COMMISSION FOR SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT REVIEWS ACTIVITIES OF ACC TASK FORCES IN DIALOGUE WITH AGENCY OFFICIALS
Press Release
SOC/4415
COMMISSION FOR SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT REVIEWS ACTIVITIES OF ACC TASK FORCES IN DIALOGUE WITH AGENCY OFFICIALS
19970225 Whatever the efforts made by countries to achieve the objectives set by major United Conferences on development, there could be no progress in the absence of resources, the Commission for Social Development was told this afternoon by the representative of the Netherlands during a dialogue with chairpersons of the inter-agency task forces of the Administrative Committee on Coordination (ACC), set up to coordinate efforts of the United Nations system to monitor follow-up to those conferences.Those tasks forces focus on employment and sustainable livelihoods; basic social services; and an enabling environment for economic and social development.
The dialogue's moderator, the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), James Gustave Speth, said the primary responsibility that had fallen to his agency had been development of anti- poverty strategies called for at the 1995 World Summit for Social Development in Copenhagen. Currently, the UNDP was helping over 70 countries in that respect.
In the discussion of their reports, the panellists spoke of an assortment of lessons learned and understanding gained. Katherine Hagen, Deputy-Director-General of the International Labour Office (ILO), and Chairperson of the Task Force on Employment and Sustainable Livelihoods, said that ILO country reviews had revealed great diversity as to national concerns and objectives. Consensus would be of tremendous importance as development partners moved forward, she stressed.
Dr. Nafis Sadik, Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and Chairperson of the Task Force on Basic Social Services, pointed out that the empowerment of women, gender equality and equity was central to the new paradigm of development. Attention should also be focused on meeting the needs of youth and adolescents. Resource mobilization was key to the success of that process.
John Page, Chief Economist, Middle East and North Africa Region of the World Bank, and Chairperson of the Task Force on an Enabling Environment, said that his task force sought to clarify elements of an enabling environment for economic and social development, to establish mechanisms for inter-agency cooperation, and to provide recommendations for appropriate indicators of economic and social development.
During the dialogue, delegations expressed general satisfaction with the task forces' work and requested them to indicate to the Commission areas where additional guidelines might be required. Several speakers expressed concern over declining levels of development assistance. Others stressed the need for a common framework when it came to macroeconomic indicators and statistics.
Kristen Timothy, Deputy Director of the Division for the Advancement of Women and Secretary of the ACC Committee on Women and Gender Equality also participated in the dialogue.
The Commission will continue its deliberations at 10 a.m. tomorrow, 26 February, when it is scheduled to undertake a panel discussion with representatives of organized labour.
Commission Work Programme
The Commission for Social Development met this afternoon to continue its consideration of follow-up to the 1995 World Summit for Social Development, by holding a dialogue with the chairpersons of Inter-Agency Task Forces of the Administrative Committee on Coordination (ACC).
Dialogue with Inter-Agency Task Forces
JAMES GUSTAVE SPETH, Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the moderator, stressed that the overall objective of the Inter-Agency Task Forces of the ACC was determined by the major United Nations conferences whose thrust was the promotion of people-centred growth. The United Nations agencies had discerned from the conferences five major themes, and had organized into five inter-agency groups around those themes.
One particular responsibility that had fallen to UNDP was developing the anti-poverty strategies called for in the outcome of the Copenhagen Social Summit. Currently, UNDP was helping over 70 countries in that respect. He described the efforts at achieving those goals as actual United Nations reform. While the inter-agency groups had been working together, there had simultaneously been work at the national level; at the moment, there were scores of initiatives going on in programme countries.
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NITIN DESAI, Under-Secretary-General for Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development, said that the purpose of the dialogue was to enable delegates to reflect on the task forces and to ask questions. He urged them to be rigorous in their interaction with the agency groups through their representatives.
