PREPARATORY COMMITTEE FOR SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT SUMMIT SUSPENDS OPERATIONS, PENDING FINALIZATION OF DELEGATE RECOMMENDATIONS

Press Release
SOC/4545

PREPARATORY COMMITTEE FOR SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT SUMMIT SUSPENDS OPERATIONS, PENDING FINALIZATION OF DELEGATE RECOMMENDATIONS

‘We Have Advanced Rather a Great Deal’ In View of Time Constraints, Says Committee Chairman

Final preparations for the Millennium Social Development Summit were suspended this evening to give delegations more time to formalize their recommendations. Informal consultations on the preparations would reconvene from 17 to 23 May and from 14 to 20 June, depending on the meetings schedule, and then meet for one day in plenary before the session in Geneva from 26 to 30 June.

Entitled "World Summit for Social Development and Beyond: Achieving Social Development for All in a Globalizing World", the special session comes five years after the consensus adoption by 186 countries of the Copenhagen Declaration on Social Development, which charted a new course towards people-centred development. World leaders pledged to eradicate poverty, attain full employment and foster stable, safe and just societies through the adoption of 10 commitments, which serve as the basis for global efforts to confront the structural causes and consequences of “profound social problems”.

The 10 commitments concern: (1) an enabling environment for social development; (2) poverty eradication; (3) full employment; (4) promotion of social integration; (5) equality and equity between women and men; (6) universal and equitable access to high-quality education and health services; (7) acceleration of development in Africa and in the least developed countries; (8) inclusion of social development goals in structural adjustment programmes; (9) resources for social development; and (10) international cooperation for social development.

The proposed outcome documents for the Geneva Summit would include a short political declaration reaffirming the Declaration and Programme of Action adopted by the World Summit in 1995, as well as further initiatives to advance the social development agenda in the age of globalization. Among the proposals considered at the preparatory session were a new global campaign against poverty, revised poverty reduction targets, and a global employment strategy that stressed the need to create jobs which provided decent earnings. Also discussed was a proposal to

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establish a mechanism that would allow developing countries to receive medicines for HIV/AIDS at lower prices.

In other business today, the Preparatory Committee adopted the provisional agenda for the special session, as orally revised. The substantive item would be: “Proposals for further initiatives for social development: (a) Review and appraisal of progress since the World Summit for Social Development; (b) “Proposals for further initiatives for full implementation of the Declaration and Programme of Action”.

In closing remarks, Preparatory Committee Chairman Cristián Maquieira (Chile) said he was rather satisfied with the results. The general negotiation environment had been very positive; the biggest problem had been one of time rather than one of issues. There was “a big job before us”. Within what had been reasonably possible in those two weeks, “we have advanced rather a great deal”. Nonetheless, delegations must arrive at the special session with the minimal number of paragraphs in brackets.

Mr. Maquieira also served as Chairman of Working Group I, which dealt with new initiatives based on the following commitments: an enabling environment for social development; acceleration of development in Africa and in the least developed countries; inclusion of social development goals in structural adjustment programmes; and resources for social development. Those pledges were the most complex in terms of political requirements and technical demands; they were clear examples of the overlapping economic and social issues of great importance to the current work of the United Nations.

Working Group II dealt with poverty eradication; full employment; promotion of social integration; equality and equity between women and men; universal and equitable access to high-quality education and health services; and international cooperation for social development. Its Chairman, Koos Richelle (Netherlands), said the atmosphere had been good and the Group had been able to reduce the text on some points and agree on a common basis for the further discussion of others. Members would await the outcomes of two meetings now under way -- Commission on Human Rights, and the South-South Summit -- to discuss some of the more difficult issues. A third Working Group negotiated a draft political declaration.

Three members designated as facilitators to assist with the negotiations also spoke today: Sonia Felicity Elliot (Guyana); Luis Fernando Carranza- Cifuentes (Guatemala); and Aurelio Fernandez (Spain).

Committee Highlights

With the goal of its second preparatory session set towards approving a draft outcome document and a draft political statement to be forwarded to the special Assembly session, the Committee held no formal debate and only a few "open" meetings. In order to facilitate negotiations, it convened three working groups that began informal consultations immediately.

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"Time has run out", Committee Chairman Cristián Maquieira said in his opening remarks to the preparatory session. Poverty, unemployment and other societal inequities had worsened since Copenhagen, and the Committee must recognize its responsibility to the global public good by seizing this opportunity to give concrete effects to its efforts. As an important step towards putting a human face on social development, members must strive to reach a consensus on a draft outcome document.

The Chairman of the Commission for Social Development, Zola Skweyiya, said that the Committee would be operating in the shifting and contested terrain of a rapidly globalizing world as it attempted to address the critical societal development challenge. Negotiations should be informed by the "ethics of care" and the need to build a people-centred sustainable development process that would facilitate, among other things, social and institutional change in the interest of the most disempowered.

The Director of the Division for Social Policy and Development, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, John Langmore, said that while the forces of globalization, national interest, organizational structures and conventions had produced a kind of powerlessness for the Committee and the rest of the world, the special session would be a great opportunity to reach significant agreements.

At two plenary meetings, some civil society representatives expressed concern that the political declaration would not address the key challenges posed by social development and would dilute the commitments undertaken at Copenhagen. The political declaration, at present, lacked a sense of urgency and did not effectively address such issues as poverty eradication and the prevention of armed conflict. Also emphasized was the plight of the poor in today's globalized economy: action was needed to stimulate pro-poor growth, as well as additional resources to accelerate debt relief for developing countries. The children of developing countries were also highlighted, particularly the question of how they could possibly participate in the global technological revolution when they were increasingly trapped between the worst forms of child labour and the ravages of HIV/AIDS.

Membership, Officers

The Preparatory Committee is open to all Member States.

The officers of the Preparatory Committee, elected at its organizational session in May 1998, remained: Cristián Maquieira (Chile) as its Chairman; and Bagher Asadi (Iran), Abdallah Baali (Algeria), Ion Gorita (Romania), Koos Richelle (Netherlands) as Vice-Chairmen. Mr. Asadi was also designated to serve as Rapporteur.

Along with Mr. Gorita, the following members were designated as facilitators to assist in the negotiations: Aurelio Fernandez (Spain) and Sonia Felicity Elliott (Guyana).

The Preparatory Committee will meet at a date and time to be announced.

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