the ministerial level in mid-May 2002 in Indonesia. These meetings and the Rio+10 Summit, which is expected to take place sometime between June and September 2002, will include special dialogue sessions to allow NGOs, environment activists, other civil society groups and business leaders to share their experiences, views and perspectives on the issues under discussion.
Contact: Zehra Aydin-Sipos, Major Groups Focal Point, Division for Sustainable Development, United Nations, Room DC2-2262, New York NY 10017, United States, telephone +1-212/963 8811, fax +1-212/963 1267, e-mail <aydin@un.org>, website (www.un.org/rio+10).
FFD FINAL EVENT RESCHEDULED
The Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) on Financing for Development (FFD) decided in November 2000 to reschedule the final high-level international intergovernmental event until the first quarter of 2002. As a result of this change, the PrepCom will hold an additional meeting from 14-25 January 2002 in New York. The second meeting of the PrepCom was held in New York from 12-23 February 2001, and the third will be held from 30 April to 11 May 2001 (see focus page inside for more information on FFD).
A comprehensive assessment of how the world's development financing needs can be met–prepared by the United Nations in consultation with leading international trade, financial and development agencies–was released in January for the Financing for Development preparatory committee. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's stated concern is that globally endorsed plans to reduce the sway of poverty, ignorance and disease will be frustrated unless resources–both market-led investment and public funds–are available in sufficient amount and deployed where most needed.
On this basis, his report addresses a broad range of finance-related problems including recurring foreign debt and currency crises, lower levels of foreign aid, volatile international commodity prices, limits on access to developed country markets in sensitive product areas such as textiles and agriculture, weak financial systems, global tax dodging, inadequate access to financial services by the poor and women, and gaps in economic governance at national and global levels.
The report recommends new norms for international cooperation and new mechanisms to foster implementation through greater public dialogue at national and international levels. It recommends new ways to handle debt in crisis situations, strengthen cooperation on tax matters, improve the effectiveness of aid, and design appropriate financial regulations for developed and developing countries. It calls for tough measures to strengthen financial and legal institutions, fight corruption, and improve transparency in advanced economies as well as developing countries. The report also calls for efforts to seek greater access to financial markets and for greater development aid. It asserts that in the context of sound macro-economic policies, introduction of national controls on capital flows may be valid and responsible measures, especially during periods of volatility.
COP-6 TALKS FAIL
After two weeks of intensive negotiations, ministers and diplomats suspended talks in the Hague (Netherlands) in November 2000 aimed at making the 1997 Kyoto Protocol operational. The talks also focused on strengthening financial and technical cooperation between developed and developing countries on climate-friendly policies and technologies.
The sixth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP-6) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and resumed sessions of the UNFCCC's subsidiary bodies were attended by around 2,200 participants from more than 180 countries.
The goal of COP-6 was to achieve a legally-binding technical agreement on details of how countries will reduce their greenhouse gases, which are gradually warming the Earth's atmosphere.
The session Chair, Environmental Minister of the Netherlands Jan Pronk, said it was extremely disappointing that political leaders were unable to work out and finalize guidelines for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, especially when the public had such high expectations.
“But I believe that the political will to succeed is still alive,” he said, “and I am confident that we can regroup in the very near future and complete a deal that leads to effective actions to control emissions and protect the most vulnerable countries from the impacts of global warming.”
The session did make progress toward outlining a package of financial support and technology transfer to help developing countries contribute to global action on climate change.
But the key political issues–including an international emission trading system, a clean development mechanism, the rules for counting emission reductions from carbon “sinks” such as forests, and a compliance regime–were not resolved.
Many NGOs blamed the United States and big business for the failure.
“Blame the United States and its supporters in the ironically named 'umbrella' group (Canada, Japan, Australia, etc.) which has fought tooth and nail to exploit every loophole in the Kyoto Treaty,” said Friends of the Earth International. “The group demanded a giant 'free gift' of existing forests and farmlands to count towards their Kyoto targets....[And] blame some of the world's largest companies including Exxon (which still denies that climate change is even happening), Texaco and DuPont. They have tried to exploit the talks to create a huge new market in carbon trading, while using the power of their political money to block effective action against climate change in the US Congress.”
Negotiators from the United States blamed a “crisis of European governance” for the collapse of talks. They said the US made significant concessions that were rejected by the 15-member European Union.
European environment ministers said the US proposal to limit its use of forests as carbon “sinks” had not gone far enough.
Differences were also evident between industrialized countries and countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America. During negotiations Canada, Japan, the United States and the European Union said they would not make any additional funding available to developing countries, which were demanding additional resources for capacity building, technology transfer and adaptation.
Klaus Töpfer, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), said it was better to suspend the talks in order to resume them later “to ensure that we find the right path forward rather than take a hasty step that moves us in the wrong direction.”
A compromise text tabled by Mr. Pronk will be forwarded as an input to a resumed sixth session of the Conference of the Parties, which could be held in late May 2001 in Bonn (Germany).
Contact: Barbara Black, Meetings Services Officer, Conference and Information Support, UNFCCC Secretariat, PO Box 260 124, Haus Carstanjen, Martin-Luther-King-Strasse 8, D-53175 Bonn, Germany, telephone +49-228/815-1000, fax +49-228/815-1999, e-mail <secretariat@unfccc.de>, website (www.unfccc.de).
WFP: TOUGH YEAR FOR HUNGRY
A World Hunger Map produced by the World Food Programme (WFP) illustrates the extent of hunger, which affects an estimated 830 million people around the world. Among other things, the map shows that millions went hungry not just because of conflict or natural disaster but because of the effects of being poor.
Catherine Bertini, Executive Director of WFP, warned at the beginning of 2001 about “a tough year ahead” for millions of people trapped in poverty and numerous hunger “hot spots” around the world. She said that war and drought will continue to be the major culprits forcing people to go without food. Armed conflict, civil strife and natural disasters remain major sources of food insecurity.
“We are looking at a number of 'hot spots'–especially in Africa–where WFP's continued help will be necessary to prevent people from starving to death,” Ms. Bertini said. “We've seen an alarming trend where the poorest nations are hit simultaneously by both natural and man-made emergencies including in Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Tajikistan.”
Unfortunately, she said, there is a potential for that to continue or even increase in 2001.
In the Greater Horn of Africa alone about 16 million people who suffer from conflict and drought will continue to have the greatest need this year. Over two-thirds of WFP's total projected emergency food aid needs are designated for the Horn in 2001.
War, conflict and natural disaster are not the only culprits of hunger, according to WFP. Millions of people around the world are dying a slow death from hunger and malnutrition. Added burdens such as the movement of rural poor to over-crowded urban areas, the lack of clean drinking water and the toll of AIDS will increasingly have a negative impact on the world's hungry and poor.
“The international community needs to confront these problems with us now,” said Ms. Bertini, “in places like Sudan, Guinea, and Afghanistan. Both more money and greater political resolve must be committed before these crises grow worse. Hunger is a global problem and it needs global responses.”
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).
FAO: 28 MILLION AFRICANS SHORT OF FOOD
Some 28 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa are facing severe food shortages as food supply problems persist in a number of countries, mainly because of prolonged drought and civil strife. These are some of the findings of the report on Food Supply Situation and Crop Prospects in Sub-Saharan Africa, published by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
The situation is most critical in eastern Africa, where 20 million people face serious food shortages that will require continued food aid well into 2001. The food situation is particularly serious in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya and Sudan where large cereal imports, mostly as food aid, are needed to hold off starvation. So far, timely and generous donor response has averted massive starvation, but the report warns that the food crisis there is far from over.
Despite improvement in the overall food supply situation in parts of southern Somalia, FAO says that serious malnutrition rates are increasingly reported, which reflects diminished livelihoods due to a succession of droughts and long-term effects of insecurity and lack of investment in the economy.
Tanzania's 2000 cereal crop, mainly maize, is estimated at about 3.5 million tonnes, nearly 20% below the average of the previous five years. The decline is attributed to drought conditions in several parts of the country. However, the report says that “the overall food supply situation has improved due to large maize imports which have led to marked declines in food prices. Despite reduced pasture, livestock conditions are reported to be satisfactory.”
In Uganda the overall food supply situation is satisfactory. However, the situation remains precarious in the north-east due to a recent poor harvest and loss of cattle due to raids. Overall, food assistance is required for an estimated 1.2 million people affected by adverse weather and civil unrest.
In the Great Lakes region, the report describes the humanitarian situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo as “grim,” with as many as two million internally displaced persons cut off from humanitarian agencies because of fighting and general insecurity.
In Rwanda severe yield reductions of main staples, as well as other crops and livestock losses due to poor conditions of pastures and scarcity of water sources, have been reported. The government has appealed for international assistance for food aid and agricultural rehabilitation assistance.
In Burundi, the report says that the food supply is “very tight” following a succession of reduced harvests. The situation was aggravated by low precipitation from late April to mid-October 2000. Angola continues to suffer from fighting between government and rebel forces, particularly in northern parts of the country, which has resulted in fresh waves of internally displaced people and refugees to neighbouring countries. The number of internally displaced, recently estimated at 2.5 million, is on the increase. The country will continue to rely heavily on food assistance to meet its food needs, says the report.
Elsewhere in southern Africa, the overall food supply situation is satisfactory, reflecting this year's bumper cereal harvest in spite of severe floods in some parts. Outputs increased substantially in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia and Botswana, while in Malawi they remained at the same record level of last year.
Other problem areas in Sub-Saharan Africa include Sierra Leone, where a reduced harvest is anticipated because of a resurgence in civil strife in early May 2000 during the critical planting period. Due to insecurity, input distribution and relief operations were suspended or seriously disrupted, notably in the north. With the rainy season the food supply situation deteriorated since many areas were inaccessible due to transport problems.
Contact: Global Information and Early Warning System on Food and Agriculture, Commodities and Trade Division, FAO, Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, I-00100 Rome, Italy, fax +39-6/5705 4495, e-mail <giews1@fao.org>. The full report is available online at website (www.fao.org/WAICENT/faoinfo/economic/giews/english/giewse.htm).
FOOD SUMMIT REVIEW TO BE HELD
Member Countries of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have endorsed holding an event entitled the World Food Summit: Five Years Later, to be held during the next session of the FAO Conference in November 2001.
At the 1996 World Food Summit, held in Rome (Italy), 186 countries pledged to cut by one-half the number of 800 million hungry people by the year 2015. According to FAO, unless extra efforts are made to accelerate progress in the fight against hunger, the Summit goal will not be achieved before the year 2030–a full 15 years later.
FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf, who proposed the five-year review, said that “the number of hungry people is being reduced only by eight million per year instead of the 20 million necessary to achieve the goals of the World Food Summit.” He told the FAO Governing Council, meeting in November 2000, that “a number of problems–human made and natural disasters–are leading to a situation where the number of people affected by these disasters has increased from 52 million in 1999 to 62 million in 2000. We need to react and involve the highest political levels of our countries to face this situation.”
Council members agreed it was appropriate and desirable that the review be carried out at the highest level, and that it include the participation of civil society.
Contact: Erwin Northoff, Media Officer, FAO, Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, I-00100 Rome, Italy, telephone +39-06/5705 3105, fax +39-06/5705 4975, e-mail <erwin.northoff@fao.org>, website (www.fao.org).
FAO: FOREST LOSS SLOWING
The global rate of net forest loss has slowed to nine million hectares per year, according to the latest global forest assessment by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
The assessment shows a rate 20% lower than the global figure reported in 1995. The world contains around 6,000 square metres of forest for each person, which is being reduced by 12 square metres every year. Forests are disappearing most rapidly in Africa and Latin America, while in Asia the reduction of natural forests is largely compensated by new plantation forests. In Europe and North America the forest area is increasing, according to the FAO.
These figures have been published on the FAO Forestry Web site (see contact) and were presented in FAO's State of the World's Forests 2001, released in March 2001.
The current survey is the latest in global forest assessments by FAO spanning a 50-year period and the first of its kind to be implemented using a uniform global definition of “forest.”
The findings reveal a diverse picture, where some countries still have very high levels of deforestation (mainly conversion of forests to other land uses) while others show significant increases in forest cover through plantations or natural re-growth.
“These differences,” according to FAO Director General Jacques Diouf, “cannot be explained by population pressure on forests alone. Rather they are apparently the results of economic developments at large, and national forest or land use policies. Therefore, forestry surveys should address, on a sustainable basis, further development of the forestry sector which constitutes a backbone of world food security.”
Contact: Publications and Information Coordinator, Forestry Department, FAO, Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, I-00100 Rome, Italy, telephone +39-06/5705 4778, fax +39-06/5705 3024, e-mail <forestry-information@fao.org>, website (www.fao.org).
UNFF PROGRAMME DISCUSSED
The International Expert Consultation on the Eight-Country Initiative on Shaping the Programme of Work of the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF), held 27 November to 1 December 2000 in Bonn (Germany), brought together 100 participants from over 30 countries.
Representatives of governments, international agencies and the UN, NGOs and the private sector discussed the concept and basic elements of the UNFF's multi-year work programme. A report from the consultation is being sent to the UN Secretary-General's office as part of contributions to preparations for the first session of the UNFF, expected to be held in June 2001 in New York.
The UNFF was established in October 2000 by the Economic and Social Council (see Go Between 83) as an ECOSOC subsidiary body.
Contact: Secretariat, UNFF, Division of Sustainable Development, DESA, New York NY 10017, United States, telephone +1-212/963 3160, fax +1-212/963 3463, website (www.un.org/esa/sustdev/forests.htm).
HUMANS’ ROLE IN CLIMATE CHANGE
Confirming humanity's influence on the global climate, a United Nations-sponsored report warns that temperatures will continue to rise in the coming century and “possibly cause serious harm.” This includes sea levels rising by 88 centimetres by the year 2100, which would make homeless tens of millions of people in Bangladesh, China, Egypt and other countries. Northern polar sea ice has already been reduced by 15% in the last 40 years, and snow cover has decreased by 10% in the last 30 years.
The report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which is jointly sponsored by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), projects a “potentially devastating” global warming of 1.4 degrees to 5.8 degrees Celsius from 1990 to 2100.
“The scientific findings being reported today should convince governments of the need to take constructive steps towards resuming the climate change talks that stalled last November in The Hague [see story],” said Michael Zammit Cutajar, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The report provides strong evidence of human influence on the rising temperatures that have been recorded over the past 50 years. It contains new analyses of data from tree rings, corals, ice cores and historical records for the Northern Hemisphere, which indicate that the increase in temperature over the past 100 years was likely the largest of any century during the past 1,000 years. The report notes that the 1990s were likely the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year ever recorded. Changes predicted by the report will cause many glaciers to disappear, cut short growing seasons for staple crops in Africa, and kill many of the world's forests. The higher temperatures will cause greater amounts of rain and snow, according to the report, which states that more intense precipitation events are likely over many of the Northern Hemisphere's mid- to high-latitude land areas.
The report on Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis Volume I, will be followed by a Volume II on the impact of the phenomenon, and a Volume III on response strategies.
Contact: Robert Bisset, Office of the Spokesman/Director, Communications and Public Information, UNEP, PO Box 30552, Nairobi, Kenya, telephone +254-2/623084, fax +254-2/623692, e-mail <robert.bisset@unep.org>, website (www.unep.org).
MEETING ON MONTREAL PROTOCOL
Over 300 participants attended the 12th Meeting of the Parties (MOP-12) to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, held from 11-14 December in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso).
“While enormous progress has been made over the past decade in phasing out ozone-destroying chemicals, the health of the ozone layer remains critical,” said Klaus Töpfer, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), under whose auspices the 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer (see E&D File, Treaty Series, no. 9) was adopted. “Our key task for the next decade–and for the meeting here in Ouagadougou–is to complete the effort of the previous decade to ensure that developing countries have the financial and technological resources they need to make a full transition to ozone-friendly economies.”
A key item on the agenda was a review of developing countries' 1999 data reports on chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). Under the Protocol, developing countries were committed to freezing their CFC emissions at average 1995-1997 levels during the 12-month period that ended on 30 June 2000. They must now start reducing rapidly in order to achieve a 50% cut by 2005; the deadline for a complete phase-out is 2010. Developed countries stopped using these chemicals almost completely in 1996.
Decisions adopted concerned, among other things, measures to facilitate the transition from CFC-based metered dose inhalers used by asthma sufferers; efforts to prevent illegal traffic; new ozone-depleting substances entering the market; exemptions for the use of controlled substances as process agents in the chemicals industry; and other technical matters.
Some observers noted that only three representatives of NGOs participated in MOP-12. Business and industry representatives, on the other had, had a significant presence and many participated as experts on assessment panels.
Contact: Michael Graber, Deputy Executive Secretary, Ozone Secretariat, PO Box 30552, Nairobi, Kenya, telephone +254-2/623855, fax +254-2/623913, e-mail <michael.graber@unep.org>, website (www.unep.org/ozone or www.unep.ch/ozone).
DESERTIFICATION CONVENTION COP-4
Around 1,000 people attended the Fourth Conference of the Parties (COP-4) to the Convention to Combat Desertification, held 11-22 December 2000 in Bonn (Germany). Participants in the meeting included heads of state, ministers and representatives of intergovernmental organizations, the United Nations and NGOs.
Participants discussed programmes, policies and strategies to combat desertification and mitigate the effects of drought at the national, sub-regional and regional levels. The agenda also included ways and means to enhance cooperation at the international level and support concrete solutions in the world's drylands; review reports on implementation of the Convention in regions other than Africa; and implementation.
Affected countries emphasized the need for predictable financial support, enhanced South-South cooperation, and for the possibility of opening access to Global Environment Facility (GEF) funds to support programmes to combat desertification. During a session on 15 December devoted to dialogue with NGOs, representatives of the International NGO Network on Desertification stressed the need for political will, among other things. At a second dialogue with NGOs on 20 December, issues raised included NGOs' important role in implementation of the Convention to Combat Desertification and the need for supporting NGO involvement in the work of the COP.
The meeting approved a Declaration of commitments to enhance special efforts to combat and prevent desertification and/or mitigate the effects of drought between 2001-2010 in order to address the severe situation prevailing in various affected developing country Parties, particularly in Africa.
Delegates expressed concern that despite important efforts made by all interested partners, adequate financial and other resources have not yet been mobilized, thus constraining the ability of affected developing countries to fulfil their commitments under the Convention. They urged all actors to take a set of proactive financial measures and indicated strategic areas for action at all levels including, among others, development of new and renewable energy sources; sustainable land use management including water, soil and vegetation; sustainable use and management of rangelands; development of sustainable agricultural and ranching production systems; launching of reforestation/afforestation programmes and intensification of soil conservation programmes; and development of early warning systems for food security and drought forecasting.
The Declaration reaffirms the invitation to Parties to take action to improve and facilitate further access of affected developing countries to resources of the GEF for implementation of the Convention. Delegates also adopted an additional “implementation annex” to it for country Parties of Central and Eastern Europe in addition to those already existing for Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Northern Mediterranean. The annex contains provisions for the preparation of action programmes, technical and scientific cooperation, and financial resources.
