ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL CONCLUDES DISCUSSION OF UNITED NATIONS ACTIVITIES TO ERADICATE POVERTY
Press Release
ECOSOC/5656
ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL CONCLUDES DISCUSSION OF UNITED NATIONS ACTIVITIES TO ERADICATE POVERTY
19960703 The United Nations must function as a unified system, the Minister for International Development Cooperation of Sweden told the Economic and Social Council this morning, as it concluded discussion of coordination of United Nations activities to eradicate poverty.Pierre Schori said governments often had to deal with 15 to 20 United Nations agencies which were pulling in different directions and competing for funds. The Council needed to provide overall policy guidance for development cooperation, he stressed.
The annual session of the Council is broadly organized into four segments: the high-level, coordination, operational activities and general segments. The coordination segment is devoted to coordination of United Nations policies and activities relating to the achievement of the Organization's economic and social objectives. Discussions are organized around selected themes.
Also this morning, the representative of the Philippines said that the Council as a whole, and not just its bureau, should meet periodically with the chairmen of its functional commissions in follow-up to the United Nations development-related conferences.
National governments had primary responsibility for the eradication of poverty, but the international community needed to foster a favourable international economic environment, the representative of the Republic of Korea stated. Japan's representative said that international development assistance was most effective when combined with private foreign direct investment.
Poverty could only be eradicated through the empowerment of the poor, the representative of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) said. In a pioneer experiment, UNESCO had signed with the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh to prepare education programmes for 2 million Grameen borrowers, most of whom were women. Programmes aimed at the commercialization of farming should bear in mind that women produced 80 per cent of the food in Africa, 60 per cent in Asia and over 10 per cent in Latin America, the representative of the World Food Programme (WFP) stated.
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The Under-Secretary-General for Development Support and Management Services, Jin Yongjian, also addressing the Council this morning, said that his Department supported the national efforts of developing countries to strengthen their human and institutional capacities. Policy debates should be enriched through wider dissemination of the lessons learned in operational programmes, he added.
Also making statements were the representatives of Egypt, Lebanon, Iran, Belarus and Chile.
The Council will meet again at 3 p.m. today to begin its consideration of the implementation of the agreed conclusions reached at last year's coordination segment, which considered implementation of the results of the major United Nations conferences in the economic, social and related fields.
Council Work Programme
The Economic and Social Council met this morning to continue its coordination segment, which focuses on United Nations poverty-eradication activities.
As a basis for discussion, the Council has before it a report of the Secretary-General on coordination of the activities of the United Nations system for the eradication of poverty (document E/1996/61). It states that the Council should focus on promoting a multidimensional and integrated approach to poverty eradication, the importance of which was recognized at the 1995 World Summit for Social Development. It should also promote a gender- sensitive approach to poverty eradication. (For a summary of the report, see Press Release ECOSOC/5652, of 1 July.)
Statements
JIN YONGJIAN, Under-Secretary-General for Development Support and Management Services, said his Department had a tradition of assisting developing countries in their efforts to improve social and economic conditions. "At present, our activities are strongly focused on assistance to developing countries in operationalizing their national plans and strategies in response to the action plans of United Nations global conferences, particularly addressing the needs and requirements of the weak and most vulnerable."
As the operational arm of the Secretariat for technical cooperation, the Department supported the national efforts of developing countries to strengthen their human and institutional capacities in such areas as public administration and finance, social and economic development and the management of natural resources, he said. It also assisted countries in post-conflict reconstruction and rehabilitation. The Department was fostering poverty alleviation among marginalized groups in rural areas through a variety of multisectoral programmes. In addition, it was assisting governments in their efforts to raise the status of women, and carrying out a range of activities in Africa aimed at helping the poor.
He went on to say that the coordination segment offered the opportunity for States to consider the support provided to them by the United Nations system. Coordination mechanisms must be reviewed with a view to facilitating a more efficient exchange of information at both the central policy level and the operational level. Wider dissemination of the lessons learned through operational programmes could serve to enrich the policy debate in terms of concrete experiences and policy outcomes, he concluded.
CECILIA B. REBONG (Philippines) said that specialized agencies of the United Nations should closely collaborate with the Bretton Woods institutions. The creation of inter-agency task forces had been a step in the right
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direction. The Council, not just its bureau, should meet periodically with the chairmen of its functional commissions in follow-up to the United Nations development-related conferences.
Her Government noted with satisfaction that many developed countries were concerned over the problem of declining levels of official development assistance (ODA). The Council had made a good start on addressing cross- sectoral issues. She suggested that, during informal consultations, delegations undertake comprehensive discussions so that decisions would not have to be renegotiated later.