KATHERINE HAGEN, Deputy Director-General of the International Labour Office (ILO) and Chairperson of the Task Force on Employment and Sustainable Livelihoods, spoke of the basic lessons that the ILO had learned in its country reviews, of which there had been many. Concentrating on Nepal, Hungary and Chile, she pointed out the diversity in their concerns and objectives. Similarly, agency participation had been quite diverse.
A review seminar in Chile in December 1996 had been very successful and illuminating, she reported, as was another in Nepal, where there was a very useful dialogue with the partners. Nepal revealed the dilemma of an economy with a very rapid labour rate growth, without a matching economic growth. There was need to address the diversification demands of the agricultural sector, even as it was being debated that such a country could not depend completely on the agricultural sector without a complementary, well-developed industrial strategy as well.
Hungary had provided a similar experience, she continued, with lively dialogues on an assortment of economic questions, especially the stimulation of growth. Lessons learned in the review exercises included not only the need to explore skills training and various methods of diversifying the economy, but access to opportunities for youth and women. No less important, they had revealed the importance of building consensus with partners for moving forward. The experience of her task force with particular countries could spill over to others, she noted, pointing to the issue of child labour as one in which lessons learned could be shared and utilized.
Dr. NAFIS SADIK, Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and Chairperson of the Task Force on Basic Social Services, said that the work of the task force was informed by the gender perspective; resource mobilization; targeting of specific groups; and involvement of civil society. It was also covering the main parameters of the "20/20" initiative, which is based on the idea of allocating 20 per cent of official development assistance (ODA) and 20 per cent of national budgets to priority basic social programmes. The end products of the task force included guidelines for the United Nations resident coordinator system, information cards on advocacy for basic social service and a compendium of international commitments relevant to poverty and social integration.
She said the task force had established working groups, each with a designated lead agency, to produce the end products, and she hoped that the
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high level of inter-agency collaboration would be carried over to the country level. She recalled that beginning with the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development, a new people-centred paradigm for population and development emerged. Central to it was the empowerment of women, gender equality and equity. She stressed that attention must be focused on meeting the needs of youth and adolescents. The task of meeting basic human needs and providing basic social services required development partnerships at all levels, and a key challenge was that of resource mobilization, on which success would depend.
The representative of Argentina said that the statements from the experts had again demonstrated the wide range of problems facing developing countries. Praising the work of the task forces, he said that they might still need some guidelines, and asked them to feel free to ask for such guidelines as that would enhance the excellent work they were already doing.
The representative of Finland said that it was necessary to point out that there were many issues that were not gender-segregated and it was necessary to do that.
The representative of Nicaragua said he was happy with the cooperation between the tasks forces and the Bretton Woods institutions. He welcomed anything in the direction of effectiveness, efficiency and the strengthening of the United Nations system, adding that such process would start with the strengthening of the intergovernmental process. Beyond that, he remarked that the international system could be overloaded with the sheer volume of targets being set at the conferences and meetings. On the issue of common framework, he noted that they were often common only on the issue being discussed at the time; there were no common databases across issues to draw upon. In the days of computers, that should not be a problem. He further asked the chairpersons of the task forces to specify areas in which the Commission could be helped.
The representative of Algeria said that women were still underpaid and exploited in the workplace. Would that change, and would they be given the type of work necessary for development? he asked.
The representative of the Netherlands said that the question of resources was one to be concerned with. Whatever the efforts made by countries to achieve the objectives set by conferences, there could be no progress in the absence of resources. How were the task forces working to overcome that obstacle? she asked.
The representative of the United States asked what the task forces planned to do to better integrate disability into the mainstream of technical development.
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Responding to the representative of Argentina, Mr. SPETH said he would like to hear, first of all, some approval of the work being done, as it was not always easy to pull the system together. He would "encourage the representative to encourage" the United Nations system to seek the resources to make its plans work.
To the representative of the Netherlands, he said it was clear that the Secretary-General wished to work with Member States in the area of operational activities. On the quantitative input-output targets, he said that all the quantitative targets from all the conferences had been synthesized. Other analyses had also been done, and the task forces would be willing to work with Member States on the issue of implementing them.
