PRESS BRIEFING BY DIRECTOR OF DIVISION FOR SOCIAL POLICY AND DEVELOPMENT

Press Briefing

PRESS BRIEFING BY DIRECTOR OF DIVISION FOR SOCIAL POLICY AND DEVELOPMENT

The most fundamental social development question was whether globalization would result in a society for all, or in scattered islands of prosperity in a sea of poverty, anger and desperation, John Langmore, of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, said at a Headquarters press briefing this afternoon.

Mr. Langmore, Director of the Division for Social Policy and Development, said that while the term "social development" sounded like a fuzzy abstraction, it referred to the efforts that governments, international agencies, non-governmental agencies and individuals must intensify to stop the accelerating polarization of the world's societies into ghettoes of rich and poor. That was the direction the world seemed to be taking.

As he presented the Comprehensive Report on the Implementation of the Outcome of the World Summit for Social Development, he cited a report in The New York Times that investment banks on Wall Street had set aside $13 billion for year-end bonuses. At the same time, more than 50 per cent of the global population lived on less than 5 per cent of the global income, according to United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) statistics. Over a billion people lived on less than a dollar a day and 3 billion on less than $2 a day. One hundred and sixty million children under the age of five years were chronically malnourished and 850 million adults were illiterate.

He said that in spite of indications that social trends were moving in the wrong direction, there was considerable evidence that governments were seriously trying to implement the commitments they had made at the Copenhagen World Summit for Social Development held in 1995. Whereas international trade, macroeconomic policy and foreign direct investment had previously been regarded as purely economic concerns for technicians and experts, they were now understood to have massive human ramifications.

Many governments and international institutions increasingly understood that they had a choice between investing in social development and accepting social disintegration, he said. The first alternative was likely to be difficult, costly and open-ended as well as requiring substantial transfers of resources and more focused political will. The second alternative would lead inevitably to a chaotic and insecure world for the prosperous and the poor alike.

He said that the Copenhagen Social Summit had brought together 117 Heads of State and Government, as well as representatives of 70 other States who had committed themselves to an unprecedented goal: to eradicate poverty, achieve full employment and develop secure, stable and just societies everywhere.

Langmore Briefing - 2 - 15 December 1999

The comprehensive report was being issued at this time to start the countdown to a special General Assembly session on social concerns to be held in Geneva from 26 to 30 June 2000, he said. That session's aim was to make the Copenhagen commitment to social development less abstract and to increase the momentum of the implementation process.

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