ADEL ABDULLATIF (Egypt) said that poverty-eradication programmes must take account of the specific conditions prevailing in the affected countries. The Secretary-General's report should have focused more on the scale of the poverty scourge, as well as on measures being employed to combat it. It was important to focus on methodology, as all bodies working for the eradication of poverty should harmonize their methodologies.
The Secretary-General's report also should have underscored the impact of declining development resources on the problem of poverty, he said. More specific recommendations on resources were needed. With respect to country- strategy notes, he said it was critical to highlight the important role of recipient countries. Generally speaking, greater precision in planning and implementation was required in matters of coordination.
PIERRE SCHORI, Minister for International Development Cooperation of Sweden, said that worldwide gaps between the rich and poor were widening. The Swedish Development Cooperation Agency believed that development efforts must be supported by people and institutions in partner countries. Gender sensitivity and participation were essential at all levels. There would be no sustainable poverty reduction without the empowerment of the poor, he stressed.
Two thirds of people living in extreme poverty were women, he said. Efforts to support gender equality were essential to social, economic and political development, he added, noting that gender equality was now a permanent objective of Sweden's development cooperation efforts. He agreed with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) that investment in basic social services was good economics.
The United Nations should function as a unified system, he continued. Governments often had to deal with 15 to 20 United Nations agencies which were pulling in different directions and competing for funds. The Council needed to provide overall policy guidance for development cooperation. The functional commissions had an important role to play in the follow-up to the global development conferences. By mainstreaming perspectives on the elimination of poverty, on gender, on equality, on environmental protection and other areas, the commissions could promote system-wide coordination within
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the Organization. The Council should ensure a clear division of labour among the commissions and coordinate multi-year programmes.
Stressing that there was a clear and absolute need for international support in the eradication of poverty, he said the European Union had reiterated its commitment to the target of 0.7 per cent of gross national product (GNP) for ODA. The donor community needed to make the case once again for ODA, he added.
NINA SIBAL, representative of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), said more than 1 billion people lived in inhuman conditions of poverty. Her organization was putting at Member States' disposal its technical expertise for the formulation of strategies to combat poverty and promote sustainable development. Under its social and human sciences programme, the organization planned to set up a clearing house for experiments that had been tested against social exclusion and poverty to make knowledge about them accessible. Through its international social science research programme, entitled management of social transformations, UNESCO was contributing to analysis and evaluation of policies to combat poverty. Its actions were designed to reach geographically remote and socially distant areas.
Since poverty could be eradicated not through charity but through the empowerment of the poor, the organization believed that education was an investment in that task, she said. It was working towards the universalization of primary education, as well as training of scientists, creation of data banks and dialogue with policy-makers. It aimed at making women working in the informal sector less vulnerable. In a pioneer experiment, together with the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh, it had signed a memorandum of understanding under which, among other things, UNESCO would be involved in preparing education programmes for 2 million Grameen borrowers, most of whom were women.
HICHAM HAMDAN (Lebanon) said the work of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) were not sufficient to combat poverty. The Commission for Social Development had a central role to play in monitoring national anti-poverty activities. Coping with the problem of poverty was a prerequisite to ensuring peace and stability, particularly at the national level. Most internal security problems resulted from poverty. Therefore, activities for peace must be coordinated with development activities. Peace and development were inseparable. In today's world, one could not establish plans to deal with poverty without taking account of advances in technology.
Lebanon's economy had suffered because of the war there, which had made it difficult to obtain the necessary resources for development, he said. The country's national strategy aimed at raising the status of women. It sought, above all, to address the root causes of poverty, as that was the most effective way of dealing with the problem.
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MOHAMMAD DJABBARI (Iran) said the problem of poverty should be addressed in its various manifestations in accordance with the needs of developing countries. Investments in food production, health, education, human resources, productive employment, infrastructure and sustained economic growth were crucial. Greater dialogue between the United Nations system and the Bretton Woods institutions was welcome, but collaboration between the two should not affect the universal, voluntary, grant-based, neutral and multilateral characteristic of United Nations development assistance.
He said the Secretary-General's report had failed to adequately address the vital need for creating an enabling international environment conducive to development. Each country had the primary responsibility for designing its own anti-poverty strategy. There was also an increasing need for more financial resources for United Nations development activities. Direct poverty-eradication programmes at the national level, complemented by economic growth, contributed to the betterment of the living conditions of the poor. However, those efforts needed to be supported by the international community.