The Convention is a legally binding instrument resulting from the 1992 Earth Summit. It entered into force in 1996, and 172 countries are currently Parties to it.
Contact: United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, Haus Carstanjen, Martin-Luther-King-Strasse 8, D-53175 Bonn, Germany, telephone +49-228/815 2801, fax+49-228/815 2899, e-mail <secretariat@unccd.de>, website (www.unccd.de).
POPS TEXT FINALIZED
Diplomats from 122 countries finalized the text of a legally binding treaty in December 2000 in Johannesburg (South Africa) that will require governments to minimize and eliminate some of the world's most toxic chemicals. The talks, organized by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), were the fifth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee for an International Legally Binding Instrument for Implementing International Action on Certain Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs, see Go Between 70).
“Persistent organic pollutants threaten the health and well-being of humans and wildlife in every region of the world,” said John Buccini, the Canadian government representative who chaired the talks. “This new treaty will protect present and future generations from cancers, birth defects, and other tragedies caused by POPs.”
The treaty sets out control measures covering the production, import, export, disposal and use of POPs. Under it governments are to promote the best available technologies and practices for replacing existing POPs while preventing the development of new ones. They will draw up national legislation and develop actions plans for carrying out their commitments. The POPs Review Committee will consider additional candidates for the list on a regular basis, which UNEP said would “ensure the treaty remains dynamic and responsive to new scientific findings.” A financial mechanism will help developing countries and countries with economies in transition meet their obligations to minimize and eliminate POPs. “New and additional” funding and technical assistance will be provided.
The 12 initial POPs include eight pesticides, two industrial chemicals and two unwanted by-products of combustion and industrial processes. Most are subject to an immediate ban. However, a health-related exemption has been granted for DDT, which is still needed in many countries to control malarial mosquitoes.
The treaty will be formally adopted and signed by ministers and other plenipotentiaries at a diplomatic conference in Stockholm (Sweden) on 22-23 May 2001. Governments must then ratify, and when 50 have done so the treaty will enter into force.
Contact: Jim Willis, Director, UNEP Chemicals, Geneva Executive Centre, 11-13 chemin des Anemones, CH-1219 Chatelaine (Geneva), Switzerland, telephone +41-22/917 8183, fax +41-22/797 3460, e-mail <chemicals@unep.ch>, website (irptc.unep.ch) or (www.chem.unep.ch/pops).
WATER SUPPLY REPORT AND FORUM
Despite tremendous efforts in the last two decades to provide improved water and sanitation services for the poor in the developing world, 2.4 billion people do not have any acceptable means of sanitation. This is one of the findings of The Global Water Supply and Sanitation Assessment 2000, published by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).
According to the assessment, around one-fourth of the 4.8 billion people in developing countries are without access to improved sources of water, and half are without access to improved sanitation services. Of the 4.9 billion people worldwide who have access to water supply services, around three billion have the convenience of access through house connections or yard taps.
There are four billion cases of diarrhoea in the world every year with 2.2 million deaths, mostly among children under five. The report says that safe water, adequate sanitation and hygiene could reduce diarrhoeal disease by between one-fourth and one-third of these cases.
Rural services still lag far behind urban ones, but delivering affordable services to the rapidly growing numbers of urban poor remains a formidable challenge. There are huge inequities in the amounts invested in improving services to the better-off sections of urban society, compared with investments in providing basic services for the unserved poor.
“Access to safe water and to sanitary means of excreta disposal are universal needs and, indeed, basic human rights,” write UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy and WHO Director-General Gro Harlem Brundtland in the report's introduction. “They are essential elements of human development and poverty alleviation and constitute an indispensable component of primary health care.”
The assessment was launched as public health, water and sanitation experts met in Foz do Iguaçu (Brazil) in November 2000 to call attention to the need to cut the huge death toll from diarrhoeal disease in developing countries and improve squalid living conditions. Participants in the Global Forum of the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) said they would work to advocate and promote the VISION 21: Water for People initiative, which was launched last year at the Second World Water Forum and Ministerial Conference in The Hague (Netherlands).
An action programme agreed by those attending the Brazil meeting said they will work to raise the profile of hygiene and environmental sanitation issues; promote institutional management, public-private partnerships, a code of ethics and rights; monitor progress on VISION 21; and aim to strengthen regional and country networking.
Contact: WSSCC, WHO (CCW), 20 avenue Appia, CH-1211 Geneva 27, Switzerland, telephone +41-22/791 3685, +41-22/791 4847, e-mail <wsssc@who.ch>, website (www.wsssc.org).
DAMS COMMISSION REPORT
The World Commission on Dams launched a report in November 2000 entitled Dams and Development: A New Framework for Decision-Making, which seeks to “turn costly controversies into clear and productive consensus.”
The report is an unprecedented global public policy process that brought together engineers, environmentalists, government officials, indigenous people, financiers, people affected by dams and academics. After two years of discussions, they unanimously signed the report on the future role of the US$42 billion dam industry.
“It means nothing to build billion-dollar dams if your monuments alienate the weak,” said the Chair of the World Dams Commission, Kader Asmal. “It means nothing to stop all dams if your protests only entrench poverty.”
Key points from the report include the fact that dams have made an important and significant contribution to human development, but in too many cases the social and environmental costs have been unacceptable and often unnecessary. A new framework for decision making that moves beyond simple cost-benefit tradeoffs is recommended to introduce an inclusive “rights and risks approach,” which recognizes all legitimate stakeholders in negotiating development choices. The report suggests a set of core values, strategic priorities and practical criteria and guidelines governing water and energy resources development in the future. It also challenges national governments, civil society groups, bilateral aid agencies and multilateral development banks and the private sector to change the way they view energy and water resources development.
The report calls on national governments to review existing procedures and regulations concerning large dam projects. It says civil society groups should actively assist in identifying relevant stakeholders for dam projects using the rights and risk approach, as well as the ability to monitor compliance with agreements and assist aggrieved parties to seek recourse. The report recommends, among other things, that concerning affected peoples' organizations' technical and legal capacity for needs and options assessment be strengthened.
Contact: World Commission on Dams Secretariat, PO Box 16002, Vlaeberg, Cape Town 8018, South Africa, telephone +27-21/426 4000, fax +27-21/426 0036, e-mail <jworkman@dams.org>, website (www.dams.org).
UNEP MEETING ON OCEANS
Experts from the United Nations and other intergovernmental organizations met from 6-11 November 2000 in Monaco to decide how to fortify international efforts to protect and sustainably use the world's oceans and coasts. The meeting, organized under the framework of the United Nations Environment Programme's (UNEP) Regional Seas Programme, was hosted by the International Atomic Energy Agency's Marine Environment Laboratory.
Responsibility for helping governments to manage the oceans' natural resources, reduce pollution, and protect endangered species and ecosystems is shared among many global and regional treaties, action plans and organizations, according to UNEP. It said collaboration must be improved among these regimes, and global action to return the sea to health should be accelerated.
Participants discussed improving the assessment and monitoring of the ocean environment, and they reviewed progress under UNEP's Global Programme of Action for the Protection of the Marine Environment from Land-based Activities. They also considered proposals by officials of, among others, the Basel Convention on the Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the various conventions of the International Maritime Organization, and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
Contact: Michael Williams, Information Officer, UNEP, Geneva Executive Centre, 15 chemin des Anemones, CH-1219 Chatelaine (Geneva), Switzerland, telephone +41-22/979 9242, fax +41-22/797 3464, e-mail <mwilliams@unep.ch>, website (www.unep.ch/ozone).
UNEP GOVERNING COUNCIL
The Governing Council of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), which held its 21st session in Nairobi (Kenya) in February 2001, has decided “to establish an open-ended intergovernmental group of ministers or their representatives” to examine how to strengthen international environmental governance and the funding of UNEP in the run-up to the World Summit on Sustainable Development, to be held in 2002 in South Africa.
UNEP's 2002-2003 work programme and budget of nearly US$120 million was approved by environment ministers from over 80 countries. Klaus Töpfer, UNEP Executive Director, said that to meet its ambitious work programme UNEP needed more financial support. He stressed the importance of broadening the donor base and the need for reliable contributions.
Among other things, decisions concerning UNEP's chemicals agenda included a new initiative to tackle the issue of lead in petrol, and another aimed at getting nations to ratify the Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade (see Go Between 71). In addition, a global study on the health and environmental impacts of mercury, to be undertaken by UNEP, will include an assessment of the cost-effectiveness of mercury anti-pollution measures and technologies. The launching of the study was one of several decisions adopted at the close of the session.
Prior to the meeting, insurers that are members of a UNEP financial services initiative said global warming may cost the world several billion US dollars a year. In a report they warned that unless urgent efforts are made to curb emissions of carbon dioxide and the other gases linked with the “greenhouse effect,” losses could annually cost around US$304.2 billion. These losses would be due to more frequent tropical cyclones; loss of land as a result of rising sea levels; and damage to fishing stocks, agriculture and water supplies. In some low-lying states such as Maldives, the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia, losses linked with climate change could exceed 10% of their national wealth by 2050.
RIVER AND LAKE NETWORK MEETING IN GHANA
Enhanced regional collaboration and the harmonization of policies for land and water management were the focus of a meeting of the Regional Network for the Integrated Management of International River, Lake and Hydrogeological Basins, held in November 2000 in Accra (Ghana).
The meeting, at which discussions took place in the context of the Regional Action Programme (RAP) to combat desertification in Africa, was organized under the auspices of the Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology of Ghana and by the Secretariat of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Regional Office for Africa. Participants included representatives of specialized regional and sub-regional institutions of Africa, international and non-governmental organizations, and development cooperation partners.
Although endowed with immense renewable natural resources, in particular water and land, African countries are faced today with worsening environmental problems with heavy economic, social and political consequences. The continent has 80 international rivers, vast lakes and wetlands, and limited but widespread ground waters. Such resources are essential for agriculture development, which accounts for 34% of the region's gross domestic product (GDP), over 70% of its labour force and 40% of its exports, said meeting organizers. However, the continent is faced with problems such as water resource pollution and increasing scarcity; land degradation and desertification; recurring droughts; lack of agreements, or over regulations, on transboundary waters; and lack of cross sectoral and international coordination. Watershed degradation caused by poor land use (uncontrolled woodfuel collection, land clearing, poor cultivation methods and overgrazing) is altering hydrologic factors and increasing the vulnerability of important watersheds.
Participants discussed ways to ensure coherence for more effective implementation of national and sub-regional action programmes and priority activities; how to facilitate the exchange of information and data; and technology transfer and adaptation through scientific and technical cooperation. They also addressed practical modalities for inter-institutional and inter-agency collaboration, the respective roles of each of the participants to the network, and means of financial and institutional support.
A total of six Thematic Programme Networks (TPNs) are being launched in the context of the Regional Action Programme for Africa, as identified and approved during the first Panafrican Conference on the implementation of the Convention to Combat Desertification in Burkina Faso in 1997.
Contact: UNCCD, Haus Carstanjen, Martin-Luther-King-Strasse 8, D-53175 Bonn, Germany, telephone +49-228/815 2801, fax +49-228/815 2899, e-mail <secretariat@unccd.de>, website (www.unccd.de).
CARTAGENA PROTOCOL COMMITTEE MEETS
With the debate over genetically-modified foods continuing to make headlines around the world, officials from the 177 member governments of the Convention on Biological Diversity (see E&D File Treaty Series, no. 4) met in Montpellier (France) from 11-15 December 2000 to discuss practical steps for minimizing some of the potential risks of biotechnology. The first meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (see Go Between 79) aimed to “seek progress on crafting the procedures and practical details” that are required to make the Protocol effective.
“The world's governments adopted the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety [in 2000] to establish a fair and transparent system for international trade in genetically modified organisms,” said Executive Director Klaus Töpfer of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), which administers the Secretariat for the 1992 Biodiversity Convention under which the Protocol was negotiated. He said that the “the sooner governments make the Protocol operational, the sooner we can assure the public that human health and the natural environment are being fully protected.”
Adopted in January 2000, the Biosafety Protocol aims to ensure the safe transfer, handling and use of genetically (or living) modified organisms (GMOs) that may have adverse effects on the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity, taking into account risks to human health.
Participants in Montpellier discussed issues such as information sharing, including possible creation of a Biosafety Clearing House; a review of international rules and standards pertaining to the handling, transport, packaging and identification of genetically modified organisms; options for establishing a compliance regime; and facilitating decision making by Parties that may wish to import GMOs. Among other things the meeting helped to highlight upcoming challenges, especially concerning developing countries' capacity to implement the Protocol, and making the Biosafety Clearing House operational. It also made recommendations concerning intersessional activities before the second meeting of the Committee in Montreal (Canada) from 1-5 October 2001.
The Protocol was adopted by 150 governments and has thus far been signed by 76 governments plus the European Community. It will remain open for signature at United Nations headquarters in New York until 4 June 2001. After 50 governments have ratified the Protocol it will enter into force and become legally binding.
Contact: Biosafety Programme, Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, World Trade Centre, 393 St. Jacques Street, Office 300, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H2Y 1N9, telephone +1-514/288 2220, fax +1-514/288 6588, e-mail <secretariat@biodiv.org>, website (www.biodiv.org).
INTERNATIONAL BIOETHICS COMMITTEE
Major issues raised by advances in biomedicine and genetics were examined by some 150 participants at the seventh session of the International Bioethics Committee (IBC), held in Quito (Ecuador) from 7-9 November 2000. Participants included members of the International Bioethics Committee of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and representatives of the United Nations, intergovernmental organizations and NGOs.
During the session the Committee proposed that an international mechanism or fund be created and financed from a proportion of the profits of private and public companies earned from human genome data. It said this would permit financing of research, education and training, dissemination, support for vulnerable groups and promotion of bioethics.
In order to encourage solidarity and international cooperation in the specific context of the human genome, the working group proposed action on five levels: encourage, support and promote free access to knowledge and scientific information; access to scientific knowledge and information through training of researchers and experts in the field of human genetics; research in human genetics; implementation of research and educational structures; and evaluation of risks and benefits of human genome research.
Contact: Bioethics Unit, UNESCO, 1 rue Miollis, F-75732 Paris Cedex 15, France, telephone +33-1/45 68 38 58 or 45 68 39 39, fax +33-1/45 68 55 15, website (www.unesco.org).
PLANT GENETIC RESOURCES IU
Around 100 participants from 37 countries attended the Fourth Inter-Sessional Contact Group Meeting for the Revision of the International Undertaking on Plant Genetic Resources (IU) in Harmony with the Convention on Biological Diversity, held in Neuchatel (Switzerland) from 12-17 November 2000. Discussions focused on articles within a composite draft text, including coverage of the multilateral system, benefit sharing, financial resources, and a governing body.
In a Declaration participants said a revision of the IU will be “a cornerstone for international cooperation on food security and the conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture.”
They said their discussions led to significant progress on the issue of financial resources in the multilateral system, although “some issues regarding benefit sharing arising from commercialization need further clarification. We, the members of the Contact Group, commit ourselves to achieving a fair and equitable as well as a workable system of benefit sharing.”
In April 1993 the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, currently comprised of 166 countries, considered implications for the IU of the 1992 Earth Summit and the Convention on Biological Diversity. As a result, the commission agreed that the IU should be revised in order to be in harmony with the Convention. In November 1994 a first negotiating draft, grouped into 14 articles, was reviewed by the Commission.
Contact: Jose Esquinas-Alcázar, Secretary, Committee on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, I-00100 Rome, Italy, telephone +39-06/5705 4986, fax +39-06/5705 6347, e-mail <jose.esquinas@fao.org>, website (www.fao.org).
UNESCO GENOMICS SYMPOSIUM
More than 200 researchers, legal experts and representatives of national and international organizations discussed the “patentability” of living organisms during an International Symposium on Ethics, Intellectual Property and Genomics, held in Paris from 30 January to 1 February 2001.
Participants at the event, organized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), included heads of patent offices, specialized lawyers, international law experts, geneticists, and representatives of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and UNESCO's International Bioethics Committee.
“Ethics are essential in UNESCO's present thinking and have a uniquely important place within the human community and the community of nations,” said UNESCO Director General Koichiro Matsuura. “If the 20th century has focused on matter, the 21st century will, no doubt, focus on life. In just a few decades, our knowledge of living organisms and of the world around us has been turned upside down by discoveries with tremendous ramifications....Yet, though advances in biomedicine are giving rise to unparalleled optimism, they raise doubts as to their moral legitimacy. Is everything that can be done technically acceptable from an ethical point of view?”
Participants discussed ethical questions raised by the patenting of genes or genetic sequences, particularly of the human genome, as well as patenting of genetically modified animals and vegetable crops.
Presentations addressed the increase in private ownership of genes and genetic resources of populations, despite principles such as in the Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights of UNESCO. The Declaration stipulates that the human genome is, in a symbolic sense, the heritage of humanity.
“Patenting is increasingly being seen as promoting gambling rather than enterprise,” said Sandy Thomas, Director of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, based in the United Kingdom. This reaction–described as “humanist resistance”–upholds the principles of non-commercialization of the human body, free access to genetic data and knowledge-sharing (particularly between the countries of the North and South), and the principle of mandatory free and informed consent. The “looting of genetic material” notably in Asia and Africa, was criticized since some rural populations provide–without consent–genetic resources from which others profit.
Contact: Bioethics Unit, UNESCO, 1 rue Miollis, F-75732 Paris Cedex 15, France, telephone +33-1/45 68 38 58 or 45 68 39 39, fax +33-1/45 68 55 15, website (www.unesco.org).
UNESCO WORLD CULTURE REPORT
Humanity should widen its concept of cultural heritage to include traditions and customs alongside great monuments and natural sites, according to the World Culture Report 2000–Cultural Diversity, Conflict and Pluralism.
The report examines in depth a series of issues related to culture, cultural policy and cultural diversity at a time of increasing globalization. Issues it raises include:
-- how to incorporate a cultural dimension into the way human development is evaluated;
-- the extent to which Hollywood dominates cinema screens across the planet;
-- how cultural pluralism can be reconciled with a sense of national identity; and
-- how to define cultural injustice and cultural recognition.
Contributors to the report suggest that hand-weaving in India, traditional Japanese puppet theatre, and age-old handicrafts such as African use of the calabash should have a right to be considered as part of humanity's cultural heritage.
The report's theme is of acknowledging, approving and celebrating diversity in a context of cultural pluralism. “Our choices in regard to our cultural heritages,” it says, “in relating to others with different traditions and in drawing new three-dimensional cultural maps of the world, will shape the societies of the 21 century.”
Contact: Publishing, Promotion and Sales Division, UNESCO, 1 rue Miollis, F-75732 Paris Cedex 15, France, fax +33-1/45 68 57 41, e-mail <publishing.promotion@unesco.org>, website (www.unesco.org/WCR2000).