On declining development assistance, Mr. SPETH replied that it defied imagination that anything could be achieved without it. It was also necessary to forge a common database and information system; that, however, was currently going on within the United Nations. The confusion over the 20/20 concept was sufficient to caution over the importance of having a method that works. He agreed with the comments over the need for resources.
Dr. SADIK said that the task forces were really working on better data. Reproductive data was also important in the basic health service area, as were other indicators from various sectoral groups. She said there were other guidelines in tracking infant and child mortality.
Regarding the question on the 20/20 concept, she said it needed to be addressed in the guidelines for the resident coordinator. The point about a common framework had to begin with a common objective. She pointed out that a suggestion had been made to the UNDP, but that it remained to be determined how it would work, adding that even in the United Nations system, with all the collaboration going on, it was sometimes surprising to find different data on the same matter. She looked forward to a time when a common set of data could be employed in the ongoing processes. She noted that many countries had complained that they were receiving too many data surveys to fill out, and hoped for the possibility of putting together the same survey and eliciting data from it.
On the decline of ODA, she agreed that it was an important problem and there was need to help all countries making the maximum effort. The challenge was to determine what was maximum effort.
Mr. PAGE said that inconsistent economic indicators and multiple sources of data could often be found in many multilateral and bilateral agencies. Greater partnership among development agencies was clearly called for. His task force was very concerned with that problem because it had sought to
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maximize the use of its resources so as to increase confidence on the part of donors.
Ms. HAGEN said that the Commission should address the issue of economic growth as a prerequisite for job creation and development. Enormous inequality was emerging with economic growth concentrating in certain sectors. Targeting development cooperation could ameliorate that problem. Data collection and economic indicators were a complex problem. Different agencies were using different indicators, and there was no reliable way to measure the problem of underemployment.
Ms. TIMOTHY said that the Committee on Women and Gender Equality looked to bodies like the Commission for Social Development to articulate gender issues. Women all over the world were becoming primary income earners. Regarding common information databases, she said that a common information gateway, "Women Watch" would be launched by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and the Division for the Advancement of Women.
The representative of Jamaica asked what was the central mandate of the task forces. Was it a matter of catalyzing the action of national governments or of mobilizing resources?
The representative of the Sudan said that some basic issues had not been resolved. The representative of the Netherlands had noted the discrepancy between development objectives sought and resources available. It sometimes seemed that United Nations reform had been seen as simply a matter of reducing the number of officials working on problems.
The representative of the Dominican Republic said that ageing was a particular problem for developing countries. Today there were nearly 550 million persons over 60 years of age. By 2020 there would be 1 billion elderly persons, 70 per cent of them living in developing countries.
The representative of Cuba said that declining levels of ODA seemed to be driven principally by the need for developed countries to close their budget deficits. Were any development projects in the field receiving increased levels of funding, whether from the public or private sectors?
Dr. SADIK said that the mandate of the task forces had been to help countries to achieve the goals to which they had committed at the conferences. They had also been charged with increasing the ability of national statistical systems to help countries comply with their commitments. It was too early to say whether the work of the task forces had increased funding levels. There had been some enhancement of resources in the area of reproductive health services.
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Mr. DESAI said that the issue of ageing had indeed been underestimated. In coming decades developing countries would see a dramatic increase in the proportion of their population that was elderly. To the question of the Sudan, he said that there was indeed a credibility problem when it came to the funding of commitments. It was incumbent on all to be creative in focusing attention on issue-based funding. Discussion should not be simply on the volume of development funding; it should centre on the accomplishment of specific goals.
Ms. HAGEN said that there had been a tendency to "throw money at problems" without adequately addressing them in sequence. Regarding the mobilization of funds, she said that for many developing countries, the process of approval by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) of debt repayment not only served to facilitate additional funding from multilateral agencies, but to stimulate flows from the private sector.
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