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STATEMENT ON THE COPENHAGEN
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STATEMENT ON THE COPENHAGENALTERNATIVE DECLARATIONThis document represents the ongoing work done over the past 20 to 25 years by people's organizations and NGOs in the South and in the North. It represents the views and perspectives of those who believe that the problems of poverty, unemployment, and social disintegration cannot be solved without a change in the economic, political and social structures which serve to perpetuate this situation. We believe that this summit is a historic event because for the first time a world conference is looking at issues which have caused misery and pain for the majority of the world's people. We are referring to the problems of debt, structural adjustment policies, and Bretton Woods Institutions. While we are happy that these issues are finally on the table, as NGOs and representatives of people's movements we have a responsibility to be critical and forward-looking. The official documents have very good humanitarian goals with ambitious targets but the policy recommendations do not decisively address the structural roots of the social development crisis. We recognize that the existing world order has opened the most dangerous chasm in human history between an affluent overconsuming minority and impoverished majority of humankind in the South and also increasingly in the North. It requires a tremendous amount of political will on the part of governments, intergovernmental organizations and civil society to effectively confront this situation. It is in this light that some NGOs present here in Copenhagen put together this Copenhagen Alternative Declaration. This is not the only document from NGOs. In fact, this document builds upon the earlier ones made by the different NGOs and caucuses. It does not pretend to represent a consensus because such is difficult to achieve especially when we need to analyse and understand the whole global system. There will be a divergence of views between those who want to address the structural roots oof the crisis and those who will opt to mitigate the negative impacts of SAPs, trade liberalization, and debt. Nevertheless, we believe that all of these efforts are complementary and we need to build strong alliances with NGOs, social movements, governments both from the North and South, and the United Nations to effectively address the serious world crisis. We look upon this document as a mobilizing tool to advance the development debate and to muster and consolidate efforts of social movements to bring about an equitable, just and humane world. We cannot remain blind to the fact that it is the dominant neo-liberal system which is causing poverty, unemployment, and social disintegration, and alternatives to this system have to be strengthened and evolved. These alternatives should be allowed to blossom and the marginalized peoples should play key roles in designing and implementing these. Underlying the political, social, economic and cultural structures is the structure of gender inequity which should be seriously addressed. No meaningful transformation will be achieved without a change in gender relations from the household level up to the international level. We do not have much time. We are bequeathing to our children to a world which we, ourselves, would not wish to live in. We are therefore renewing our commitment as NGOs, people's organizations and movements to continue doing our responsibility of empowering people's so they will become the centre of development. We find tremendous inspiration and hope in the fact that people's movements and the NGO community continue to thrive and strive even in the face of repression and difficulties. The desire to make this social summit relevant to the majority has made the NGO community play a very active role. We congratulate Ambassador Juan Somavia and the United Nations for making this social summit happen. We look forward to a meaningful partnership between the NGOs who signed and will sign the Copenhagen Alternative Declaration, and the United Nations. We will sustain our efforts to monitor how the commitments in the summit are going to be implemented, especially those in the areas of debt, structural adjustment policies and the reform of the Bretton Woods Institutions and the United Nations. We believe that this Copenhagen Alternative Declaration will help mobilize the political will to implement the commitments arrived at this social summit. Victoria Tauli-Corpuz Member of the Drafting Committee of the Copenhagen Declaration Cordillera Women's Education and Resource Centre 16 Loro St. Quizon SMB, Baguio City 2400 PhilippinesTel:+63-74/442 5347; Fax: +63-74/442 5205THE COPENHAGEN ALTERNATIVE DECLARATION This Declaration builds upon efforts meaning from the NGO Development Caucus during the Social Summit preparatory meetings, the Oslo Fjord Declaration, and other national and international citizen’s' initiatives. We, representatives of social movements, NGOs and citizens' groups participating in the NGO Forum during the World Summit for Social Development (WSSD), share a common Vision of a world which recognizes its essential oneness and interdependence while wholly embracing human diversity in all its racial, ethnic, cultural and religious manifestations, where justice and equity for all its inhabitants is the first priority in all endeavours and enterprises and in which the principles of democracy and popular participation are universally upheld so that the longdreamed creation of a peaceful, co-operative and sustainable civilization can at long last be made possible. In this context, we expected that the Social Summit would address the structural causes of poverty, unemployment and social disintegration, as well as environmental degradation, and would place people at the center of the development process. These include not only economic, political and social causes, but also the cultural structures of gender inequity. While some progress was achieved in placing critical issues on the table during the Summit negotiation process, we believe that the economic framework adopted in the draft documents is in basic contradiction with the objectives of equitable and sustainable social development. The over- reliance that the documents place on unaccountable “open, free-marked forces” as a basis for organizing national and international economies- aggravates, rather than alleviates, the current global social crises. This false premise threatens the realization of the stated goals of the Social Summit. The dominant neo-liberal