IFAD RURAL POVERTY REPORT
With the right kind of support, the world's rural poor “can help themselves to escape from poverty,” says the Rural Poverty Report 2001: The Challenge of Ending Rural Poverty. The report, published by the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), focuses on the rural poor who make up around three-fourths of the world's 1.2 billion poor.
Hundreds of millions of people are mired in poverty in the rural areas, according to the report. While the years between 1970 and 1990 witnessed real gains in the fight against poverty, hunger, premature death and illiteracy, progress has since stalled. Rural economies have been neglected, with aid for agriculture dropping from 20% of overall assistance in the late 1980s to 12% today. The Green Revolution–which began in the 1960s and involved high-yielding seeds, fertilizer and irrigation–-has also stalled.
Most of the rural poor make their living from farming or farm labour. For this reason the international commitment to halving poverty by 2015 “must focus on reviving agriculture,” says the report. It stresses that “poor-pro” agricultural techniques are needed to raise the output of staple foods; make better use of water; and increase the demand for labour. Although resources need to be redistributed in favour of the poor, this does not imply a neglect of economic growth, adds the report. Rather it can help the process of growth.
The report highlights four issues as particularly important.
-- The critical role of food staples in the livelihoods of the rural poor must be recognized in technology and marketing policy. People in extreme poverty usually get around 70%-80% of their calories from staple foods.
-- Rural poverty reduction requires better allocation and distribution of water. There is a “tightening squeeze” on rural water supplies, not least because of pressure to divert water to urban areas and industrial uses. Securing “more water to help increase the output of staple foods,” notes IFAD, “is a major challenge.”
-- Economic growth alone in the rural areas will not be enough to ensure that the target of halving poverty is met. Inequality may be too great and poverty too deep. “Redistributive empowerment” of the rural poor is needed.
-- Particular groups merit special attention, especially women. The importance of participation of the rural poor in decision making should also be recognized.
The report says institutional change is needed to enable the poor to have a bigger say in the decisions and forces that affect their lives. Giving the poor access to land, water, credit, information and technology, health-care services and education “can do much to reduce poverty,” according to IFAD. “When changes have been made in land tenure systems to give the poor more security, encouraging increases in food output have usually resulted.”
Biotechnology must be both employment-intensive and sustainable. And the poor must have the power to participate in decisions that determine the technology to be used–if not, they are unlikely to benefit from its implementation. Access to farm inputs and to markets at local, national and global levels is important. This can involve better roads, especially to isolated areas, and improved marketing institutions. Marketing cooperatives can be a solution, with controls over traders as a necessary complement to liberalization and privatization. Access to inputs can be helped by facilities such as micro-credit.
At the international level, coordination among donors can increase the effectiveness of aid funds and help in the poverty reduction effort. However, the report stresses that poverty reduction is a complex and many-sided task “requiring sustained commitment....there are no quick fixes, no easy solutions.”
Fawzi Hamad Al-Sultan, IFAD President, cautioned that increases in food production by commercial farmers are welcome but “may do little to reduce food insecurity and poverty for the millions of small-holder farmers and herders. A rise in production in their hands will have a significantly larger impact on poverty.”
Contact: IFAD, Via del Serafico 107, I-00142 Rome, Italy, telephone +39-06/54591, fax +39-06/5459 2141, e-mail <ifad@ifad.org>, website (www.ifad.org).
IFAD EXECUTIVE BOARD
The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) will provide loans for 11 development projects worth over US$180 million. The Fund's Executive Board, which met in Rome (Italy) in December 2000, approved loans for Cambodia, China, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Kenya, Madagascar, Morocco, Pakistan, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda and Uruguay.
IFAD is loaning US$10 million to the Community-Based Rural Development Project in Cambodia, which aims to improve household food security and nutrition and help enhance the role of women in social and economic development.
A poverty alleviation project in China is receiving an IFAD loan of over US$30 million to help address food deficits, low performance of government services, high levels of illiteracy and higher than average health problems. The project is expected to benefit some 260,000 households in the region of Western Guangxi.
IFAD is providing a US$17 million loan to the Upland Food Security Project in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to increase food production. The project will focus on four counties in two provinces.
In Kenya around 36,000 households are expected to benefit from a smallholder and community services development project aimed at, among other things, introducing measures to reduce mortality and morbidity and improve the general well-being of the rural poor.
IFAD will be providing a load for the Upper Mandrare Basin Development Project in Madagascar, which aims to increase agricultural and non-agricultural income of the rural population, improve general living conditions, and contribute to food security.
A six-year, IFAD-initiated project in Morocco aims to contribute to the sustainable socio-economic development of disadvantaged rural populations of the mountain zones of Al-Haouz Province.
The South Federally Administered Tribal Areas Development Project in Pakistan is also a six-year, IFAD-initiated project that is working to improve household food security and living conditions, boost farm-family incomes, and contribute to the empowerment of rural communities by strengthening their capacity for managing and developing their productive resources.
The Village Organization and Management Project-Phase II in Senegal is receiving an IFAD loan of US$13.40 million. In the first phase of the project, assistance was provided to more than 400 village communities aimed at improving soil fertility, erosion control and diversification of farm and non-farm incomes. The proposed second phase will aim to consolidate and broaden support activities already initiated, tested and improved.
The Rural Financial Services Programme in Tanzania is a nine-year, IFAD-initiated programme that aims to further rationalize and strengthen grassroots micro-finance institutions to enable the rural poor to access services in an effective and efficient manner. Over US$18 million will be financed by an IFAD loan under the Flexible Lending Mechanism.
IFAD is financing over US$17 million through a loan to a National Agricultural Advisory Services Programme in Uganda to help increase the security of rural livelihoods through sustainable improvements in agricultural productivity and household incomes. Some 450,000 farming families are expected to benefit from the programme.
And an IFAD-initiated project in Uruguay focuses on reducing rural poverty, increasing rural household incomes and improving the living conditions of the rural poor. While national in scope, the project is expected to benefit directly some 10,000 families of small producers and rural poor. IFAD is providing a US$14 million loan to the project.
As of end 1999, IFAD had financed 568 projects in 116 countries and had provided 1,337 grants for research and technical assistance.
Contact: IFAD, Via del Serafico 107, I-00142 Rome, Italy, telephone +39-06/54591, fax +39-06/5459 2141, e-mail <ifad@ifad.org>, website (www.ifad.org).
UN INTER-AGENCY APPEALS
The global launch of the UN Consolidated Inter-Agency Appeals for 2001 took place on 28 November 2000 at UN headquarters in New York. Organized by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the appeal's theme was Women and War, in recognition of both the special needs and the important contributions of women in emergency situations.
It was “time for the issue of women and peace and security to receive greater recognition on the UN agenda,” said UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. He noted that the funding requested–US$2.26 billion for 2001–to alleviate suffering and address the root causes of vulnerability to disaster was less than the world spent for military purposes in a single day. The money would help vulnerable people in 19 countries and regions with projects focusing on women's practical needs including protection, food, health services and fuel wood as well as strategic needs such as their role in decision making. Mr. Annan highlighted the value of well-funded and well-coordinated humanitarian action, citing the example of East Timor, where a rapid and generous response by donors helped avert a crisis last year. But he noted that in 2000, the UN had received only 55% of the funds it had sought. “Flagging support for UN appeals risks marginalizing the Organization's efforts while increasing the already enormous burden borne by countries affected by humanitarian emergencies,” he said.
Harri Holkeri (Finland), President of the General Assembly, said that the consolidated appeals process was critical in peace-building efforts and in the overall coordination of humanitarian response. He called on Member States to set aside all political differences to provide for humanitarian protection and aid.
Noeleen Heyzer, Executive Director of the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), said that women and their children comprised approximately 80% of displaced civilians. Although women are generally non-combatants, they are most affected by the violence of conflict, damage to essential health services and the loss of family support. Protection and assistance for women, she said, must be focused and targeted to their special needs. All humanitarian responses in conflict situations must include systematic reporting on sexual violence and reflect strengthened policy guidelines on responses to gender-based violence and sexual exploitation.
The appeals documents, which can be accessed on the website below, describe the main concerns, priorities and goals of multilateral humanitarian action in each affected country or region and the manner in which to meet them. They also give the requirements of all appealing agencies and organizations.
Contact: Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Room S-3628B, United Nations, New York NY 10017, United States, telephone +1-212/963 2380, fax +1-212/963 1312, website (www.reliefweb.int/appeals/2001.html).
GLOBAL PARTNERSHIPS INITIATIVE
The General Assembly adopted in December 2000 a resolution on global partnerships (A/RES/55/215) that reaffirms the central role of the UN in promoting partnerships in the context of globalization. The resolution stresses the need for Member States to further discuss these partnerships, and requests the Secretary-General to prepare a report compiling the views of Members States and other relevant partners for consideration at the 56th session of the Assembly.
Germany first introduced the initiative on 14 September 2000 in New York with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Joschka Fischer. It said that the world needed a form of global governance to solve global challenges, and this would require the UN to enter into new and creative partnerships with industry and civil society. Mr. Fischer said Germany strongly supported the Secretary-General's Global Compact initiative with major companies, and his delegation would take up this and other issues relating to the globalization process through the “Towards Global Partnerships” resolution.
In negotiations on the resolution, Germany pointed out that it had been based on three fundamental assessments:
-- globalization is a fact of life;
-- globalization has led to the emergence of new “global players” particularly from the private sector, which is driving the need for new partnerships between these actors, the UN and Member States; and
-- this cross-sectoral issue is so important that it should involve all Member States.
India said an example of a real global partnership would be if pharmaceutical companies were to develop cures for diseases that mainly affect poor citizens in the developing world, even though there would be less profit for them. Pakistan stressed the primacy of governments as the representatives of peoples and states, and expressed concern about the authoritarian governance structure of many private corporate entities. Santa Lucia said the current result of cooperating with the private sector was the acquisition of developing economies by developed economies, which was a form of exploitation and colonization.
NGOs expressed concern about the resolution, which refers primarily to private sector partnerships and builds on the Secretary-General's 1999 Global Compact with corporations (see Go Between 76). The Alliance for a Corporate-Free United Nations has warned that sustainability must not be redefined to mean “good for big business.”
CONFLICT DIAMONDS RESOLUTION
The UN General Assembly adopted a South African-sponsored resolution on 1 December 2000 on the role of diamonds in fueling conflict. The resolution (A/RES/55/56), which was adopted by consensus, calls upon states to implement fully Security Council measures targeting the link between the trade in “conflict diamonds” and the supply to rebel movements of weapons, fuel or other prohibited material. It urges all states to support the efforts of the diamond producing, processing, exporting and importing countries, and for the diamond industry to find ways to break the link between conflict diamonds and armed conflict. It also encourages other appropriate initiatives to this end including improved international cooperation on law enforcement.
The Assembly expressed the need for pragmatic measures, including: the creation and implementation of a simple and workable international certification scheme for rough diamonds, based primarily on national certification schemes; the need for national practices to meet internationally agreed minimum standards; securing the widest possible participation; the need for diamond exporting, processing and importing states to act in concert; appropriate arrangements to help ensure compliance, acting with respect for the sovereignty of states; and the need for transparency.
The resolution also encouraged countries participating in the Kimberley Process–an initiative by African diamond-producing countries to launch a consultation process of governments, industry and civil society–to consider expanding their membership and to develop detailed proposals for the envisaged international certification scheme.
Some diamond-producing countries cautioned that the certification plan must be cost-effective and must not hurt the legitimate diamond trade. South Africa emphasized that conflict diamonds consist of about only 4% of the total world diamond market. It noted that the legitimate trade in diamonds was critical to economic development in many countries. India said that although it was important that the principal countries engaged in the diamond industry should continue their consultations and their efforts, measures must not lead to undue financial or administrative burden on governments or on the industry.
Sierra Leone said the nine years of banditry and horrific brutality that it had endured had been caused by the complex, entrenched relationship between exploitative systems of financial intermediation and resource management, poverty and the “spectacularly mysterious wealth of the diamond trade.” Angola said that the illicit trade reflected negatively on diamond producing countries as well as on the whole industry. Angola called on the international community to “join hands to fight vigorously against the problem of conflict diamonds in fuelling conflict.”
The General Assembly has requested that countries participating in the Kimberley Process present a report on progress made no later than the 56th General Assembly session in 2001, and it has included the role of diamonds in fueling conflict in its provisional agenda for the 56th session.
ILLEGAL SMALL ARMS TRADE MEETING
A common regional approach to the illegal small arms trade at the International Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All its Aspects, scheduled for 9-20 July of this year in New York, was the focus of discussions in Brasilia (Brazil) in November 2000. The Brasilia meeting, organized by the government of Brazil, brought together representatives of 22 Latin American and Caribbean States to prepare for the international conference.
Although the illicit trade in small arms (see NGLS Roundup 67) was described as “a global problem without a passport,” each region “clearly has its own unique characteristics that must be considered when crafting effective responses to this global challenge,” said Jayantha Dhanapala, Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs.
In the Brasilia Declaration, participants called for the international conference to adopt a political declaration and a global programme of action, while reaffirming that the outcome should take into account the right of states to self-defence. They emphasized the need for the conference to take into account the specific character and experience of regions, subregions and countries. They also called for strengthening international cooperation in the judicial, technical, financial and law-enforcement fields, and acknowledged what was described as the important role civil society has to play in achieving the goals of the conference.
The Brasilia meeting is one in a series being held at regional and subregional levels to prepare for the international conference.
Contact: Department for Disarmament Affairs, United Nations, New York NY 10017, United States, fax +1-212/963 1121, website (www.un.org/Depts/dda/WMD/WMD.htm).
ORGANIZED CRIME CONVENTION
The efforts of the UN to strengthen international cooperation to combat organized crime have been ongoing for some 25 years. The results of these efforts–the Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime and its two protocols–were officially opened for signature at a High-Level Signing Conference, which took place in Palermo (Italy) from 12-15 December 2000. The Conference was chaired by Italy's Minister of Justice, Piero Fassino.
The Convention seeks to strengthen the power of governments in combating serious crimes. The new treaty will provide the basis for stronger common action against money laundering, arms smuggling, international fraud, drug trafficking and corruption, as well as greater ease of extradition, measures on the protection of witnesses, and enhanced judicial cooperation. It will also establish a funding mechanism to help countries implement the Convention. An important goal of the instrument is to get all countries to synchronize their national laws, so that there can be no uncertainty as to whether a crime in one country is also a crime in another. Toward this end, the Convention offers the international community universally-recognized definitions of several fundamental concepts of criminal law linked to organized crime. The 41 articles define such concepts as “organized criminal group,” “serious offense” and “proceeds of crime.”
The aims of the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children are three-fold: to prevent and combat trafficking in persons; to protect and assist the victims of such trafficking; and to promote cooperation among states Parties to meet these objectives. The protocol will serve as a model for national legislation, detailing provisions on conduct that should be sanctioned, the severity of punishment, and effective measures to combat as well as prevent trafficking.
The Protocol Against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air will combat and prevent the smuggling of human cargo. The protocol recognizes that migration in itself is not a crime, however, and therefore not liable to criminal prosecution. Migrants are considered victims in need of protection; therefore emphasis is placed on criminalization of the smugglers and organized criminal groups behind them.
In his opening address to the conference, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan highlighted the issue of trafficking in persons. He said the problem was “widespread and growing” and was rooted in social and economic conditions in the countries from which the victims came. It was facilitated by practices that discriminate against women and was driven by cruel indifference to human suffering. Mr. Annan called the issue “one of the most egregious violations of human rights which the United Nations now confronts.” He also drew attention to the way in which criminal groups have embraced “today's globalized economy and the sophisticated technology that goes with it,” noting that efforts to combat them “have remained, up to now, very fragmented, and our weapons almost obsolete.” Mr. Annan called the Conference evidence of the will of the international community to answer a global challenge with a global response. If crime crossed all borders, he said, then so must law enforcement.
In addition to the daily plenary meetings during the four-day conference, a number of parallel events were held. These included a symposium on examining issues of sovereignty and universality in the context of the rule of law in the global village; a forum for global action against trafficking in persons; and a seminar for the media on issues involving the Convention. The municipality of Palermo also conducted an event highlighting its experiences with respect to the role of civil society in countering organized crime.
By the end of the signing conference, 124 UN Member States had signed the Convention, with 80 also signing the accompanying protocols. Adopted by the UN General Assembly on 15 November 2000, the Convention will enter into force after 40 countries have ratified it.
In his closing statement to the Conference, Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of the UN Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention (ODCCP), Pino Arlacchi, declared that never before had an international convention attracted so many signatures barely four weeks following its adoption by the General Assembly.
“Let us not lose the momentum we have achieved so far,” Mr. Arlacchi said. He invited delegations to join forces to ensure that the Convention and its protocols entered into force within the year, and offered UN support to countries that needed help translating the new instruments into national legislation.
Contact: Centre for International Crime Prevention, UN Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention (ODCCP), PO Box 500, A-1400 Vienna, Austria, telephone +43-1/21345, fax +43-1/21345-5898, website (www.undcp.org/crime_cicp.html).
ODCCP ON TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS
The practice of smuggling women, children and slave labourers could be the world's fastest growing organized crime operation, according to delegates at the International Seminar on the Trafficking of Human Beings. The event, held in Brasilia (Brazil) from 28-29 November 2000, was hosted by the United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention (ODCCP).
“Trafficking in persons is now the third most profitable business for organized crime, behind drugs and arms,” said ODCCP Executive Director Pino Arlacchi. “It is also the fastest growing form of international crime, already generating US$7 billion per year in criminal proceeds. There are even reports that some trafficking groups are switching their cargo from drugs to human beings, in a search of high profits at lower risk.”
Between 300,000 and 500,000 women and children are trafficked into Western Europe every year, and in Asia around 250,000 are sold yearly. The total number of women and children trafficked worldwide is between 700,000 and one million per year. Mr. Arlacchi said that slavery is used not only in the sex industry. For example, one Mexican crime group has made millions of dollars by forcing handicapped people to become beggars. And in several parts of the world, domestic servants brought in from abroad are often denied their freedom.
Among other things, conference participants discussed experiences around the world and exchanged views with respect to developing an international strategy.
Contact: Sumru Noyan, Chief, External Relations Unit, ODCCP, Vienna International Centre, PO Box 500, A-1400 Vienna, Austria, telephone +43-1/26060 4266, fax +43-1/26060 5850, e-mail <sumru.noyan@undcp.org>, website (www.undcp.org).
ODCCP DRUG REPORT
There has been “significant progress” in the downward trend in production of the world's two main problem drugs of cocaine and heroin, according to the World Drug Report 2000. The report, published by the United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention (ODCCP), says coca leaf and cocaine manufacture fell some 20% between 1992 and 1999, and opium production dropped more than 17% in 2000.
The report says that thanks to a “get serious” approach on the part of most major coca and opium poppy producing countries, production is now limited to fewer countries than ever before. Afghanistan and Myanmar (Burma) “together account for about 90% of global illicit opium production, and Colombia alone is responsible for two-thirds of global coca leaf production.”