IGAR GUBAREVICH (Belarus) said poverty was one of the worst problems facing the world today, and thus had become a priority area for international cooperation. The United Nations must coordinate its activities and avoid a duplication of efforts. Belarus generally endorsed the Secretary-General's recommendations. The resident coordinator system was useful. United Nations development activities must have a predictable and stable financial basis.
The Council should serve as an integrated forum for the consideration of all matters relating to poverty, he said. The Commission for Social Development could contribute to the Council's work in that regard. United Nations entities should take greater account of the specific problems of countries in transition, which could not solve their acute social problems alone. Poverty was a relatively new problem in Belarus, which had experienced the greatest ecological disaster of the century, the Chernobyl nuclear accident.
HIROYASU KOBAYASHI (Japan) said that poverty eradication had been identified as a cross-sectoral issue at the heart of every recent global development conference. The Council needed to set out a strategy and division of labour for that effort which would reduce overlap and duplication. Poverty was a complex world-wide problem with its roots in both internal and external factors.
Development efforts were most effective when ODA was combined with private foreign direct investment, he said. Model projects for development should be formulated which brought together all development partners. Recent years had seen the "feminization" of poverty in which women were now a majority of those suffering from absolute poverty. Development assistance should target that phenomenon, and women should take part in the creation of development strategies.
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JOHN POWELL, Director of the Policy and Public Affairs Division of the World Food Programme (WFP), said hunger was not just a symptom of poverty, it was a cause. The hungry poor simply could not compete with the well nourished. They lacked the capacity to work, they were more vulnerable to disease and they died younger. Seven out of 10 of the world's poor were women earning less than one dollar a day. The number of women living in poverty in the countryside had doubled since 1970. Successful projects directed at women benefited the community as a whole. The easy way in delivering food aid was through the male power structure, but the track record of actually getting food to the needy families was better if women were targeted.
The WFP, therefore, wanted to see women engaged, at the outset, in both emergency operations and food aid projects for development, he said. Women were key actors in healing the wounds of intra-State conflicts, as making peace required focus on family, food, health, education, jobs and a relearning of values swept away by conflict. Women produced 80 per cent of food in Africa, 60 per cent in Asia and over 10 per cent in Latin America. In commercialization of farming and in designing projects, women's active economic role should be kept in mind. The WFP required that all school- feeding projects had girls as beneficiaries.
Improved coordination was essential for the success of projects directed at women living in poverty, he continued. The organizations active at the peak of emergency situation remained the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), WFP, UNICEF and the non-governmental organizations. While the need to establish a transition from relief to development had been recognized, most development agencies were there only after normalcy had been restored. Ways should be found for partners to work in alleviating the situation of the abjectly poor as against favouring "safe projects". Moreover, hunger and food security issues should be put on the food security agenda.
HAE-JIN CHUN (Republic of Korea) said that while national governments had primary responsibility for the eradication of poverty, the international community needed to foster a favourable international economic environment to support national efforts. The World Bank had predicted sustained economic growth of 5.3 per cent per year in developing countries through the year 2005 -- up from 3 per cent per year during the 1980s. That promising economic climate represented a real chance for developing countries to make gains in the fight against poverty.
The United Nations should continue to work closely with national governments in the formulation of country-strategy notes and policy framework papers, he said. In that connection, the resident coordinator system should be further strengthened, with resident coordinators playing a more dynamic role. While it was important to foster greater cooperation between the United Nations system and the Bretton Woods institutions, any changes made should not lead to the attachment of new conditionalities to programme funding. Greater
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harmonization was needed among country-strategy notes, World Bank policy papers, and letters of intent of the IMF.
EDUARDO GALVEZ (Chile) said the eradication of poverty was a moral, political and economic imperative of the international community. The problem was at the core of the agendas of all governments and was essential to the well-being of people. The Secretary-General's report was complete and well- structured. Recognizing that poverty eradication was primarily the responsibility of States, the United Nations system was working to provide coordinated support to those efforts. Attention must be paid to the need for an enabling environment.
The resident coordinator system was essential, he said. Resident coordinators must put into practice the anti-poverty strategies of governments. Poverty-eradication activities were an important priority, but, unfortunately, ODA in 1994 had declined to the lowest level since 1974. The availability of sufficient and predictable resources for development was critical to attaining the goal of poverty eradication. Further, it was essential to mainstream a gender perspective in all development activities. Women must participate in the design and implementation of poverty-eradication programmes. Given the disturbing "feminization of poverty", the Commission on the Status of Women must be strengthened.
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