system as a universal model for development has failed. The current debt burden of dozens of countries is unsustainable, as it is draining them or the resources they need to generate economic and social development. Structural adjustment programmes imposed by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have consistently undermined economic and social progress by suppressing wages, undermining the contributions and livelihoods of small producers, and placing social services, particularly health care and education, out of reach of de poor. In dismantling basic state services, these programmes have shifted an even greater burden onto women, who care for the nutrition, health, well-being and harmony of the family, as well as community relations. In promoting the rapid exportation of natural resources, deregulating the economy, and pushing increasing numbers of poor people onto marginal lands, adjustment has contributed to the process of ecological degradation. This system has also resulted in an even greater concentration of economic, political technological and institutional power and control over food and other critical resources in the hands of a relatively few transnational corporations and financial institutions. A system that places growth above all other goals, including human well-being, wrecks economies rather than regenerates them, exploiting women’s time labour and sexuality. It creates incentives for capital to externalize social and environmental costs. It generates jobless growth, derogates the rights of workers, and undermines the role of trade unions. In the process, the system places a disproportionate burden on women and jeopardizes their health and well- being and consequently that of those in their care. Finally, it leads to and unequal distribution in the use of resources between and within countries and generates social apartheid, encourages racism, civil strife and war, and undermines the rights of women and indigenous peoples. It is for these reasons that we also cannot accept the official documents’ endorsement of the new trade order as defined in the Final Act of the Uruguay Round and Articles of Agreement on the establishment of the World Trade Organization. The documents do not consider that trade liberalization through the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) and the WTO creates more losers than winners and that the negative impacts will be disastrous for poor countries, and poor and working people within all countries. The interests of local producers, in particular, are undermined in the areas of foreign investment, biodiversity and intellectual property rights. We reject the notion of reducing social policy in developing countries to a “social safety net”, presented as the “human face” of structural adjustment policies in the WSSD documents. This proposal is predicated on the withdrawal of the State from one of its fundamental responsibilities. The slashing of social expenditures in the North as a means of reducing the budget deficit has also undermined many of the achievements of the welfare state. Social development can only be achieved if all human rights -- civil, political, economic, social and cultural -- of all individuals and people are fulfilled. We believe that the Summit documents fail to recognize adequately the primacy of human rights as a prerequisite for a participatory and meaningful social development for all sectors of society, especially for children and such marginalized groups as people with disabilities, indigenous peoples, people in occupied territories, refugees and the displaced. It also fails to note how the undemocratic nature of structural adjustment programmes undermine the rights of citizens and often leads to their repression. In addition, efforts made at the Social Summit to reverse agreements reached in Vienna and Cairo in relation to women’s rights represent a future undermining of the possibilities for the kind of fundamental changes required for the creation of just societies. Finally, we note that militarization creates enormous waste of human, natural and financial resources. It causes future inequality and pauperization, political and social violence, including violations against women, and violent conflict that adds to the rising global death toll and the growing number of refugees and the displaced people. In rejecting the prevailing global economic model, we do not suggest the imposition of another universal model. Rather, it is a question of innovating and devising local answers to community needs, promoting the skills and energy of women in full equality with men, and benefiting from valuable traditions, as well as new technologies. In the light of the foregoing, we consider that the following conditions must be fulfilled at the household, community, national and international levels to realize this alternative vision of development: At The Household Level: * The new vision of development requires the transformation of gender relations, in which women are equal participants in the decision-making process. * Women and men must share responsibility for the care of children, the elderly and people with disabilities. * Domestic violence in all its forms must not be tolerated. * Women must be guaranteed sexual and reproductive choice and health. * Children's rights should be respected and enhanced. The Community Level: *The keys to effective development are equity, participation, self- reliance, sustainability and a holistic approach to community life.. * The capacity of communities to protect their own resource base must be restored. *Governmental and intergovernmental decisions must be built upon the full participation of social movements, citizens' organizations and communities at all stages in the development process, paying special attention to the equal participation of women. *Communities must gain control over the activities of all enterprises that affect their well-being, including transnational corporations. The political, social and economical empowerment of youth, especially young women, should be fostered. At The National Level: *All forms of oppression based on gender, race, ethnicity, class. age, disability and religion must be eliminated. *Governments must ensure the full and equal participation of civil society in the processes of economic policy-making and other development decision-making, implementation and monitoring.Education must be granted as the main instrument to empower youth to take their rightful place in society, enabling them to take control of their lives. Non-formal education should be promoted, drawing on the experiences and skills of non-specialized