In the United States cocaine use fell by some 70% over the 1985-1999 period, compared with a 40% fall in overall drug use. Declines in drug-related deaths were reported by France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Austria, Luxembourg and Switzerland. And the report says success in alternative development programmes has resulted in significant reductions of coca and opium poppy cultivation in Bolivia, Pakistan, Lao People's Democratic Republic and Thailand.
By contrast, drug trafficking and trafficking routes have proliferated due to globalization, with the number of countries reporting seizures rising from 120 in 1980/1981 to 170 in 1997/1998. Some 180 million people–4.2% of all persons 15 years and above–were consuming drugs in the late 1990s, with some multiple use.
Cannabis headed the list with 144 million users, followed by amphetamine-type stimulants (29 million), cocaine (14 million) and opiates (13.5 million, including nine million heroin addicts). The most significant increase worldwide in the 1990s was in consumption of amphetamine-type stimulants such as methamphetamine and Ecstasy.
Among other things, the report argues for a more balanced view of the global drug problem which highlights “not only the progress achieved in overcoming the problem, but also the misery brought about by illicit drugs.”
Contact: Sumru Noyan, Chief, External Relations Unit, ODCCP, Vienna International Centre, PO Box 500, A-1400 Vienna, Austria, telephone +43-1/26060 4266, fax +43-1/26060 5850, e-mail <sumru.noyan@undcp.org>, website (www.undcp.org).
TOBACCO CONVENTION DRAFT
A draft of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (see Go Between 78) was released by the World Health Organization (WHO) in January 2001. The draft text was drawn up by the chair of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body, which began its deliberations in October 2000.
Under the draft text of the Convention, governments would commit to outlawing cigarette advertising targeted at children, and phase out sponsorship of sporting events as well as advertising in newspapers, cable, satellite television and on the Internet. The draft text will be discussed by WHO Member States in April of this year.
NGOs have criticized the draft as playing “right into the hands of the tobacco transnationals and their aggressive promotional schemes.” The International Network for Accountability of Tobacco Transnationals said the section on advertising and promotion had “watered down limits” that go against “the experience and testimony of Member States in favor of ending all forms of tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship.”
Contact: Derek Yach, Executive Director and Project Manager, Tobacco Free Initiative, World Health Organization, avenue Appia 20, CH-1211 Geneva 27, Switzerland, telephone +41-22/791 2108, fax +41-22/791 4832, e-mail <tfi@who.int>, website (www.who.int/toh).
INFACT, 46 Plympton Street, Boston MA 02118, United States, telephone +1-617/695 2525, fax +1-617/695 2626, website (www.infact.org).
UNAIDS: EASTERN EUROPE EPIDEMIC
In Eastern Europe 700,000 people are now living with HIV compared with 420,000 just over a year ago, according to the AIDS Epidemic Update: December 2000, published by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization (WHO).
“Most of these new infections are among injecting drug users,” said Peter Piot, Executive Director of UNAIDS. “In many of these countries, the fight against the epidemic is being waged against a backdrop of socio-economic turmoil. This instability fuels drugs use and commercial sex, both of which increase the spread of HIV.”
The situation is particularly dramatic in the Russian Federation, where new infections are higher this year than in all previous ones of the epidemic combined. By the end of 1999 there were an estimated 130,000 people living with HIV in the country; that figure rose to 300,000 by the end of 2000. Russia's first HIV epidemic among injecting drug users was noticed in 1996 in the port city of Kaliningrad. In just four years, the epidemic spread to over 30 cities.
There is some good news in Eastern Europe, however. Increased efforts are being made throughout the region to raise awareness about AIDS. Belarus, for example, has involved nearly all ministries in its AIDS response. Prevention efforts among teenagers have been particularly successful, according to the update. In Kazakhstan, a team of prevention officers delivers safer-sex information and condoms to sex workers. In Ukraine, a new law has endorsed the principle of voluntary HIV testing and broad AIDS education.
Contact: Dominique De Santis, Press Officer, UNAIDS, 20 avenue Appia, CH-1211 Geneva 27, Switzerland, telephone +41-22/791 4509, fax +41-22/791 4898, e-mail <desantisd@unaids.org>, website (www.unaids.org).
UNAIDS BOARD MEETING
Brazil's leadership in the field of AIDS prevention and care made it the perfect venue for the first ever board meeting of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) held in the Americas, UNAIDS Executive Director Peter Piot said at the opening of the meeting in Rio de Janeiro, which lasted from 14-15 December 2000.
“Our presence here marks our recognition for the very substantial response to the AIDS epidemic and the comprehensive and broad public health approach adopted by Brazil over the years, which fully integrates prevention and care,” noted Dr. Piot. “It is also an opportunity for all of us to share the experience of Brazil and that of other countries, to learn from one another, and to share our concerns.”
The theme of the UNAIDS governing body, the Programme Coordinating Board (PCB), was the Framework for Global Leadership on HIV/AIDS. The framework, a long-term blueprint to mobilize all sectors against HIV/AIDS, is the result of a wide consultation process aimed at paving the way for the international community to adopt specific goals in the global response to the epidemic.
Jorge Werthein, chair of the UN Theme Group on HIV/AIDS and a representative of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), said that the concept of an expanded response is “exactly the way the Brazilian government and the country's civil society are operating today. The country has engaged civil society and the private sector in responding to HIV, and this approach to fighting the epidemic has proved highly successful.” Brazil has developed voluntary counseling and testing programmes, with support for HIV-infected people and information on behaviour change for those who are HIV-negative. These engage a variety of service providers, including NGOs. Active partnerships with NGOs, according to UNAIDS, ensure that information campaigns and prevention services also reach marginalized groups.
According to one survey of 3,500 adults, young Brazilians are more able and willing to negotiate condom use with their partners than ever before. In 1986, fewer than 5% of young men reported using a condom the first time they had sex. By 1999, the figure had jumped to 50%, a tenfold increase. The country has also developed an innovative approach to access to care, providing extensive comprehensive care including psychosocial support and the provision of antiretroviral drugs to those who need them. It utilizes its own manufacturing capacity to help bring prices down and improve access to health care.
Contact: Dominique De Santis, Press Officer, UNAIDS, 20 avenue Appia, CH-1211 Geneva 27, Switzerland, telephone +41-22/791 4509, fax +41-22/791 4898, e-mail <desantisd@unaids.org>, website (www.unaids.org).
COMBATING AIDS AND OTHER DISEASES
A report jointly issued by six United Nations agencies says that worsening AIDS, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria epidemics are not inevitable. This is shown by the many successful strategies to turn back these diseases and prevent the deaths they cause. The report on Health, A Key to Prosperity: Success Stories in Developing Countries says targets for reducing the toll of these illnesses, set by the world's leaders at successive summits, are feasible.
The report was published by the World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the World Bank. The report outlines key factors for combating AIDS, TB, malaria, childhood diseases and maternal and perinatal conditions, even in resource-poor settings. It was published just after a meeting in Okinawa (Japan) on 7-8 December 2000, where representatives from the Group of Eight countries agreed to significantly scale up its global work to fight diseases in the world's poorest countries.
The report contains success stories from 20 different countries, encompassing the widest variety of economic, social and geographic conditions. It shows how countries such as Senegal, Uganda and Thailand have developed strategies that can reduce HIV infection rates, how Azerbaijan and Viet Nam have cut in half the number of deaths from malaria, and how China, India and Peru have cut TB deaths by half.
“The success stories described in these pages demonstrate how far many nations have come in defining viable strategies to attack these public health threats and in scaling up for a national impact,” said James Wolfensohn, President of the World Bank. “The stories illustrate many lessons. They demonstrate that success is possible even when resources are scarce. They show that inputs such as drugs or vaccines, as important as they are to improving health, are not enough. Political commitment, capacity building, human resources, education and communication, local adaptation and community involvement are critical. They also signal that strengthening and increased financing of underlying health systems and social services is key to ensuring a large-scale and more sustainable response.”
The report identifies six important characteristics of programmes that it says have succeeded in controlling diseases of poverty:
-- political commitment at the highest level is key to achieving results and sustaining programmes;
-- new ways of working may include entering into partnerships with the private sector, non-governmental organizations and UN agencies;
-- innovation has made all the difference in some countries promoting the home as the “first hospital” helps to reduce child deaths;
-- training and education of mothers has been a key to success;
-- widespread availability of supplies, medicines and other low-cost tools at community-level is essential; and
-- measuring results is key to planning control measures.
Contact: Information Manager, UNAIDS, 20 avenue Appia, CH-1211 Geneva 27, Switzerland, telephone +41-22/791 3666, fax +41-22/791 4187, e-mail <unaids@unaids.org>, website (www.unaids.org).
ILO INITIATIVES AIMED AT HIV/AIDS
An ILO study on HIV/AIDS in Africa: The Impact on the World of Work shows that the size of the labour force in some African countries could be up to 35% smaller by the year 2020 than it would have been without HIV/AIDS. Although figures vary from country to country, the study of 29 countries' labour forces shows “significantly sharper declines” in the workforce due to AIDS than an ILO study issued last year.
“The concern is not only with the size of the labour force, but also its quality,” says the report. “Many of those infected with HIV are experienced and skilled workers in both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. The loss of these workers, together with the entry into the labour market of orphaned children who have to support themselves, is likely to lower both the average age of many workforces and their average level of skills and experience.”
The report says that workers at special risk include miners, transport workers, security personnel, teachers, health workers and seasonal or migrant workers in agriculture, construction and tourism. It notes that AIDS is having an especially severe impact on agriculture in Africa, in particular on women who perform most principal tasks in farming and produce between 60% and 80% of the continent's food.
“These figures do not take into account the reduced capacity of many of those still in the labour force but sick from AIDS-related illnesses,” the study notes. “The age and sex composition of the workforce is also expected to change as more orphaned children and widows seek employment; another trend might be the retention of workers beyond retirement age in order to keep experienced staff.”
Based on an analysis of UN population data by the ILO, the study shows that the projected decline in the workforce in 92 countries due to AIDS would range between 5% and 35% by the year 2020.
The ILO is launching a programme against HIV/AIDS in the workplace aimed at helping governments, workers and employers in their struggle with the disease. The programme covers eight countries in Asia, Africa and Central and Eastern Europe as well as a regional project for the Caribbean to help governments, and workers' and employers' organizations increase their efforts to fight the spread of HIV/AIDS in the workplace. The programme will also seek to increase awareness and advocacy for preventing the spread of HIV and providing protection, care and support for those living with HIV/AIDS, develop preventive and protection programmes for workers and employers, and help develop new legislation and policy for HIV/AIDS in the world of work.
ILO is also preparing a Code of Practice on HIV/AIDS in the world of work. The code would provide legal guidance to ILO constituents on developing a workplace policy for HIV/AIDS.
Contact: Bureau of Public Information, 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).
ILO GOVERNING BODY
The Governing Body of the International Labour Office (ILO), which met in November 2000 in Geneva, opened the way for full implementation of a resolution of the International Labour Conference aimed at compelling Myanmar (Burma) to comply with Convention No. 29 on forced labour. The Convention, adopted in June 2000 by the International Labour Conference, was ratified by Myanmar (Burma) back in 1955. However in 1998 an ILO Commission of Inquiry found that forced labour in the country was “widespread and systematic.”
The Governing Body action allows for a series of measures to take effect and calls on the country to “take concrete actions” to implement the recommendation of the 1998 inquiry.
The series of measures includes:
-- recommending ILO constituents–governments, employers and workers–”review their relations with Myanmar (Burma), take appropriate measures to ensure that such relations do not perpetuate or extend the system of forced or compulsory labour in that country, and contribute as far as possible to the recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry;” and
-- inviting the ILO Director-General to request the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) place on its July 2001 session agenda an item concerning the failure of Myanmar (Burma) to implement the recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry and “seeking the adoption of recommendations directed by ECOSOC or by the General Assembly, or by both, to governments and other specialized agencies to ensure that by their involvement they are not directly or indirectly abetting the practice of forced labour.”
Among other things, the Governing Body also discussed charges of violations of fundamental workers' rights in Colombia, violations of human rights in Guatemala, and government interference in trade union activity in Ethiopia.
Contact: Bureau of Public Information, 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).
ILO SHIPPING LABOUR STANDARDS
The 29th session of the Joint Maritime Commission announced in January 2001 a major agreement, known as the Geneva Accord, designed to improve safety and working conditions in the maritime industry. Participants to the session in Geneva, including representatives of ship owners and seafarers, resolved that “the emergence of the global labour market for seafarers has effectively transformed the shipping industry into the world's first genuinely global industry, which requires a global response with a body of global standards applicable to the whole industry.”
The week-long session held at the International Labour Office (ILO) agreed that existing maritime ILO instruments should be consolidated and brought up-to-date by means of a new, single “framework Convention” on maritime labour standards. Among other things, it also recommended an institutional basis for a review of all aspects of shipping.
“The Geneva Accord is the first important step on a difficult road towards ensuring that our uniquely international industry has in place an effective body of globally applied labour standards,” said representatives of the International Shipping Federation (ISF) and the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF).
Contact: Bureau of Public Information, 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).
WIPO E-COMMERCE CONFERENCE
Leading dispute resolution service providers and arbitrators met in Geneva in November 2000 to discuss how electronic commerce has changed the way in which business and the legal profession function, along with associated risks and opportunities. The International Conference on Dispute Resolution in Electronic Commerce, organized by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), brought together around 250 participants mostly from the private sector as well as representatives of governments.
Discussions focused on changes in alternative dispute resolution, such as arbitration and mediation, brought about by the technological advances that have sparked e-commerce and that have had significant consequences for business and legal practitioners worldwide.
“The digital economy is introducing profound structural change in the provision of dispute resolution services,” said Francis Gurry, WIPO Assistant Director General. He noted that traditional arbitration had a small number of providers, while electronic commerce has spawned a significantly larger number of dispute resolution service providers, giving users wider choice. Today, he said, users are benefiting from competition among the dispute resolution providers. However, the demand for alternative dispute resolution was increasing greatly in response to the growing volume of transactions in the digital economy.
Among other things, participants examined major challenges in the field of alternative dispute resolution including related legal, technical and technological issues.
Contact: Media Relations and Public Affairs Section, WIPO, PO Box 18, CH-1211 Geneva 20, Switzerland, telephone +41-22/338 8161 or 338 9547, fax +41-22/338 8810, e-mail <publicinf@wipo.int>, website (www.wipo.org).
UN-NGO COOPERATION
SPECIAL SESSION ON AIDS
E-mail discussion forums (see contact information below) have been established for NGOs and other civil society groups so that they can contribute views to the General Assembly special session in New York on HIV/AIDS.
The preparatory process of the special session, which will be held from 25-27 June 2001 in New York (see Go Between 83), will consist of open-ended informal consultations in February-March and in April. In order to encourage involvement from civil society groups beyond the limited number accredited to the special session, a virtual forum–via e-mail–will channel inputs, ideas and priorities into the preparatory process and special session. Issues raised through forum contributions will be synthesized and clustered into regional and/or thematic priorities and made available to government delegations throughout the preparatory process.
NGOs are also being encouraged to find out which ministry is organizing their country's delegation to the special session, and ask them to include NGO representatives or to raise specific HIV/AIDS-related issues and priorities at the special session. They can also send comments to NGO delegates on the Programme Coordinating Board of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).
Contact addresses for these NGOs are listed below.
Africa: Alice Lamptey, Vision Consult, PO Box LG 760, Legon, Accra, Ghana, telephone +233-21/500 851, fax + 233-21/788 185, e-mail < tvolamp@ghana.com>.
Asia and Pacific: Charles Nigel De Silva, NEST, 70/3 Kadawatha Rd., Kalubowila, Dehiwala, Sri Lanka, telephone +94-1/82 5234, fax +94-1/57 6031, e-mail <capilitto@hotmail.com>.
Europe: Pedro Silverio Marques, ABRAçO, Travessa do Noronha, 5-3 Dto., 1200 Lisbon, Portugal, telephone +351-213/ 974 298, fax +351-213/ 977 357, e-mail <abraco@mail.telepac.pt>.
Latin America and Caribbean: Ruben Mayorga, ASICAL, 6 Avenida 1-63 Zona 1, Guatemala City 01001, Guatemala, telephone +502 220 1332/ 253 3453, fax +502 232 1021, e-mail <oasis@gua.gbm.net>.
North America: Jairo Pedraza, GNP+, 2 Seaman Avenue 3H, New York NY 10034, United States, +1-212/569 6023, fax +1-212/942 8530, e-mail <BabaluAye@aol.com>.
To join the forum, NGOs should send an e-mail to <break-the-silence@hdnet.org>. Documents related to the special session, which included open-ended informal consultations in February-March and in April, are available on (www.unaids.org) and (www.un.org/ga/aids).
FORUM ON CHEMICAL SAFETY
Over 80 governments participated in the third session of the Intergovernmental Forum on Chemical Safety (IFCS), held 15-20 October 2000 in Salvador da Bahia (Brazil). The meeting also included representatives of ten intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations. The IFCS was established in 1994 in response to the request of governments at the Summit, with the goal of building consensus on policies and strategies for the sound management of chemicals. It is a global partnership of governments, NGOs and intergovernmental organizations.
The October session adopted by acclamation the Bahia Declaration, which reaffirms commitment to the Rio Declaration and acknowledges the challenges for chemical safety set at the Summit. Among other things, the Bahia Declaration says many countries are still struggling to establish the essential infrastructure for chemical safety, and standards of chemical safety across much of the world “fall short of that needed to provide adequate protection of human health and the environment.”
They commit to give greater emphasis to cooperation and coordination at all levels, and to focus energies and resources to achieve a number of goals for review at upcoming forums in 2003 in Thailand and in late 2005 or 2006 in Hungary. These include at least five countries in each IFCS region having full arrangements in place by 2005 for the exchange of information on hazardous chemicals, as well as most countries developing national policies with targets for improving the management of chemicals.
Contact: Judy Stober, Executive Secretary, IFCS, care of World Health Organization, telephone +41-22/791 3650, fax +41-22/791 4875, e-mail <stoberj@who.ch>, website (www.ifcs.ch).
CULTURE OF PEACE MEETING
More than 400 people representing over 130 NGOs took part in a symposium on The Culture of Peace: An Idea in Action, held in Paris from 24-25 November 2000.
The event, hosted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), was designed to assess progress of the global movement for a culture of peace and non-violence, which was launched in the beginning of last year (see NGLS Roundup 58).
Participants also discussed activities of NGOs in relation to the 2000 International Year for A Culture of Peace, as well as ways to strengthen cooperation between NGOs and UNESCO in this field before the start of the International Decade from 2001-2010 for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World.
In addition to plenary sessions, the symposium featured workshops on:
-- fostering a culture of peace through education;
-- promoting sustainable economic and social development;
-- promoting respect for all human rights;
-- fostering democratic participation;
-- ensuring equality between men and women;
-- advancing understanding, tolerance and solidarity;
-- supporting participatory communication and the free flow of information and knowledge; and
-- promoting international peace and solidarity.
