WUNRN
Report Overview:
The
2008 Social Watch Report refers
to "the pervasiveness of extreme poverty and gender inequity"...
“RIGHTS IS
THE ANSWER”:
An approach
based on human rights is the only way to overcome the current crisis, argues a
worldwide coalition of civil society organizations
DOHA, QATAR (December 1): The unusual combination of financial crisis,
food crisis, energy and climate crisis requires a new approach based on human
rights, argues the international Social Watch coalition in its 2008 report,
launched today here during the United Nations Conference on Financing for
Development. Next December 10, as the report remembers the 60th
Anniversary of Universal Declaration of Human Rights will be commemorated and
the title of the Social Watch Report 2008
is, precisely, “Rights is the Answer”.
The report
documents how governments are falling short in their commitment to eradicate
poverty and achieve gender equity through the testimony of civil society groups
in 59 countries. Its main message is that the multiple crises currently
affecting the world require a “rights-based approach” and provides examples on
how the current financial architecture has ignored or openly violated those
rights and triggered spiralling inequity all around the world.
This annual report is published since 1996 by Social Watch, an
international NGO watchdog network monitoring government compliance with their
international commitments.
The growing income inequalities both within and between countries
spurred by capital flight, tax evasion, and privatization have slowed down the
progress on key social indicators to a near halt over the last two decades.
According to the Social Watch calculations, universal compliance with the
Millennium Development Goals is now an impossible feat, if the world
governments maintain a “business as usual” attitude.
The grassroots activists and civil society analysts from around the
world that contributed to the 2008 Social
Watch Report show how the pervasiveness of extreme poverty and gender
inequity is intimately linked to the immediate effects of the current triple
crisis and to longer term structural issues ingrained in the global financial
architecture. The Report documents the
widespread, haphazard implementation of policies promoting economic
liberalization and deregulation having provoked the curtailment of peoples´
economic and social rights around the globe. That liberalization and
deregulation now curtail the ability of many governments to comply with their
international commitments to end poverty and achieve gender equality.
In the 2008 Social Watch Report,
Nicholas Shaxson and John Christensen of the Tax Justice Network demonstrate
how weak tax reporting policies allow for illicit financial flows estimated by
the World Bank in excess of US$ 1 trillion per year, which in turn reduces the
quantity of funds available for developed nations to invest in development aid
programs, as well as the amount of financial resources in the public coffers of
developing countries. For example, the
El Salvador Social Watch coalition estimates that tax evasion by large corporations
in their country totalled US$ 2.6 billion in
In another thematic article from the 2008
Social Watch Report, Mirjam van Reisen and Simon Stocker of Eurostep
document how the promises made by the European Commission (EC) to focus its development
aid strategies on promoting poverty eradication have not been fulfilled in
reality, due in large part to Europe´s overriding interest in liberalizing
trade flows. EC aid to developing
countries is now largely channelled towards improving infrastructure and
facilitating trade, instead of contributing towards the realization of basic
social rights such as access to health care and education.
Kinda Mohamadieh of the Arab NGO Network for Development provides a
developing country perspective in her thematic report on social and economic
rights in the Arab region, proving how in recent years, economic liberalization
has actually thwarted attempts to strengthen democracy in the region. “The regimes in power have failed to address
the pressing socio-economic problems that the region faces and the economic
reforms implemented mainly respond to requirements by major international
institutions and developed partner countries that not necessarily serve the
local needs and priorities”, states Mohamadieh.
These reforms are only perpetuating the social and political
marginalization of the vast majority of the Arab population, by excluding the
citizenry from participation in decision making processes and by aggravating
ills such as unemployment and the inadequate provision of social support
programs.
Confronted by the numerous structural and circumstantial obstacles
created by the fatal flaws in the global financial architecture that block the
full realization of the human rights of all the world´s citizens, Social Watch
calls for the convening by the United Nations of a comprehensive, inclusive
process to review and reconstruct the international financial and monetary
institution. As Roberto Bissio urges,
“In the transition from the current system – which has fostered instability and
inequality – towards a just, sustainable, and accountable one, human rights
must be the starting point and not some distant goal in the future.”
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