people. * Governments must ensure the full and equal participation of women in power structures and decision-making at all levels. * National accounting systems should be revised to incorporate women’s unpaid work. *Governments must commit themselves to developing national strategies and implementation plans in order to fulfill their responsibilities under the Human Rights covenants. They must regularly report on their progress, in particular their efforts regarding marginalized groups' access to legal procedures. Governments which have not ratified Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) should do so. Governments should work for the approval of the Draft Declaration on the Universal Rights of Indigenous Peoples at the United Nations. *Recognition of and respect for ancestral territorial rights of indigenous peoples and their rights to self-determination is an imperative in order to ensure their existence as peoples and cultures. Territories that are still colonized should likewise be accorded their right to sovereignty and self-determination. *Governments must make agrarian reform the basis of rural economies and ensure access to affordable credit for the poor without discriminating on the basis of gender, race and ethnicity so that people can create their own employment and build their own communities. *Governments should develop sustainable employment programmes, in full consultation with trade unions and employers' organizations. *Governments of industrialized countries should reduce their countries' disproportionately large claim on available natural resources by implementing the appropriate mix of incentives, ecological tax reforms, regulations, and environmental accounting systems to achieve sustainable production and consumption patterns. *Southern governments have the right to protect their people from the effects of deregulated and liberalized trade, especially in areas of food security and domestic production. Moreover, they should be able to regulate the market and take fiscal or legal measures for the purpose of combatting inequalities among their peoples. Africa should be given preferential treatment in this respect. *Governments should commit themselves to reducing military expenditure so that it does not exceed spending on health care and education and increase the conversion of military resources to peaceful purposes. This "peace dividend should be distributed equally between a national and a global demilitarization fund for social development. There should be a conversion of the military economy to a civilian economy. At The International Level: * A new partnership in South-North relations requires placing the cultures, development options and long-term strategies of developing countries first, and not those of the North. * It must be recognized that cultural diversity is the principal source of new strength, new actors, new social systems and sustainable development, creating an alternative globalization from below. * There should be an immediate cancellation of bilateral, multilateral and commercial debt of developing countries without the imposition of structural adjustment conditionality. In the longer term, the international community should institutionalize equitable terms of trade. * Policy-based lending and the interference of the World Bank and IMF in the internal affairs of sovereign states should be discontinued. * The Bretton Woods institutions must be made transparent and accountable to civil society in both the South and North; their policies and programmes should be made people-centered; and participation of social movements and citizens' organizations at all stages in the negotiation of agreements, project implementation and monitoring should be ensured. *Global macro-economic policy should address the structure of poverty and stimulation the levels of real purchasing power. An alternative macro- economic policy will have to meaningfully address the distribution of income and wealth, both between and within countries leading to a democratization of consumption. This policy would require curbing, lavish luxury-goods economies and redirecting resources towards the production of essential consumer goods and social services. *Global production and consumption must stay within the limits of the carrying capacity of the earth. Political regulation is mandatory in order to prevent: the global market system from continuing to reward irresponsible behaviour that cares nothing, for the household, community, nation end humankind. * Regulatory institutions and instruments of governance and law that are truly democratic and enforceable must be established to prohibit monopolistic structures and behaviour and to ensure that transnational corporations and financial institutions respect the fundamental rights of all peoples. In order to make this possible, TNCs must be reduced in size. Work to complete the Code of Conduct for TNCs should be urgently resumed. *An international independent body and accountability mechanisms should be set up to monitor, evaluate and effectively regulate the behaviour of transnational corporations and their impact on individual nations, communities, peoples and the environment. *The international community should enforce: the application of a tax on all speculative foreign exchange transactions (Tobin tax) of about 0.5%, the revenue of which should go into a global social development fund with adequate control mechanisms. * Effective machinery to promote renewable energy should be installed in the UN system. *Regional and international organizations should encourage diplomacy, peaceful negotiations and mediation and promote institutions for research and training in non-violent conflict resolution. * In the 180 days between the Copenhagen Summit and Beijing, Conference, we demand an independent investigation and audit of World Bank and IMF performance. In the aftermath of the financial collapse in Mexico, it is essential that the international community prevent future disasters that result from the refusal of the Bretton Woods institutions to depart from the agenda set by the financial and corporate communities, the U.S. government, and Northern financial ministries. Existing power relations do not permit the realisation of these goals. We, representatives of civil society, call upon governments and political leaders to recognize that the existing system has opened the most dangerous chasm in human history between an affluent, overconsuming minority and an impoverished majority of humankind in the South and also, increasingly, in the North. No nation so dramatically divided has ever remained stable; no