Conclusions and recommendations of the workshops included the need to inform more people about the initiatives, speed up sharing of information between groups, and encourage greater involvement of NGOs working in the cultural field.
Contact: International Year for the Culture of Peace, UNESCO, 7 place de Fontenoy, F-75352 Paris 07 SP, France, fax +33-1/45 68 55 57 or 45 68 56 38, e-mail <iycp@unesco.org>, websites (www.unesco.org/iycp) or (www.unesco.org/manifesto2000).
UNEP/NGO CONSULTATION
A consultation between NGOs and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) was held in Nairobi (Kenya) from 1-2 February 2001, immediately prior to the 21st session of UNEP's Governing Council. Around 90 representatives of NGOs and civil society organizations participated in the consultation, as well as many UNEP staff including Executive Director Klaus Töpfer and Bakary Kante, Director of Policy Development and Law.
Discussions in working sessions focused on preparations for Rio+10, to be held in 2002 in Johannesburg (South Africa), and UNEP's work programme including the Global Compact. Three parallel workshops considered the themes of poverty and the environment, trade and the environment, and strengthened synergies among the multilateral environmental agreements.
On the final day participants debated and adopted a set of recommendations. Among other things, they called on UNEP to “now move expeditiously towards integrating the participation of NGOs and civil society at all levels of UNEP's planning, decision making, and implementation processes, as is the case in the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, the GEF [Global Environment Facility] and others. We therefore propose to UNEP that an NGO committee be established to help develop interaction between UNEP and the NGO community, to give support to the NGO liaison office at UNEP headquarters in Nairobi.”
In addition the recommendations call on UNEP to strengthen its working relations with youth and women's groups, and express a number of concerns about the UN's Global Compact initiative.
Contact: Subramonia Ananthakrishnan, Chief, Civil Society and NGOs Unit, Division of Environmental Policy Development and Law, UNEP, PO Box 30552, Nairobi, Kenya, telephone +254-2/ 623870, fax +254-2/ 623679 or 622788, e-mail <anantha.krishnan@unep.org>, website (www.unep.org).
NGO UPDATE
SURVEY ON NGOS
NGOs have become the new “super brands” in global governance and have earned a far greater level of trust than the Group of Eight governments, media and some global multinational companies such as Ford and Microsoft. These are the findings of a survey carried out last year among 500 “well-educated, media attentive” people from Australia, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and United States.
The survey, conducted by Strategy One, a unit of Edelman Public Relations Worldwide, found that NGOs are trusted nearly two to one to “do what is right” compared to government, media or corporations. Nearly two-thirds of respondents said that corporations only care about profits, while well over half said that NGOs represent values they believe in.
“Business and government leaders ought to recognize that NGOs are here to stay as important players in the global marketplace,” said Richard Edelman, President of Edelman Worldwide. “Given the public's increasing distrust of government because of cases like Mad Cow Disease and skepticism of corporate motives, NGOS must play a critical role in global governance.”
NGOs ranked significantly higher as a source of credible information than media outlets or companies on issues including labour and human rights, genetically modified food, health and the environment. Sixty-four percent of those surveyed said NGO influence has increased significantly over the past decade.
The survey found that NGOs have a greater level of trust because they use the power of images more effectively, particularly in broadcast and on the Internet. And they speak directly to consumers and appeal to emotions through simple and concise themes.
Contact: Edelman Worldwide, website (www.edelman.com).
16TH WORLD CONSUMERS INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS
The theme of the 16th World Congress of Consumers International (CI), which met in Durban (South Africa) from 13-17 November 2000, was Consumers, Social Justice and the World Market. The congress, which also marked the 40th anniversary of CI, brought together more than 600 activists from over 100 countries.
Participants discussed, among other things, the effects of globalization on consumers, improvement of access to basic goods and services for the poor, benefits and costs of electronic commerce, corporate social responsibility, protection of consumers' right to redress in the global market, and genetically modified food.
The congress adopted resolutions calling for tougher measures on life form patents and genetically modified foods, and universal access to basic health care. It called on governments to provide comprehensive consumer protection legislation, including measures to protect consumers from hazardous products and technologies.
Participants expressed concern about economic liberalization and globalization, which they said could exacerbate inequalities. They also called on business and governments to cooperate in eradicating poverty and to encourage the use of environmentally sustainable technologies.
Contact: Consumers International, 24 Highbury Crescent, London N5 1RX, United Kingdom, telephone +44-207/226 6663, fax +44-207/354 0607, e-mail <consint@consint.org>, website (www.consumersinternational.org/Congress2000).
DAKAR 2000 MEETING
A meeting entitled Dakar 2000: From Resistance to Alternatives, held from 11-17 December 2000 in Senegal, brought together a large mix of African NGOs, both francophone and anglophone, and movements and organizations such as Jubilee 2000, Jubilee South and the Association pour une taxation des transactions financieres pour l'aide aux citoyens (ATTAC) to debate Africa's debt and call for its total and unconditional annulation.
Many workshops on various aspects of Africa's development crisis were held, as was a tribunal on the role, policies and impact in Africa of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Trade Organization and World Bank.
The meeting produced a Dakar Manifesto, and on the last day a peaceful march through the streets of Dakar took place in support of the writing-off of Africa's foreign debt. The meeting was organized and hosted by the Conseil des organisations non-gouvernementales d'appui au developpement (CONGAD) of Senegal, International South Group Network (ISGN) of Zimbabwe, and Centre national de cooperation au developpement (CNCD) of Belgium.
Contact: Demba Moussa Dembele, CONGAD, BP 4109, Sicap Amite, Villa No. 3089, Dakar, Senegal, telephone and fax +22-1/824 4413, e-mail <congad@telecomplus.sn>.
COMMISSION ON GLOBALIZATION
As a follow-up to its Forum 2000 (see NGLS Roundup 62), which brought together some 1,000 people from over 80 countries in a multi-stakeholder dialogue on globalization, the State of the World Forum has decided to form a Commission on Globalization. This initiative will provide an on-going consultative mechanism in which multi-stakeholder dialogues and deliberations concerning globalization and global governance can take place.
The Forum is developing a detailed plan for the Commission, in consultation with international stakeholders such as heads of state, business executives, union leaders, civil society organizations, religious leaders, and representatives from the science and technology sectors.
The Commission's work will focus on the following:
-- dialogue to help sustain interaction between various stakeholders on issues related to globalization, in order to increase the cross-sectoral understanding and knowledge about globalization;
-- scenario building–to develop alternative possibilities for globalization–that would be a collaborative effort of 80-100 individuals drawn from various communities; and
-- publication of “white papers” written by working groups comprised of cross-sectoral, multi-stakeholder experts on particular global subjects in order to make recommendations to strengthen global governing institutions.
It is expected that the outcomes of these activities will be presented at a major world conference planned for the second quarter of 2003. At that time, the recommendations will be widely disseminated to national and international leaders as well as to the public. Similarly, outcomes of the work of the Commission will be distributed broadly and formally presented to parliaments, heads of state, and at the United Nations and other multilateral institutions.
Organizers of Forum 2000 noted that protests in Seattle (United States) during the December 1999 meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) highlighted the “inadequacies of the current system of global governance,” with institutions governing globalization limited to representatives of sovereign states. According to State of the World Forum President Jim Garrison, “At a minimum we need to create a mechanism for the stakeholders to meet across the table.” He said the Forum is taking creative leadership to “break through the dialectic.”
Contact: State of the World Forum, The Presidio, PO Box 29434, San Francisco CA 94129, United States, telephone +1-415/561 2345, fax +1-415/561 2323, e-mail <info@worldforum.org>, website (www.worldforum.org).
REPORT ON FOOD DUMPING
The United States–through its food aid programme–is dumping genetically engineered foods into developing countries, according to Food First, the Institute for Food and Development Policy.
In a report entitled Food Aid in the New Millennium: Genetically Engineered Food and Foreign Assistance, the US-based group says this dumping is met with resistance throughout the world, but the United States has been dismissive to concerns regarding the potential impact on the environment and health. The report also says food aid programmes help open markets in developing countries for biotech corporations, raising questions about the use of foreign aid funds in support of private industry.
“While the market for genetically engineered foods dwindles in the US and elsewhere,” according to Food First, “the biotech industry has found a welcoming ally with US food aid. This food aid system appears to disregard the rights and concerns of recipient citizens in order to assure profits for agribusiness giants.”
The report is the first in a series of fact sheets–focusing on biotechnology's impact on the world's environment, economy and social systems–that Food First will release this year.
It is calling for an immediate moratorium on sales and production of genetically engineered food, improvement of the regulatory process, and overhauling of the United States' foreign aid programme “to meet the needs of recipient countries rather then the needs of corporations selling genetically engineered foods.”
Contact: Nick Parker, Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy, 398 60th Street, Oakland CA 94608, United States, telephone +1-510/654 4400, fax +1-510/654 4551, e-mail <foodfirst@foodfirst.org>, website (www.foodfirst.org).
RELIGIOUS SUMMIT BRIEFING
Participants in a Briefing on the Millennium Peace Summit for Religious and Spiritual Leaders: Finding Ways to Work Together, held on 19 January 2001 in Geneva, discussed on-going initiatives connected to the 29 August 2000 Summit in New York.
Bawa Jain, Secretary General of the Summit, described how it was conceived and ways to sustain its momentum. These include the formation of an international council of religious and spiritual leaders, which would serve as an “interfaith ally” to the work of the United Nations. Discussions and consultations are taking place on the mission, purpose and role of such a council. Local networks of religious leaders are already working with the UN at the national level, Mr. Jain noted, and plans are being made for an event to bring together women spiritual and religious leaders, possibly in June 2002 in Geneva.
Comments by participants included:
-- humanity cannot move forward with the many challenges it faces without the collective wisdom of spirituality;
-- national councils of religious leaders are closer to the grassroots and hence often more key for initiatives than their international, more hierarchical structures;
-- racism is one of the greatest forms of violence;
-- the need to move away from the concept of mere “tolerance” of other religions to “mutual respect” for religious diversity; and
-- addressing the issue of women's human rights within religion.
Discussions also focused on how to move from the rhetoric of statements by religious leaders to concrete action, how to demystify what are often portrayed as “religious conflicts” for the real political and economic conflicts they often are; and ways to develop the idea of xenophobia and racism, based on traditional religious texts, as “modern sin.”
Contact: Secretariat, Millennium Peace Summit for Religious and Spiritual Leaders, 301 East 57th Street, New York NY 10022, United States, telephone +1-212/593 6438, fax +1-212/593 6345, e-mail <info@millenniumpeacesummit.org>, website (www.millenniumpeacesummit.org).
UNIVERSAL DECLARATION FOR ANIMAL WELFARE
The World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) is campaigning for a Universal Declaration for the Welfare of Animals to be adopted by the United Nations.
The first draft of the declaration has been drawn up by WSPA and ratified by its Board of Directors, which represents several leading animal welfare organizations worldwide. Among other things, the declaration calls for:
-- legislation that recognizes cruelty to animals as a serious offence;
-- prohibition of the capture and killing of wild animals for sport or entertainment; and
-- replacement of experiments on live animals with alternative testing methods wherever possible.
According to WSPA the declaration should be a key goal for the animal welfare movement, although it would not be binding. WSPA said it could lead to an animal welfare convention that would operate like the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES), which has a mandate to pass legally-binding resolutions.
Contact: Andrew Dickson, Chief Executive, World Society for the Protection of Animals, 89 Albert Embankment, London SE1 7TP, United Kingdom, telephone +44-207/793 0540, +44-207/793 0208, e-mail <Declaration@wspa.org.uk>, website (www.wspa.org.uk).
FOCUS
AFRICA DEVELOPMENT FORUM FOCUSES ON AIDS
The second Africa Development Forum, held in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) from 3-7 December 2000, gathered over 1,500 African leaders, policy makers, activists and academics to address the theme of AIDS: The Greatest Leadership Challenge. Organized by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) in conjunction with several UN agencies, the forum was designed to help galvanize an African-led response to the AIDS pandemic.
“Our continent did not have to be devastated like this by HIV/AIDS. We should not have allowed it to get to this state, and we therefore have the responsibility to reverse the situation.” These words were spoken by a 22-year old South African woman living with HIV/AIDS, Charlotte Mjele, who addressed delegates at the opening of the forum. Ms. Mjele appealed to community and national leaders for “more action where it matters most–to reach young people, children at the grassroots, and to deal with poverty which is breeding HIV infection, fear, hopelessness and premature death.”
K.Y. Amoako, ECA Executive Secretary, stressed that the doomsday scenario HIV/AIDS posed to Africa was not the continent's inevitable future. “This is a battle for the continent's survival,” he said. “We carry inside each and every one of us the potential to increase the problem or the potential to help solve the problem. This is not a policy issue: this is ourselves, our families, our communities, our hopes. And this is our decisive moment.”
Forum delegates, in a final statement entitled The African Consensus and Plan of Action: Leadership to Overcome HIV/AIDS, said that “success in overcoming the HIV/AIDS pandemic demands an exceptional personal, moral, political and social commitment on the part of every African.” The statement outlines the ways leadership in the family, community, workplace, schools, at the international level, governments and civil society can help halt spread of the disease.
At the national level the statement says that, among other things, each country should hold a representative national workshop by mid-February 2001 to determine how the statement and plan can be turned into action at the country level. By the end of this year, each country should ensure that it has in place a National AIDS Commission and a strategic plan backed by appropriate legislation, modalities for the involvement of people living with AIDS and other stakeholders, and mechanisms for regular monitoring of progress. At the regional and global levels, the statement urges sub-regional summits during 2001 to address the HIV/AIDS challenge as a matter of high priority. At the UN General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS in June 2001, African participants should present a common position and a coordinated demand for international assistance, debt relief and provision of affordable drugs. The UN Secretary-General, in partnership with others, should embark on a major fundraising campaign “to encourage a global public response to Africa's HIV/AIDS pandemic.” NGOs and other advocacy forces in Africa and internationally are encouraged to organize a campaign, comparable to the Jubilee 2000 initiative on debt, to pressure pharmaceutical companies and financial institutions to make anti-retroviral drugs available at reasonable cost to treat all people living with AIDS in Africa. In addition to these and other strategies, the statement says that mechanisms should be created so that recurrent reviews, sharing of best practices and peer reviews take place at all required levels.
Participants in a Forum of Heads of State on 7 December included Meles Zenawi, Prime Minister of Ethiopia; Yoweri Museveni, President of Uganda; President Mogae of Botswana; President Paul Kagame of Rwanda; and Prime Minister Mustapha of Senegal. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the forum that the pandemic is especially a challenge for leadership, which can overcome taboos and raise awareness of the disease. He noted that the private sector and other groups had already been successful in this regard. Mr. Annan launched an International Partnership Against AIDS in Africa to galvanize efforts and bring together African governments, the UN, donors, community organizations and the private sector. The goals of the partnership are to help reduce the number of new HIV infections in Africa over the next decade, promote care for those who suffer from the virus, and mobilize society to halt the advance of AIDS.
During the forum Carol Bellamy, Executive Director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), called on African leaders to join a global campaign to abolish all education fees and other costs for primary school attendance. Children left parentless or impoverished by HIV/AIDS are least likely to attend school, said Ms. Bellamy. Surveys conducted by UNICEF in 15 African countries how an average gap in enrollment rates of 19% between children orphaned by AIDS and those with at least one living parent. Funding for public education across African is inadequate, and local schools are forced to turn to families for financial support. She said the campaign to abolish school fees and related charges would lift that burden from children and their families and place it where it belongs. National governments, she added, “can and should reallocate budgets to strengthen the education sector. The international community must relieve the debt that siphons resources from schools. And donors must make good on their commitment to increase official development assistance to 0.7% of GDP [gross domestic product].”
A declaration by African civil society organizations represented at the forum calls for greater focus on people living with HIV/AIDS, youth and the media as central partners in the struggle against the disease. Although there is no simple plan of action to overcome it, the groups called for “a true partnership, in the form of a grand coalition of leaders, organizations and individuals at all levels, working in their different ways towards a common goal: the conquest of HIV/AIDS.” The declaration calls on national political leaders to, among other things, “take a lead in combating the culture of fear, denial and stigmatization, including by encouraging openness within government about HIV-positive status and by formulating appropriate policies for national media; to take a lead in non-discrimination in government employment; [and] to draft necessary legislation to address issues including discrimination, employment, violence against people living with AIDS, sexual violence....[National political leaders should also] take the necessary steps to make a strategy to combat HIV/AIDS a top national priority, for all arms of the government.” Recommendations were also made for voluntary and grassroots leaders, women leaders, and leaders from religion, business, trade unions, academia, the education sector, media, military, international leaders, and cultural and social leaders.
Contact: ECA, PO Box 3001, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, telephone +251-1/517200, fax +251-1/514416 or 510365, website (www.un.org/Depts/eca). For more information about the International Partnership Against AIDS in Africa, see website (www.unaids.org).
PREPCOM DISCUSSES “A WORLD FIT FOR CHILDREN”
The Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) for the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Children, to take place in September 2001, held its second substantive session in New York from 29 January to 2 February. The week-long session brought together a large number of government representatives, NGOs, children's advocates and young people for a preliminary examination of the end-of-decade reviews on implementation of the 1990 World Declaration on the Survival, Protection and Development of Children and Plan of Action.
The PrepCom also discussed the draft outcome document that forms the basis of the new agenda for the future, to be adopted by world leaders at the special session on children. Strong momentum for the special session has been observed among governments, NGOs and international agencies involved in preparations conducted on the national, regional and global levels. To date, 80 member states have submitted their national reports, which will be posted on the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) website (www.unicef.org/specialsession).
New Agenda for the Future
The President of the United Nations General Assembly, Harri Holkeri (Finland), pointed out in his opening statement that important positive developments have occurred in many parts of the world since the 1990 World Summit on Children. The most significant included near universal ratification of the Convention on Children's Rights. However, during the last decade global developments have emerged that are increasingly undermining the well-being of children, including poverty and the widening gap between the rich and poor, globalization, and the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS.
In her opening statement Carol Bellamy, Executive Director of UNICEF, noted that despite progress achieved during the 1990s overall gains had fallen short of national commitments and international obligations. She urged both governments and citizens to mobilize together to put an end to “the poverty, ill health, violence and discrimination that needlessly blights and destroys so many lives.”
The Bureau of the PrepCom had prepared for consideration a draft outcome document entitled A World Fit for Children. The paper lists the visions, challenges, new opportunities, goals, tasks, strategies, and commitments of states. It also reaffirms states' obligation to safeguard the rights of children by means of national action and international cooperation.
The draft highlights things that take a heavy toll on children and need to be urgently addressed. These include discrimination, the undermining of the crucial role of parents and families due to social and economic pressures, the overwhelming effect of external debt and poverty, malnutrition, diseases such as HIV/AIDS, armed conflicts, a lack of basic education, violence, abuse and exploitation. The draft identifies new goals, targets and tasks for states and presents three key outcomes for children that have emerged as a framework for future action: early childhood development, basic education, and adolescent development and participation.
Concise, Action-Oriented Document
The draft outcome document was extensively discussed during the PrepCom, and among main concerns and issues raised was its structure. Some delegations called for a more concise, focused and action-oriented document.
Many government delegates also raised the question about how to secure and invest in the resources needed for children, and called for the outcome document to present a clear case that poverty reduction starts with children. It was also suggested that the outcome document examine new partnerships and alliances between governments, civil society, the corporate world and international community, as well as ways to better involve children and young people in decisions affecting their lives.
The Indonesian delegate, among others, drew attention to the effects of the Asian financial crisis, increasing poverty, social instability and globalization on children in the region. The Colombian delegate, speaking on behalf of the regional consultative group on Latin America established in 1988 known as the Rio Group, called for the draft document to have a strong legal basis and to incorporate the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The delegate also called for the outcome document to reflect more on the effects of globalization, violence against children, and HIV/AIDS.
The representative of Ghana emphasized the effects falling commodities prices, increases in oil prices, and massive debt burdens have on developing countries, and stressed that the resources needed to meet future challenges far outweigh the means available. According to the Swedish delegate, speaking on behalf of the European Union, the Union welcomed the document's emphasis on a rights-based approach, poverty reduction, education and combating HIV/AIDS. He also emphasized that in order for the document to be an important action tool, it needs to make a distinction between joint undertakings of participating governments and recommendations to the international agencies.
At the end of the session NGOs circulated an “alternative text” to the draft outcome document, which was prepared based on broad consultation among NGOs and thematic and regional caucuses both prior to and during the PrepCom. Among other things, the alternative text proposes that states give the following five goals priority action: eradication of child poverty, education, health and HIV/AIDS, protection from violence, and participation.
The PrepCom adopted a draft report as well as three draft decisions on NGO participation in the special session, organizational matters, and the provisional agenda. Based on comments received during the PrepCom, a revised draft document was to be prepared and distributed by mid-March 2001 for consideration at the third and final substantive session of the PrepCom on 11-15 June 2001 in New York. UNICEF was assigned the task of exploring possibilities for convening a forum for children and adolescents prior to the special session.
In her concluding remarks the PrepCom chair, Ambassador Patricia Durrant (Jamaica), remarked on the tremendous participation of civil society, including children, and recognized that contributions from the national and regional levels had been crucial to the progress of the PrepCom.
Contact: Margaret Kyenkya-Isabirye, Senior Advisor, Programme Partnership Unit, NGO Section, UNICEF, Room H8A, 3 UN Plaza, New York NY 10017, United States, telephone +1-212/824 6570, fax +1-212/824 6466, e-mail <mkisabirye@unicef.org>, website (www.unicef.org/specialsession).
UNICEF STATE OF WORLD'S CHILDREN REPORT
Investment in the development and care of the world's youngest children is the most fundamental form of good leadership, according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in The State of the World's Children 2001. However the world is squandering human potential on a massive scale, as hundreds of millions of the world's youngest citizens flounder in poverty and neglect in their first years of life.
“Childhood poverty is insidious and immoral,” said UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy when introducing the report. “Child by child, mind by mind, it leads to a vast loss of human capacity. Unleashing children's brain power through effective investments in health, nutrition, education, child care and basic protection is both a moral imperative and sound economics. But those investments must happen early–early enough in a child's life to take advantage of that unique moment in human development.”
In its annual assessment of the well-being of children, UNICEF says that far too many political and economic leaders fail to grasp the essential truths about human development. The greatest tragedy, said Ms. Bellamy, is that “many decision-makers simply don't know how crucial those first three years of life are. But we have made great strides in understanding human development, and we are now certain that those years are vital to everything that comes later. Investments made today will yield high returns to children and society in the future.” She said that investment in early childhood development is also essential to making any real gains in education, economic development, crime reduction and debt reduction.
The report notes that nearly 11 million children die every year from preventable diseases. Some 170 million children are malnourished, over 100 million never see the inside of a school, and one out of ten children have disabilities. In addition to these tangible measures of the ways the world fails children, says the report, almost beyond measure is the lost human capacity that results from poor early childhood care.
The report also stresses what it describes as the inextricable link between women’s status and children’s status. For example, it says that women’s literacy rates–a proxy for their empowerment and advancement–are key to improving the health, nutrition and education of families and children. Malnourished girls often grow into undernourished mothers, in turn more likely to give birth to low-birthweight infants. Approximately 15 million girls aged 15-19 give birth every year, accounting for more than 10% of all babies born worldwide. The risk of death from pregnancy-related causes is four times higher in this age group than for women older than 20. Skilled parental and delivery care plays a major role in reducing maternal mortality and morbidity. And violence against women is often equivalent to violence against children.
The Importance of Early Childhood
The State of the World's Children 2001 rallies individuals, governments, international agencies and donors to fully fund early childhood care, with a particular emphasis on ages zero to three. UNICEF says US$80 billion per year is needed to give every new-born in the world a good start in life. Four key points are made in the report.
First, early childhood care is a human rights issue. As a birthright, all children are entitled to registration at birth, sound nutrition, health care, clean water, adequate sanitation, basic education, cognitive stimulation and an opportunity to reach their full potential. Nations must strive to provide optimum care for all their children.
Second, early childhood care is grounded in sound science and practical experience. Research in neuroscience and field experience point to critical windows of opportunity for the development of language, motor skills, personality, social behaviour and resiliency. Comprehensive early care provides the building blocks for social and intellectual competence that allow children to reach their full potential.
Third, early childhood care is a solid investment. For every US$1 spent on early childhood care there is a US$7 return through cost savings. This figure is derived from studies showing that participants in preschool and daycare are less likely to suffer illnesses, repeat grades, drop out of school, or require remedial services later in life. Moreover, by shifting money within budgets nations can create comprehensive programmes for their youngest citizens without adding large sums of money or further depleting their budgets.
Finally, there are three major challenges that loom: poverty, conflict and HIV/AIDS. These plagues, according to UNICEF, remain the most pressing challenges for the world and compete with early childhood care for funding. In the poorest nations, scarce resources are used to pay loans. By investing in destructive war machines, many countries steal food, clean water, health care and schooling from their citizens. And in some countries, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, the HIV/AIDS pandemic has stripped health and education budgets to the bone.
Investing in Nations Through Investing in Children
The report implores the global community to invest in its children as the best hope for overcoming these scourges. Poor, malnourished and weak children make for a poor and powerless state. By investing in children and families, a nation ultimately invests in its own sustained development, it says.
“Poverty reduction starts with children,” said Ms. Bellamy. “....[And] educated, healthy, empowered women are essential to the well-being of the children they bring into the world. At the same time, educating men about these issues is essential to dispelling attitudes that create inequality and that make women and children second-class citizens. The state of the world's youngest children, citizens with the same rights as all others, is not nearly as good as it should be. It will only get better when we alter current priorities and accept the sound economic, social and political sense it makes to prioritize the world's youngest.”
Contact: Helene Martin, Communications Assistant, Division of Communication, UNICEF, Palais des Nations, CH-1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland, telephone +41-22/909 5519, fax +41-22/909 5907 or Madeline Eisner, Communications Officer, Division of Communication, UNICEF, 3 UN Plaza, New York NY 10017, United States, telephone +1-212/326 7261, fax +1-212/326 7768, website (www.unicef.org).
UNHCR PUBLISHES THE STATE OF THE WORLD’S REFUGEES
The number of asylum seekers in developed countries will continue to swell unless more is done to address the root causes of conflict and to help millions of displaced people within their own regions, according to The State of the World’s Refugees, published by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
The State of the World’s Refugees: Fifty Years of Humanitarian Action provides a historical overview of refugee movements over the past five decades and examines the evolution of UNHCR into one of the world’s leading humanitarian organizations. The report also describes the development of international refugee law in a world it describes as “increasingly reluctant to keep its doors open to the displaced.”
Established by the UN General Assembly in December 1950, UNHCR began work on 1 January 1951 with a staff of 33 people and a budget of US$300,000. Initially, it was given a three-year mandate to resettle some one million post-World War II refugees–its work was supposed to then end. Fifty years later, the Geneva-based agency's 5,000 staff in 120 countries care for 22.3 million refugees and others of concern, with a budget of about US$1 billion annually. But UNHCR’s 50th anniversary is no cause for celebration, noted outgoing Commissioner Sadako Ogata. Instead, its longevity is a reflection of the international community’s “continuing failure to prevent prejudice, persecution, poverty and other root causes” of displacement and conflict.
“Humanitarian action is of limited value if it does not form part of a wider strategic and political framework aimed at addressing the root causes of conflict,” according to Ms. Ogata. “Humanitarian action alone cannot solve problems which are fundamentally political in nature.”
In an era of continuing population movements and ever tighter asylum policies, the report warns that rich countries will continue to face refugee and irregular migration flows unless the causes are tackled. “If the disparity between the world’s wealthiest and poorest countries continues to grow,” it says, “...and if countries outside the industrialized world are not sufficiently encouraged and supported in providing protection and assistance to refugees in their regions, the numbers of people seeking new lives in the world’s wealthiest states will remain high.”
The report says legislative changes to asylum systems in industrialized countries the last two decades have largely been aimed at trying to control irregular–including economic–migration. In most cases, however, these changes have failed to recognize that some people have a real need to seek protection from persecution.
“Industrialized states have particular responsibilities in matters of refugee protection,” says the report. “Not only were they instrumental in drafting the major international refugee and human rights instruments half a century ago, but more importantly, the example they set will inevitably influence the way in which refugees are treated by other states in the years ahead.”
The report examines various deterrence measures that have been imposed by governments to combat “mixed flows” of migrants and refugees. In general, it says, these policies have contributed to a blurring of the already problematic distinction between refugees and economic migrants and have stigmatized refugees as people trying to circumvent the law.
But despite all the resources devoted to border control measures–particularly in Europe–the enforcement approach to migration and asylum has not solved the problem of large numbers of migrants entering in an irregular manner. Instead, it has tended to drive both migrants and asylum seekers into the hands of smugglers and traffickers.
In addition, frustration among some governments over their inability to control migration has in the past few years led to a number of radical new proposals. These include suggestions of a “defense line” to protect Europe from illegal migrants and asylum seekers, and calls for the amendment or replacement of the 1951 Refugee Convention–the very foundation of UNHCR’s work.
“The implication was that the Convention was to blame for the inability of governments to curb unwanted migration–a purpose for which it was never designed,” the report notes. It says that it is ironic the 1951 Convention is facing one of its greatest challenges in its birthplace–Europe.
Other issues covered by the report include the mass displacement in Europe after World War II; crises associated with the process of decolonization in Africa; the Bangladesh refugee emergency in 1971; the sustained exodus from Indochina beginning in the 1970s; and the large outflows resulting from protracted wars of the 1980s in Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa and Central America.
Looking at the challenges of the 1990s, the report examines the population shifts in the former Soviet region; the Kurdish exodus from northern Iraq following the Gulf War; and the recent crises in the Balkans, the Great Lakes region of Africa, East Timor and the Caucasus. In its analysis of North America and Europe, the report examines the implications for asylum seekers of new measures adopted by states to control and restrict access to their territory. It looks at what it describes as the major role of North America in support of refugees and resettlement over the years, as well as alleged double standards in treatment by the United States of Haitian and Cuban asylum seekers; the policy of interdiction of Haitians on the high seas; detention of asylum seekers; and the controversial 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act.
Among other things, the report discusses reconstruction and says the international community must do more to ensure reconstruction and reconciliation after wars have come to an end.
“All too often,” according to UNHCR, “states have lacked such commitment and conflicts have re-ignited. More systematic efforts are needed to strengthen democratic institutions and good governance in countries making the transition from war to peace.”
Contact: Oxford University Press Bookshop, 116 High Street, Oxford OX1 4BZ, United Kingdom, telephone +44-1865/242913, fax +44-1865/241701, e-mail <bookshop@oup.co.uk>, website (www.oup.co.uk/bookshop).
24TH SESSION OF CEDAW MEETS
The 24th session of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) took place at UN headquarters in New York from 15 January-2 February 2001. Go Between summarizes discussions and outcomes of the session.
The outcome of the session included updated rules of procedure related to the new optional protocol to the Convention, which entered into force on 22 December 2000. Petitions may be submitted to the Committee “by or on behalf of individuals or groups of individuals under the jurisdiction of a state Party, claiming to be victims of a violation of any of the rights set forth in the Convention by that state Party.” Petitions will only be heard by nationals or groups from countries that have ratified the protocol and only after all national remedies are exhausted. If remedies are unduly delayed an application can be made to the Committee, which will decide on the matter. The Committee will reject petitions whose substantive events occurred prior to the entry into force of the protocol for the state Party, unless those events continue after that date.
Among the documents adopted was a contribution to the 2001 World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance. The text proposes that a gender perspective be integrated into the Conference agenda, and that its Declaration and Plan of Action recognize the gender dimension of racism, xenophobia and related intolerance. Among other things, the Committee also recommended that special measures to protect women and girls be included in the Plan of Action.
The Committee began work on its general recommendation on temporary special measures or affirmative action for the advancement of women under article 4 of the Convention, which would encourage legal and policy initiatives to accelerate de facto equality. On 16 January 2001 the Committee held an open discussion with NGOs, specialized agencies and experts as part of its preparations for the recommendation. The 23-member expert body also considered the reports of eight states Parties to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and made recommendations for the advancement of women.
Concerning specific countries, the Committee felt that civil war had severely impeded Burundi's implementation of the Convention, but noted that “the deeply inferior role of women in Burundian society” was also a factor. The Committee highlighted the family code of Burundi, which it said discriminated against women by stating that the husband was the head of the family, and by allowing for a difference in the legal age of marriage for men and women. Women were also discriminated against in the penal code, the Committee said, where the crime of adultery was presented in terms more favourable to men than to women.
Recognizing Kazakhstan as a “country in transition,” the Committee expressed concern over the environmental problems of the country and raised questions about the high rate of migration of women and violence against women, as well as prostitution and trafficking in women. It noted the troubling growth of poverty and regression in women's economic status.
The Committee expressed concern over the reservations that Egypt has to the Convention, including article 9 concerning the relationship between an individual woman and the state, and article 2 concerning general legal and legislative protection. The Committee also expressed concern over the lack of women's representation in parliament and weak or non-existent legislation regarding domestic violence, rape, marital rape and female genital mutilation.
The Committee expressed concern about the decentralization of social services in Finland and its impact on women, wage differences between men and women and segregation in the labour market, and the lower participation of women in high public office. It questioned various aspects of the country's legislation for equality, education and efforts to increase gender sensitivity.
The Committee said it was pleased to learn that Uzbekistan was considering a law on equal opportunities to address direct and indirect discrimination against women. Experts said they were not clear, however, on what the legal position of the Convention was within Uzbekistan's national legislation as it lacked a clear definition of discrimination. The Committee expressed concern, among other things, that the majority of unemployed in Uzbekistan are women.
The Committee felt there was a need for greater balance between the Jamaican government and civil society, and recommended strengthening government activities in the area of sexual violence and domestic violence. The spread of HIV/AIDS was also a cause for serious concern as was, among other things, the connection between tourism and prostitution.
The committee questioned Mongolia's efforts to promote national culture and traditions, which it said could hinder efforts to eliminate customary and stereotypical attitudes toward women. Questions were also asked about worsening economic conditions for women, low levels of employment and inequalities in pay. Concern was expressed about women's lack of information on and access to contraceptives and the high rate of maternal mortality, violence against women, lack of political representation, and high rates of poverty among women.
The correlation between the Islamic Sharia law in Maldives–which covers personal law including family and inheritance matters, as well as laws enacted by Parliament–and the government's obligations under the Convention was questioned. Questions were raised about the high divorce rate, women's access to health care and contraceptives, improvement of girls' level of education, and indirect forms of discrimination within the labour market. It also questioned whether the government intended to review the constitutional provision preventing women from becoming head of state.
The next session of the CEDAW will take place from 2-20 July 2001 in New York.
Contact: Division for the Advancement of Women, Room DC2-1250, United Nations, New York NY 10017, United States, telephone +1-212/ 963 1226, fax +1-212/963 3463, e-mail <daw@un.org>, website (www.un.org/womenwatch).
UPDATE ON FINANCING FOR DEVELOPMENT
On 11-12 December 2000, the Financing for Development Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) held two days of business hearings in New York, and on 30 January the UN Secretary-General launched an assessment of how the world's development financing needs can be met. The following highlights presentations and discussions of the hearings and the assessment’s conclusions.
Business Hearings
Seventeen senior business representatives made presentations to the PrepCom, while governments and a number of NGOs addressed questions to speakers from the floor.
Session One: Mobilizing Domestic Financial Resources for Development
John de Wit, Managing Director of the Small Enterprise Foundation (South Africa), presented a number of recommendations on government policies that could support the development of micro-credit. First, general restrictions on lending activities should be relaxed and the interest rate ceilings on micro-credit loans should be raised. In order to add to the sustainability of micro-credit organizations, he suggested that this figure could even be as high as 75%-100% above the prime lending rate.
Victor Valdepenas, President of the Union Bank of the Philippines, said that new exchange rate risks and interest rate risks emerged in Asia in the 1990s. In order to improve the understanding and management of these, he underscored the need for new data and analytical tools, including management of international reserves and monitoring of corporate debt structure. He also emphasized the need for strengthening financial mechanisms for better risk-management, such as improvement of the hedging instruments of foreign exchange risk. Discouraging short-term capital and particularly foreign exchange speculation during crises was essential, said Mr. Valdepenas.
Session Two: Foreign Direct Investment, Project Finance and Venture Capital
The Director of Unilever (Netherlands), Andre van Heemstra, said that before investing in a country his company looked at political and economic frameworks conducive to efficient business. One key criteria was fair treatment before the law, which included strengthened intellectual property rights. In response to a question regarding whether or not a standard code of conduct would help in situations where companies were not concerned with corporate ethics, Mr. van Heemstra said that the answer did not lie in restrictions imposed from outside. Rather, companies have to make their own voluntary decisions to be socially responsible. The motive for this approach, according to Mr. van Heemstra, was not charity but rather recognizing that businesses prosper in societies that prosper.
Beatrice Rangel, Senior Adviser to the Chairman of the Cisneros Group (Venezuela), addressed conditions that facilitate foreign direct investment (FDI). She said that foreign investors expect macro-economic stability (especially a stable currency and labour market); strong, effective government; competition policies that ensure a level playing field; evidence of institutional development; peaceful solutions to social challenges; and laws protecting consumers and investors. Ms. Rangel said NGOs' role could be to advocate against monopoly rights of companies and encourage governments to invest in human resource development through training.
Rodney Harper, Director of Alcatel (France), focused his remarks on “bridging the digital divide.” He said that in order for Internet use to be more widespread in developing countries, it would help if there was dedicated broadband access, much wider dial-up access, and information content with strong local-added value. Mr. Harper also suggested that governments, service and content providers, financial institutions, suppliers, NGOs and the UN form partnerships to help generate financing for Internet-related projects.