frontier or force can withstand the despair and resentment that a failed system is now actively generating. We do not have much time. We are at the point of leaving to our children a world in which we ourselves would not wish to live. But we do find a tremendous inspiration and hope in the fact that the global NGO community taking part in the Social Summit in such a massive way can forge a common understanding of and strategy for the lasting improvement of humankind and nature. With shared responsibility, we can draw from the present crisis the creativity needed to make a world community that truly works. This is our common commitment as we leave the Copenhagen Summit. Copenhagen Alternative Declaration (March 1995) THE QUALITY BENCHMARK FOR THE SOCIAL SUMMIT An NGO statement for the third session of the Preparatory Committee of the Social Summit 11-23 February 1996 The World Summit for Social Development will be held in Copenhagen from March 6 to 11, 1995. From the outset our aspirations have been for the Social Summit to address the structural causes of poverty, unemployment and social disintegration, rather than dealing with their symptoms. Our contribution has been set out in various documents, including the "Twelve Points to Save the Social Summit" on which the current document is based. Many UN conferences have been held in the past five years which dealt directly or indirectly with the question of sustainable development. In our view, the importance of the Social Summit lies in its possibility to identify the connection between political, economic and social factors for sustainable development and the interface of those areas. Agenda 21 already identified the inter-relationship of environmental sustainability and social development. The UN Vienna Conference on Human Rights confirmed the universal right of all people to development and civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights. The important contribution of women to social and sustainable development has been the core of the debate in the UN Cairo Conference on Population and Development and the preparations for the UN Beijing Conference on Women. We expect the Social Summit to seek a new paradigm for social and economic relations among nations, communities and men and women to reach peace, sustainability and justice. Concretely the Draft Declaration for the Social Summit should be commended. It embraces a broader vision of social development and identifies the need to improve the economic environment to enable social development. It also recognizes the necessity to make the international organisations more accountable to standards for social development set by the international community. Even though the Declaration is dealing with such key-issues, we are still looking for improvement. The Declaration fails to note the necessary connection between sustainable growth and social progress. This must be strengthened in view of the relation between poverty, over consumption and unsustainable production patterns in the North that have already been addressed in Agenda 21. Within the Declaration "poor" people are still seen merely as victims. We feel it is regrettable that persons living in poverty are viewed as people in need of aid, instead of as citizens universally entitled to development and civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights. We have emphasized consistently that we believe the commitments of our national governments for social development cannot be implemented unless civil society is fully integrated in the implementation of the programme. The commitments in this respect should be stronger. A dialogue and consultation process at the national level regarding the Social Summit is imperative, and NGOs should become part of the national reporting. In line with the spirit of the Summit's preparations adequate NGO involvement must be ensured during inter-sessional meetings. The huge gap between the revised Programme of Action and the spirit of the Declaration must be closed because the Programme of Action as it currently stands can not be a basis for the realization of the Declaration. The Draft Programme of Action has, therefore, to be brought in line with the Declaration. We need clear goals and commitments for the Declaration. More particularly, for the Programme of Action we need well-defined targets, clear time-tables, specified measures for follow-up and implementation and instruments for monitoring the implementation both at the international and the national level. From the experience and analysis of our organisations working in social development throughout the world the following points are essential to the conclusions of the Summit: 1.The Social Summit should call on all governments to ratify the six core Human Rights Treaties, the International Convention Relating to the Protection of Migrant Workers and their Families, and the relevant ILO conventions by the year 2000, without reservations that are contradictory to their intention and meaning. The Programme of Action should call on governments to recognize the legally binding obligations of the Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and to establish means for the further elaboration and determination of those rights. The Social Summit should endorse the call from the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights for the creation of an optional complaints procedure under the International Covenenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The complaints procedure would allow individuals and groups to bring alleged violations of economic and social rights before an impartial international body. Governments should adopt a National Strategy with specific actions and target dates for implementing their obligations under the Human Rights Treaties and ILO-Conventions related to social development. The strategy should be developed in full consultation with NGOs and civil society, and its implementation be monitored by an independent national commission which is drawn mainly from civil society. 2. Structural adjustment programmes focused on export led growth and which disregard wealth distribution and environmental sustainability have been an obstacle for national governments to develop such strategies. They fail to create employment, deepen social inequality and poverty, and thereby feed social disintegration. The impact of these policies falls most heavily on women. Trickle down economics is not working - in the north or the south. The Summit must urge that adjustment policies be fundamentally revised. Through its expert Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, ECOSOC should investigate the underlying premises of World Bank and IMF policies, and measure their impact against the criteria established for the Social Summit: namely, do they exacerbate or alleviate the forces which exclude and deprive people living in poverty from the enjoyment of their basic rights. We, therefore, call for a reform of the multilateral structure, which brings the accountability of the International Financial Institutions - and the World Trade Organisation - into the UN system. 