Session Three: Other Private Capital Flows
Cheryl Hesse, Senior Counsel of Capital International (United States), presented an investor's view of corporate governance in emerging markets. She said factors contributing to the current emphasis of corporate governance include the increase in privatization and the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis. Problems arose as the liberalization of financial systems outpaced the development of sound corporate governance practices. She said that corporate governance reform must be undertaken within the context of local conditions, whether in emerging markets or developed ones.
The Chairman of the Industrial Bank of Japan, Yoshiyuki Fujisawa, underscored the importance of sound financial practices and good corporate governance to attract capital flows. He also said that domestic financial markets would be required to raise funds over the long-term. Enabling conditions including accountability, transparency and stability would be very important in this regard.
In the dialogue that followed, speakers said that capital controls adopted by developing countries remained a controversial policy instrument even if they were used in times of emergency. Because the controls represented an additional cost for investors, which needed to be factored in their risk analysis, they could create an incentive to shift assets elsewhere.
Session Four: Trade, Systemic and Other Issues
Kamal El-Keshen, Deputy-Director of the African Export-Import Bank (Egypt), said that Africa needed to create a stable macro-economic environment, including sound exchange rate policy; attract foreign direct investment that would help increase export production; alter the nature of exports; provide lucrative market contacts; and strengthen management skills. He said that the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) of the United States and the European Union's Cotonou Agreements were important for providing market access. However World Trade Organization (WTO) rules should be revisited to enable African countries to join with less stringent rules.
US-based State Street Corporation Chairman, Marshall Carter, identified three trends that are having implications for investment in developing nations: the shift to global capital markets finance and how developing economies can access the markets; the movement from “geopolitics” to “geo-economics;” and the advent of new technology and the Internet.
According to Mr. Carter, global capital markets have been displacing traditional banking as the key intermediators between providers and borrowers of capital; these markets provide the advantage of being able to minimize risk. He suggested that countries needed to act quickly to spur the growth of capital markets that can, in turn, finance “new economy” industries.
He suggested the following in order for developing countries to provide confidence to investors and the markets: increase financial disclosure under internationally-recognized accounting standards; adopt globally-acceptable legal frameworks; improve debt management practices, coherent bankruptcy codes and financial market supervision; more market-based, less relationship-oriented banking systems; sound macro-economic policies; and sustainable currency exchange regimes.
Thomas Niles, President of the United States Council for International Business, emphasized the importance of increases in exports and enhanced foreign direct investment in light of the fact that development assistance was unlikely to increase. He said that if there was a new trade round in 2001 at the WTO, developed countries should show tremendous leadership in dismantling agricultural protection in the US and in changing the Common Agricultural Policy in Europe.
UN Secretary-General’s Recommendations on Financing for Development
A comprehensive assessment of how the world's development financing needs can be met–prepared in consultation with the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and WTO–was launched on 30 January 2001 in New York. The Report of the Secretary-General to the Preparatory Committee for the High-Level International Intergovernmental Event on Financing for Development (A/AC.257/12) will form the basis for discussions of the PrepCom in its preparations for the 2002 global meeting.
Calling the report a starting point for dialogue and negotiations, UN Under-Secretary General Nitin Desai said that “this document is at the leading edge of a breakthrough process, in which the global community has decided to use the UN as a forum for discussing one of the most critical and hotly contested arenas of international relations–economic and financial affairs.”
The report recommends new norms for international cooperation and new mechanisms to foster implementation through greater public dialogue at national and international levels. It recommends new ways to handle the debt in crisis situations, to strengthen cooperation on tax matters, improve the effectiveness of aid, and design appropriate financial regulations for developed and developing countries.
The report contains 87 recommendations, which fall within the six components of the agenda mandated by the General Assembly for the Financing for Development process. They are domestic financial resources; international resources including foreign direct investment and other private flows; trade; international development cooperation; debt; and systemic issues.
Among other things, the report recommends the following.
-- “The international community should agree that special care be taken with respect to the opening of the capital account in developing countries and countries with economies in transition, recognizing the need for national policy autonomy, which in some circumstances may call for countries to apply disincentives or controls on short-term capital in times of surges in capital flows. However, capital controls cannot be used as a substitute for sound and appropriate macroeconomic policies.”
-- “Member States should consider the convening of ad hoc global hearings to discuss the issues surrounding international investment agreements. Such a dialogue should involve governments, the private sector and civil society.”
-- “Transnational corporations (TNCs) and other firms should accept and implement the principle of good corporate citizenship and should, inter alia, subscribe fully to the United Nations Global Compact. Global Compact participants should take specific measures that foster development–including innovative partnerships, linkages and collective action–and share their experience with all stakeholders.”
-- “All developed countries should immediately provide duty-free, quota-free market access to all non-arms exports of Least Developed Countries [LDCs] and Highly Indebted Poor Countries [HIPCs] and consider doing the same for other developing countries.”
-- “The international community should agree to explicitly address global public goods concerns and seek a shared understanding of the expanded nature of the present agenda for international cooperation. These tasks should be undertaken through existing fora, particularly in the UN, and by setting up new ones if so required.”
-- “Bilateral and multilateral creditors should pursue debt relief vigorously and expeditiously, including steps to provide significant and immediate debt relief to the poorest countries. Steps should also be considered to provide in exceptional situations and where appropriate, for a moratorium or even for debt cancellations. Similarly, there should be continued flexibility in addressing the debt problems of low-income countries and for additional proposals to be formulated, where needed, to complement the HIPC initiative.”
-- “A careful, in-depth study should be undertaken, in cooperation with the IMF and other relevant international financial institutions, of potential means for enhancing tax-related international cooperation including mandating a specific negotiating process on international agreements on this subject and the possibility of establishing an international organization or forum for cooperation on tax matters.”
The report also contains recommendations to examine: taxation systems to cover socially and environmentally undesirable activities; financial services for small savers and borrowers; pension funds; the development impact of investment flows; structural adjustment programmes; and strengthening the role of the UN in the management of global economic integration.
High-Level Panel
On 15 December 2000, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Ernesto Zedillo, former President of Mexico, to head a panel that will advise the Secretary-General on measures he can recommend to fulfil the finance needs of the world's developing countries. The High-Level Panel will recommend to the Secretary-General achievable actions that can be carried out by governments, business, civil society and international institutions in the areas of trade, aid, debt relief, investment, domestic resource mobilization and global decision making on financial matters, and on new ways to mobilize funds for development. The Panel is expected to complete its recommendations by late April or early May 2001.
Contact: Federica Pietracci, FFD Secretariat, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Room DC2-2336, United Nations, New York NY 10017, United States, telephone +1-212/963 8497, fax +1-212/963 0443, e-mail <pietracci@un.org>, website (www.un.org/esa/ffd). The Report of the Secretary-General can be found at the above website. For a hard copy of the report or a compilation of the recommendations, contact NGLS in New York.
ILO EMPLOYMENT REPORT 2001: DIGITAL DIVIDE LOOMS LARGE
Despite improvements in labour market performance in industrialized countries and the growing potential of information technology to create jobs and spur development, the global employment picture remains “deeply flawed” for workers in many parts of the world, according to the World Employment Report 2001 of the International Labour Office (ILO).
The report–whose theme is Life at Work in the Information Economy–finds that despite the communications revolution taking place in the world, increasing numbers of workers are unable to find jobs or gain access to the emerging technological resources needed to ensure productivity in an increasingly digitalized global economy. Unless problems of the “digital divide” are addressed urgently, the employment aspirations and productivity potential of millions of workers in scores of developing countries cannot be realized. Access to the technologies and ensuring that workers possess the education and skills to use them are the fundamental policies that developing countries need to consider, the report notes.
“The ICT [information and communication technologies] revolution offers genuine potential, but also raises the risk that a significant portion of the world will lose out,” said Juan Somavia, Director-General of the ILO. “Let us strip out the hype. What is left? What's left is its effect on peoples' lives, wherever they live. We need to promote policies and develop institutions which will let everybody benefit. And it won't happen on its own.”
Key findings of the report include that as of 2001, as much as one-third of the world's workforce of three billion people are unemployed or underemployed. Of these, about 160 million people are “openly unemployed,” 20 million more than before the onset of the Asian financial crisis in 1997 and despite strong signs of economic recovery in most of Asia. And the global economy will at least have to maintain its current pace of expansion in order to generate the 500 million new jobs needed during the next decade just to accommodate new entrants to the labour force, and reduce the current number of unemployed.
Throughout the world, the major turnaround in employment fortunes has only been in countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), where overall unemployment has declined sharply from the double-digit figures of the mid-1990s and where long-term unemployment has dipped in recent years.
Despite the phenomenal growth of ICT in the industrialized world and its increasing penetration into developing countries, “vast swathes” of the globe remain “technologically disconnected” from the benefits of the electronic marvels that are revolutionizing life, work and communications in the digital era. The report finds that nearly 90% of all Internet users are in industrialized countries, with the United States and Canada alone accounting for 57% of the total. In contrast, Internet users in Africa and the Middle East together account for only 1% per cent of global Internet users. Where ICT is most in use, says the ILO, changes in economic relations and behaviours are occurring.
“Changes in how the economy works will transform the world of work,” Mr. Somavia noted. “The creation and loss of jobs, the content and quality of work, the location of work...all are affected by the emerging era of digital globalization.”
The report highlights “the very real constraints facing developing countries in their capacity to join the communications revolution” and the potentially major repercussions it risks provoking in world labour markets. “Only some countries in east Asia,” it adds, “appear to be keeping up with the developed countries in the diffusion of technological progress.”
Those countries and regions that fail to make the “technological leap” risk not only missing out on the large and growing trade in information and communications technology products, but will be unable to profit from the economic efficiency and productivity gains that derive from these industries, the report says.
Another finding of the report is that ICT also provides an “enabling potential” to improve women's lives. But there is a “digital gender gap” within countries, as women often find themselves occupying lower-level ICT jobs while men rise to higher-paying, more responsible positions. The most striking digital gender divide relates to Internet use, with women in the minority of users in both developed and developing countries. For example only 38% of Internet users in Latin America are women, while in the European Union the figure is 25%, in Russia 19%, in Japan 18% and in the Middle East it is just 4%. Most Internet users are male, college-educated and earn higher-than-average incomes, the report says. Only where Internet access is well developed, for example in Scandinavia and the US, has the gender gap in use of the Internet closed.
The report says ICT can have a far-reaching impact on the quality of life of workers in poorer countries, if the right policies and institutions are in place and serve as important spurs to development and job growth. In some cases, the high mobility of ICT capital and its inherently knowledge-based nature may allow lower income countries to “leapfrog” stages in traditional economic development via investments in human resources.
For this to occur, three needs are most important: a coherent national strategy toward ICT, the existence of an affordable telecom infrastructure, and the availability of an educated workforce. The report notes that the key to better global employment rests with the possibility for continued growth in industrialized countries and developments in a few large developing ones. Among the uncertainties clouding the labour-market outlook, the report cites “the trajectory of the US economy (toward a hard or soft landing), the possibility of Europe taking over as the global economy's dynamo, the sustainability of Russia's upturn and India's ability to maintain its high economic growth rate.”
In spite of the difficulties, the report maintains that “overall recent developments present a favourable set of prospects for the world economy.” However, achieving decent work for the world's unemployed will require much greater attention to “core labour market issues, including investments in human capital.”
Contact: Bureau of Public Information, 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).
UNEP MEETING ON THE GLOBAL COMPACT IN PRACTICE
On 3-4 February 2001, immediately preceding its Governing Council, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) hosted a senior-level workshop at its headquarters in Nairobi (Kenya) on The Global Compact in Practice. Go Between summarizes the discussions.
The Global Compact, launched officially in July 2000 by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, is an initiative to promote corporate responsibility and citizenship involving representatives of industry, labour and civil society. Participating companies commit to respect a set of nine principles drawn from official government-agreed UN texts on human rights, labour rights and the environment (see Go Between 76).
Around 70 participants were present at the UNEP workshop, which was chaired by John Elkington of the UK-based NGO, Sustainability. Among NGOs represented were Greenpeace, World Wildlife Fund (WWF) of the United States, Environment Liaison Centre International (ELCI), Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economics (CERES) of the United States, Friends of the Earth International (FOE-I), World Vision, International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), Mining Watch-Canada, and a number of African development and environment NGOs.
The corporations present included DuPont, Rio Tinto Zinc and Unilever, among others. There were several government representatives and the UN system was represented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the International Labour Office (ILO).
In his opening intervention, Georg Kell, Senior Officer of the UN Secretary-General's Office, spoke of plans for the development of the Global Compact. These include:
-- getting 1,000 additional companies to sign on by the end of 2002;
-- building an issue dialogue (the first will focus on “business in zones of conflict” and will take place over the next year);
-- developing a learning bank of best practices; and
-- developing initiatives and development projects that reflect the nine principles of the Global Compact.
Mr. Kell noted that the Global Compact was a learning model and not a compliance model. He also stressed that the initiative was not conceived to mobilize corporate finances for the UN, and it would not accept any corporate funding.
The representative of WWF said he was involved in the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and wondered whether the MSC and the Global Compact could live up to their rhetoric. So far, the MSC had led to only three fishing operations that were certified (in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom). WWF remained cautiously optimistic that voluntary initiatives can be made to work.
Natural Resource-Canada, a government agency, said there was a need to reassess governance of the global mining/mineral/metals industry. The role of government was to establish a positive climate for dialogue between conflicting parties, act as a catalyst, facilitator and provider of information, and to enact appropriate legislation. In the process for the ten-year review of the 1992 Earth Summit (Rio+10), Canada will propose the creation of a framework convention for the mining of minerals and metals.
A representative of the United Nations Development Programme described how the agency was creating opportunities for dialogue at the national level involving international corporations, national enterprises, governments and civil society. UNDP wished to promote partnership projects involving these different actors. In the following week, UNDP in India would hold a partnership forum on the role of business in combating HIV/AIDS and other issues. A UNDP initiative was also being launched in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria, and in China UNDP was bringing together business and disabled peoples' associations. A representative of the International Labour Office spoke of a number of meetings the ILO was organizing in Africa with unions and employers on the Global Compact.
Representatives of the NGO Task Force on Business and Industry (created at the Sixth Session of the Commission on Sustainable Development and involving over 70 groups and networks) and of World Vision provided a broad overview of the limits of voluntary initiatives. They argued that corporate responsibility belonged to the realm of the private sector, while corporate accountability lay in the public realm. A representative of FOE-I addressed the links between environmental sustainability and the eradication of poverty, the cancellation of debt and the reduction of consumption in the North. He urged the United Nations to reestablish an observatory on transnational corporations. Representatives of the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economics and Mining Watch-Canada felt that in light of the large number of initiatives in this area, the Global Compact risked dispersing efforts still further. It was also noted, on the other hand, that the Global Compact could become an over-arching forum for taking stock of a broad range of voluntary initiatives.
Business representatives largely supported the potential of the Global Compact as an initiative for making progress, although it was also said that there was an over-proliferation of initiatives and that the NGO critics of business were so numerous and diverse they lacked coherence.
The session on the first afternoon focused on the mining industry and the Global Compact, with a case study of the January 2000 Baia Mare mining catastrophe in Romania, which spilled cyanide into river systems.
Discussions on the final morning addressed the themes of lessons learned and how to implement effectively the Global Compact.
Contact: Jacqueline Aloisi de Larderel, Director, Division of Technology, Industry and Economics, UNEP, 39-43 quai Andre Citroen, F-75739 Paris Cedex 15 , France, telephone +33-1/44 37 14 50, fax +33-1/44 37 14 74, e-mail <unep.tie@unep.fr>, website (www.uneptie.org).
Georg Kell, Senior Officer, Executive Office of the Secretary-General, Room
S-3855C, United Nations, New York NY 10017, United States, telephone
+1-212/963 1490, fax +1-212/963 2155, e-mail <kell@un.org>, website (www.unglobalcompact.org).
INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT SIXTH PREPCOM
The Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) for the International Criminal Court (ICC) held its sixth session from 27 November to 8 December 2000 at UN headquarters in New York to work on practical arrangements for the Court. Go Between summarizes the discussions and gives an update on signatures to the treaty.
Chaired by Philippe Kirsch (Canada), the PrepCom focused on drafting three agreements regarding: financial rules and regulations of the Court, including how the Court's start-up costs will be funded; a relationship agreement between the Court and the United Nations, including whether and how information will be shared between UN peacekeepers and the ICC; and the privileges and immunities of the Court.
A Working Group on the Crime of Aggression focused primarily on the definition of such a crime, reconciling views as to the current content of customary international law relating to international criminal law, and the relevance of instruments developed subsequent to the Nuremberg Charter. (The Charter established the constitution, jurisdiction and functions of the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal of 1945-1946). Views differed as to whether a distinction needed to be made between violation of the prohibition of the use of force of the UN Charter and “acts” of aggression, “wars” of aggression, and the “crime” of aggression. Another issue was whether the definition would need to contain a “threshold” above which the future ICC’s jurisdiction would come into effect, and if so what it should be. There were also divided views concerning the legality of the use of force, especially regarding humanitarian intervention.
There was consensus in the Working Group that any definition of the crime of aggression and the condition for exercise of the Court’s jurisdiction should be based squarely on existing international customary law. Delegations differed on the content of that law, however. While they agreed that the PrepCom could venture into progressive development of international law, they felt it could not radically depart from existing customary law. The chair of the Working Group, Tuvako Manongi (Tanzania), pointed out that unless a consensus-based definition was attained there was a risk of turning the Court into a political forum for discussion of the legality of the use of force in general, in a way that could prove fatal to the Court.
That concern was also reflected in discussions on conditions for exercise of the Court’s jurisdiction, particularly regarding the ICC and the Security Council’s relationship and nature of the Council’s competence to determine the existence of an act of aggression. For some delegations, such determination was entirely within the exclusive competence of the Council, and any other interpretation would be inconsistent with the UN Charter and would amount to amending the Charter through the Court’s statute. Other delegations, however, favoured a more liberal reading of Article 39 of the UN Charter, whereby the issue was “primarily” but not “exclusively” the province of the Security Council. They felt that in situations where the Council for any reason did not act, the Court or other UN organs such as the General Assembly or the International Court of Justice could step in to make such determination.
As the PrepCom wound up its work many countries rushed to meet the deadline for signature of the treaty, which remained open until 31 December 2000. These included Germany, United Arab Emirates, Syria, Peru, Israel and Iran. On 31 December 2000 the United States, one of seven countries that voted against establishment of the ICC, signed the Rome Statute. US President Bill Clinton said, “We do so to reaffirm our strong support for international accountability. We do so as well because we wish to remain engaged in making the ICC an instrument of impartial and effective justice.” Mr. Clinton added, however, that his administration still had some “concerns about significant flaws in the treaty,” in particular that the Court could claim jurisdiction over citizens from countries that do not ratify the treaty, which may include the US. These were the same concerns expressed by US conservatives and the Pentagon in their initial objections to the US signing the treaty. Human rights groups and supporters of the ICC–including many US allies–insist, however, that its rules of operation prevent political prosecutions.
Richard Dicker, Director of International Justice Programs at Human Rights Watch, said that “the court’s statute, the rules of procedure and evidence and the elements of crimes more than adequately address the risk of an unjustified prosecution of a United States national. An outright exemption would codify a two-tier system of justice: one for the United States and another for the rest of the world.” Human rights organizations lauded Mr. Clinton’s decision to sign. “With this decision, the United States joins the overwhelming majority of the world’s nations and almost all of America’s closest political and military allies in expressing support for the establishment of the new permanent court,” said William Pace, Convenor of the Coalition for an International Criminal Court, comprising more than 1,000 NGOs. Mr. Dicker said that “by signing this treaty President Clinton has taken a historic step for global justice. It strengthens US credibility in the effort to end impunity for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.”
US Senator Jesse Helms, an active opponent of the Court and chair of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, denounced the action. “This decision will not stand. I will make reversing this decision and protecting America’s fighting men and women from the jurisdiction of this international kangaroo court one of my highest priorities in Congress,” he said in an interview with the Washington Post. The incoming Bush administration said in January it has no plans to send the Statute to the US Senate for ratification.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan issued a statement praising Mr. Clinton’s action, saying he was “well aware of the difficulties” the US President faced and congratulated him “on his courage and far-sightedness in overcoming them.” Mr. Annan said that the Court “represents no threat to states with an organized criminal justice system. On the contrary, it is designed only to protect those most vulnerable people whose own government, if they have one, is unable or unwilling to prosecute those who violate their own fundamental human rights.”
The ICC is to have jurisdiction over crimes committed by individuals and will become operational once the treaty establishing it receives 60 ratifications. At present, 139 nations have signed and 27 have ratified the treaty.
Contact: Coalition for an International Criminal Court, 777 UN Plaza, New York NY 10017, United States, telephone +1-212/687 2176, e-mail <cicc@iccnow.org>, website (www.iccnow.org).
PUBLICATIONS AND ONLINE
The Employment Impact of Mergers and Acquisitions in the Banking and Financial Services Sector
According to this report, the decade-long wave of mergers and acquisitions that is reshaping the world’s banking and financial service sectors is speeding up aggregate employment declines in an industry traditionally characterized by stable and even lifetime employment. In spite of the vast scale of mergers and acquisitions during the last decade, the report notes that two-thirds fail to achieve their objectives, despite the often massive job losses and organizational restructuring entailed. The benefits of greater size and efficiency often risk being “nullified by increased complexity and losses related to top-heavy organizations, while the difficulties of adequately blending cultural and other human factors in the integration of combined enterprises are often underestimated.”
Available from: Bureau of Publications, ILO, 4 route des Morillons, CH-1211 Geneva 22, Switzerland, fax +41-22/799 6938, e-mail <pubvente@ilo.org>, website (www.ilo.org).
Operational Guide: Rehabilitation and Social Sustainability
This guide, published in three volumes by the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), is aimed at project managers overseeing rehabilitation and reconstruction in countries recovering from war and natural disasters. Developed in consultation with specialized agencies of the UN, it draws from a decade of experience in managing rehabilitation and development programmes in over 20 countries.
Available from: UNOPS, 11-13 chemin des Anemones, CH-1219 Chatelaine (Geneva), Switzerland, fax +41-22/917 8062, e-mail <perip@unops.org>, website (www.unops.org).
Ageing in a Gendered World: Women’s Issues and Identities
This publication highlights the problems women face as they grow older. The International Training and Research Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW) estimates that about 50% of people over 60, and 65% of those over 80, are women. The publication presents gender-focused cross-cultural experiences and highlights policy implications of the disadvantages faced by women in old age.
Available from: INSTRAW, EPS-A314, Box 52-4121, Miami FL 33152, United States, fax +1-809/685 2117, e-mail <instraw.hq.sd@codetel.net.do>, website (www.un.org/instraw).
Zed Books Publications
Running Guns: The Global Black Market in Small Arms
This book aims to contribute to understanding of the illicit arms trade–the methods, actors and its impact–to strengthen states’ resolve and promote sound international policy making in this area. It also argues that the term “illicit arms trade” should be broadened to include weapon transfers that imperil people’s lives through breaches of international humanitarian law or human rights law.
Working With Conflict: Skills and Strategies for Action
This book, for people working in areas affected by conflict and violence, aims to provide a range of practical tools for tackling conflict such as visual aids and techniques, and a list of relevant resources.
A People Betrayed: The Role of the West in Rwanda’s Genocide
This book, a narrative of how the 1994 genocide in Rwanda unfolded, argues that the international community could have prevented it. The book draws on in-depth interviews to recount the unrecognized heroism of those who stayed on during the killing: volunteer UN peacekeepers, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and medical teams from Medecins Sans Frontieres. The book says that only by understanding how and why the genocide happened “can there ever be any hope that the new century will break with the dismal record of the last.”
Taming Global Financial Flows: A Citizen’s Guide
This book analyzes the constantly changing and complex world of global financial flows. It calls for radical reforms in a system that it says is now more susceptible to the whims of the market than the economic policies of governments. The book suggests guiding principles to create a more stable international financial architecture and recommends a series of concrete measures.
Zed Books is offering a special discount for Go Between readers on all four books reviewed above. For details contact Zed Books, identifying yourself as a Go Between reader.
Available from: Zed Books, 7 Cynthia Street, London N1 9JF, United Kingdom, fax +44-20/7833 3960, e-mail <sales@zedbooks.demon.co.uk>, website (www.zedbooks.demon.co.uk).
Operational Security Management in Violent Environments
This book, part of the Good Practice Review series of the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), provides a step-by-step approach to security management including content analysis, threat and risk assessment, security strategy choice, and security planning. It reviews major types of threats and measures to prevent them. The book also explores a number of cross-cutting themes relevant to risk control.
Available from: ODI, Costain House, 111 Westminister Bridge Road, London SE1 7JD, United Kingdom, fax +44-20/7922 0399, e-mail <hpn@odi.org.uk>, website (www.odihpn.org.uk).
Earthscan Publications
The Meat Business: Devouring a Hungry Planet
This book says there is an alternative to intensive farming of animals and genetic engineering in order to feed the world. It argues that the production of meat subjects animals to often appalling treatment and leads to both unfair food distribution and a poor diet. The book discusses, among other things, genetic engineering, trade rules, and the power of multinational companies.
International Perspectives on Voluntary Action: Reshaping the Third Sector
This book, rather than considering non-governmental organizations separately from voluntary agencies, explores the similarities, differences and growing connections between them in both Northern and Southern contexts. It considers the differences in scale and priorities in various settings; the common challenges of accountability, legitimacy, effectiveness and governance; and new models of learning and communication.
Available from: Earthscan Publications, 120 Pentonville Road, London N1 9JN, United Kingdom, fax +44-171/278 1142, e-mail <earthinfo@earthscan.co.uk>, website (www.earthscan.co.uk).
The Cancer Stage of Capitalism
This book investigates what it describes as the current state of “hypercapitalism” the same way a pathologist would study a biological cancer–by tracking the “delinked circuits” of the global system’s monetized growth as a “carcinogenic disorder.” It also suggests ways to overcome the crisis.
Available from: Pluto Press, 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA, United Kingdom, fax +44-20/8348 9133, e-mail <pluto@plutobks.demon.co.uk>, website (www.leevalley.co.uk/plutopress).
Annuaire Suisse-Tiers Monde 2000
This yearbook provides information and analysis on Switzerland’s bilateral and multilateral relations with developing countries and countries with economies in transition. It discusses the country’s position on issues including international financial institutions and trade, environment and development, and development cooperation. This edition has a special section entitled Towards a More Coherent Swiss Policy for Developing Countries. The yearbook is only available in French and German.
Available from: Institut Universitaire d’Etudes du Developpement, 24 rue Rothschild, Case postale 136, CH-1211 Geneva 21, Switzerland, fax +41-22/906 5953, e-mail <publications@iued.unige.ch>, website (www.unige.ch/iued).
International Experts Meeting on Sustainability Assessment of Trade Liberalization
This report, of a meeting held in Quito (Ecuador) from 6-8 March 2000, summarizes discussions about the purpose, characteristics, policy relevance and effectiveness of sustainability assessments and practicable steps to facilitate their application.
Available from: Mireille Perrin, Officer, Trade and Investment Unit, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) International, Avenue Mont Blanc, CH-1196 Gland, Switzerland, fax +41-22/364 0640, e-mail <mperrin@wwfnet.org>.
Small Arms in Southern Africa: Reflections on the Extent of the Problem and Its Management Potential
This publication calls for an integrated and comprehensive response to meet the challenges of weapons proliferation and illicit trafficking in Southern Africa.
Available from: Institute for Security Studies, PO Box 1787, Brooklyn Square 0075, Pretoria, South Africa, fax +27-21/460 0998, e-mail <iss@iss.co.za>, website (www.iss.co.za).
OzonAction’s Electronic Discussions
The OzonAction Programme of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has begun two electronic discussion forums. The Methyl Bromide Alternatives Discussion focuses on phase-out of methyl bromide under the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. In addition to participating in the discussion, those interested can receive the Regular Update on Methyl Bromide Alternatives (RUMBA) via the forum. The Climate and Ozone Discussion Forum focuses on issues related to coordinated implementation of the Montreal and Kyoto climate change protocols. The Climate and Ozone Update (CLIO3) is also available through the forum.
To join the forums, go to website (www.uneptie.org/ozat/forum).
New UNEP Website
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has launched a new website that allows users to access maps, satellite pictures, environmental legislation and impact assessments, among other things. It also provides relevant environmental management solutions and applications by consolidating information from several sources. The website was developed with government, NGO, academic and industry partners.
Website (www.unep.net).
New Websites from the Dag Hammarskjold Library
UN Bibliographic Information System Online
The Dag Hammarskjold Library at the UN in New York has launched the UN Bibliographic Information System (UNBISnet) on the web. UNBISnet is the index to UN documentation published since 1979 or earlier for selected major documents, and contains a catalogue of the library’s collections. Users can also view detailed voting records of resolutions adopted by the General Assembly from 1983 and the Security Council from 1946.
Website (unbisnet.un.org) or (www.un.org/Depts/dhl).
Specialized Website for Small and Field Libraries
The Dag Hammarskjold Library has launched a website aimed at providing information to small UN and field libraries. The website is designed to assist librarians in delivering high-quality service to their users; prevent unnecessary duplication of work; and encourage the exchange of professional ideas on training, standards and best practices. The site contains databases and manuals, guidelines for library operations and policies, and a discussion forum.
Website (www.un.org/Depts/dhl/sflib/index.htm).
Directory of Forest-Related Institutions
This directory, prepared by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on behalf of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Forests, is now available on the Internet. It lists forest-related international organizations, and global and regional conventions and their contact details, mandates, forestry programmes and activities.
The directory is available on the United Nations website at (www.un.org/esa/sustdev/forest/iff_directory.htm).
Website on Wetlands
The secretariat of the 1971 Convention on Wetlands (Ramsar Bureau) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s Man and the Biosphere programme (MAB) have launched a website on wetlands. It contains details on worldwide wetland sites that are listed under the convention and the MAB programme.
Website (www.unesco.org/mab/ramsarmab.htm).
UN Radio Online
United Nations Radio programmes can now be listened to online with Real Player. The programmes feature interviews with experts in the field, at UN agencies, and in peacekeeping missions and cover issues such as gender, environment, development and health. The programmes are produced weekly in English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Russian and Chinese.
Website (www.un.org/av/radio).
Medinfo2001 Website
This is the website for a triennial world health informatics event, Medinfo2001, to be held in London from 2-5 September. The site has details on how to submit contributions for the scientific programme and get involved in a workshop or tutorial. It also provides details on a parallel Global Village and how to participate.
The website can be accessed at (www.medinfo2001.org).
UN DAYS AND WEEKS
-- International Mother Tongue Day, 21 February
-- United Nations Day for Women’s Rights and International Peace, 8 March
-- International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, 21 March
-- World Poetry Day, 21 March
-- Week of Solidarity with the Peoples Struggling Against Racism and Racial Discrimination, week of 21 March
-- World Day for Water, 22 March
-- World Meteorological Day, 23 March
-- World Health Day, 7 April
-- World Book and Copyright Day, 23 April
-- World Press Freedom Day, 3 May
-- International Day of Families, 15 May
-- World Telecommunications Day, 17 May
-- International Day for Biological Diversity, 22 May
-- Week of Solidarity with the Peoples of Non-Self-Governing Territories, week of 25 May
-- World No-Tobacco Day, 31 May
-- International Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression, 4 June
-- World Environment Day, 5 June
-- World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought, 17 June
-- World Refugee Day, 20 June
-- International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, 26 June
-- International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, 26 June
-- International Day of Cooperatives, first Saturday of July
-- World Population Day, 11 July
-- International Day of the World’s Indigenous People, 9 August
-- International Youth Day, 12 August
-- International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and Its Abolition, 23 August
-- International Literacy Day, 8 September
-- International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer, 16 September
-- World Maritime Day, last week of September
-- International Day of Peace, September, opening day of General Assembly
-- International Day of Older Persons, 1 October
-- World Space Week, 4-10 October
-- World Teachers’ Day, 5 October
-- World Habitat Day, first Monday of October
-- World Post Day, 9 October
-- World Mental Health Day, 10 October
-- International Day for Natural Disaster Reduction, second Wednesday of October
-- World Food Day, 16 October
-- International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, 17 October
-- United Nations Day, 24 October
-- World Development Information Day, 24 October
-- Disarmament Week, 24-30 October
-- International Day for Tolerance, 16 November
-- Africa Industrialization Day, 20 November
-- Universal Children’s Day, 20 November
-- World Television Day, 21 November
-- International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, 25 November
-- International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, 29 November
-- World AIDS Day, 1 December
-- International Day for the Abolition of Slavery, 2 December
-- International Day of Disabled Persons, 3 December
-- International Volunteer Day for Economic and Social Development, 5 December
-- Civil Aviation Day, 7 December
-- Human Rights Day, 10 December
-- International Migrants Day, 18 December
UN YEARS AND DECADES
-- United Nations Year of Dialogue Among Civilizations, 2001
-- International Year of Mobilization Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, 2001
-- International Year of Volunteers, 2001
-- International Year of Ecotourism, 2002
-- International Year of Mountains, 2002
-- International Year of Freshwater, 2003
-- International Year of Microcredit, 2005
-- Asian and Pacific Decade of Disabled Persons, 1993-2002
-- Second Industrial Development Decade for Africa, 1993-2002
-- Third Decade to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination,
1993-2003
-- International Decade of the World’s Indigenous People, 1994-2004
-- United Nations Decade for Human Rights Education, 1995-2004
-- United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty, 1997-2006
-- International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World, 2001-2010
-- International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism, 2001-2010
GUEST EDITORIAL
Carol Bellamy
Executive Director, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)
Say Yes for Children
The 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child--the most powerful and comprehensive legal framework for protecting the human rights of children--was an extraordinary feat of advocacy, negotiation and consensus. A global child rights movement that spanned the 20th century led to a near-universal acceptance of what almost all observers agree is a truly remarkable treaty. While many people and organizations were involved in this phenomenal accomplishment, the role of civil society, including non-governmental organizations, was crucial.
Today some children around the world have begun to reap some of the benefit from the Convention, but not all children. Some rights are protected, but not all rights. This is why actions are needed--concrete, specific and targeted--to ensure that all children without exception enjoy their birthright to dignity, security and self-fulfilment.
Actions are needed today. Taken together, they will add up to a major social transformation as they move the Convention on the Rights of the Child, from its almost reverential status as an inspirational touchstone, to be the catalytic centre of every life in every community in every nation.
-- In Bangladesh, UNICEF and two NGOs, Gono Shahjjo Shangstha and the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC), help former child workers from the streets enrol in special schools where they receive health care, skills training and a cash stipend to compensate for lost wages from their days as child labourers.
-- Community-based programmes in Jordan support parents by increasing their knowledge and skills in caring for their young children.
-- In Mexico, exercising democracy on election day was not for adults only. Four million children cast their votes on issues affecting their families, schools, communities and country in the first Consulta Infantil y Juvenil (Children's Consultation), a project supported by UNICEF, NGOs and the private sector.
-- Over 61,000 Namibian youth have participated in an anti-AIDS peer education project entitled My Future is My Choice. Managed and supervised by young people with help from community-based organizations and UNICEF, the project works with each participant passing on the life skills they learned in the programme to five of their friends.
Projects such as these will be even more powerful if they are linked together in a network of partnerships and alliances, a new Global Movement for Children intent on taking advantage of every possibility and every modern advance for improving the lives of children. Flush with the potential of the Convention, such a movement has already begun with BRAC, International Save the Children Alliance, Netaid, Plan International, UNICEF and World Vision International in the first wave and other NGOs soon to sign on. This time, children and young people are part of the coalition.
NGOs have taken root and flourished in the space between public and private spheres. In a time when information, capital and people flow across boundaries and continents with greater speed than ever before, the agility with which NGOs react and respond is one of their greatest advantages. They have earned world-wide attention for taking on the environment, landmines and human rights--global issues that are so all-encompassing they are everybody's problem, but nobody's responsibility.
The goals of NGOs may be as varied as the people who lead them and the causes that inspire them but all their issues--economic, social, political or moral--are linked to the well-being of children. Modern plagues such as poverty, discrimination and HIV/AIDS take root during childhood and we will end them only when children have the best possible start in life, access to a quality education and the opportunities to participate in their communities. Though many still fail to see it, the well-being of the world's children is the most global issue of them all.
As part of this new Global Movement for Children, Nelson Mandela and Graça Machel, two tireless advocates for human rights and advocates for children, are reaching out through a Global Leadership Initiative to individuals in all sectors of society seeking their commitments to help realize the rights of children.
The Global Movement for Children also includes the Say Yes for Children campaign in which adults, young people and children around the world are voicing their opinions--over the Internet or through word-of-mouth activism--on what needs be done to make the world a better place for children and all of us. The campaign is organized around ten imperative actions: leave no child out; put children first; care for every child; fight HIV/AIDS; stop harming and exploiting children; listen to children; educate every child; protect children from war; protect the earth for children; and fight poverty--invest in children.
The results of the campaign will be presented in September 2001 at the United Nations Special Session on Children, where those gathered will take a critical look at what the world promised ten years ago at the 1990 World Summit for Children, and how the Convention on the Rights of the Child will guide our plans for the future.
We intend the Global Movement for Children to be a driving force for child rights long after the Special Session ends, as it calls on everyone to do as much as possible in their own time and their own way for children. As with the earlier movement for children, I expect that civil society, including NGOs, will once again be essential partners for success.