3.Those national and international programmes and projects that have an impact on social development, should be monitored through social impact studies, including those programmes implemented by the International Financial Institutions and the World Trade Organisation. Their programmes should be submitted to the relevant UN treaty monitoring bodies through regular reports explaining what steps are being taken to assist governments to comply with their economic, social and cultural obligations under the treaties and both governments and international organisations should provide the treaty monitoring bodies with evaluations of the effectiveness of their poverty alleviation measures and provide disaggregated data on the impact of their programmes on women, children and vulnerable groups. 4. Low Income Countries should receive compensation for losses experienced as a result of the Uruguay Round, so that resources are made available for social development.
is a need for a social audit to gauge their impact on human welfare in the South. The right of Nations to establish national food and agriculture policies in order to eradicate hunger and ensure food security should be explicitly recognized. There should be no patenting of life forms. 6. Governments should direct their economic policies towards achieving sustainable economic development, not merely short-term economic growth. They should guide and moderate the operation of market forces, require fairness and honesty in business activities, provide adequate public infrastructure, and invest heavily in human resources (especially through education and health care). In particular, vigorous action should be taken to ensure that market forces are not allowed to degrade the community and environment in which they operate. Recognizing that the major actors of the macro-economic system are unaccountable, the Social Summit should include as a condition for an enabling economic environment the international monitoring and a code of conduct for the operations of transnational corporations. 7. For a lot of countries the debt burden remains one of the most important obstacles to social development. The Social Summit should promote debt reduction initiatives that go beyond the existing package of options. Most urgently, the writing off of multilateral debt in Africa and all Low Income Countries is needed, since multilateral debt has been identified as a major obstacle for releasing resources for social development. 8. The UN target for Overseas Development Assistance of 0.7% of GNP should be achieved in the year 2000 by all OECD countries, including those who have yet to make such a commitment. To enable social sector expenditure and to enable investment in the economy of people living in poverty, effective spending of public resources is required. To achieve social development that caters for a broad range of fundamental human needs at least 50% of Official Development Assistance should be allocated to social development areas, which would include primary health care, reproductive health, education, shelter, water and sanitation, credit, institutional support and work guarantee schemes for people in poverty. 9.The Social Summit should establish effective mechanisms to curb the arms trade as a contribution to minimising violent social disintegration. Governments must decrease military expenditure to make resources available for social development. 10. Recognizing the central role of citizenship and citizens' organization in social development, the Programme of Action should insist on governments committing themselves to provide legal and regulatory frameworks for the contribution of different actors so as to involve local, regional and national civil society in social development. This requires the eradication of corrupt practices. 11. The gender specific aspects of each issue addressed by the Social Summit should be explicitly identified in the policy analysis and commitments taken by the Social Summit. Governments should pay specific attention to the development, implementation and evaluation of the impact of government policy on women, in order to create a new social climate, and should recognise the central role that women play in social and economic development. Governments should ensure that effective laws and agencies prevent violence, harassment and discrimination against women. The Social Summit should draw on the contribution and respect of the unique cultures of people and integrate sustainable indigenous and traditional practices which do not violate women's rights into social development. Vigorous action should also be taken to prevent discrimination on the grounds of disability, race, age, religion or sexuality. Specific strategies to develop greater respect for cultural diversity and for the needs of refugees and migrants should be adopted by encouraging tolerance in society. 12. Data on social development and environmental sustainability, including those related to health, education, income distribution, disaggregated by gender, are lacking and need to be seriously gathered and used as the basis for new indicators for sustainability and social development. The Social Summit should vest principal responsibility for the monitoring of the commitments undertaken in the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The Committee's mandate and methods of work should be adjusted accordingly to accommodate such responsibilities. Directory: images images -> Pelan pentaksiran kursus images -> Military callsign list as of dec 2010 images -> For Date: 02/01/2013 Friday Call Number Time Call Reason Action 13-768 0008 motor vehicle stop warning Issued images -> New embedded S images -> Creating Buy-In – Building Relationships images -> Deadline: Saturday, March 12th, 2016 images -> News items from Raising Our Voices images -> Last year four of the best Afrikaans Christian singers joined forces to tour Down Under with the production ‘Manne wat Glo’ images -> World-renowned vocal ensemble sweet honey in the rock images -> Peoples Voice Café History Download 0.58 Mb. Share with your friends:
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