ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL HOLDS PANEL DISCUSSION

ON WORKING TOGETHER FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT

(Reissued as received.)

GENEVA, 9 July (UN Information Service) -- The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) this afternoon held a panel discussion on “working together for rural development to help realize internationally agreed development goals”, which was followed by an interactive dialogue in which issues such as Education For All, the linkage between trade, development and economic growth and the need for national capacity building were raised.

Introducing the panel, Murari Raj Sharma, Vice-President of the Council, said that the panel was innovative because it represented an effort to link the coordination segment to the theme of the high-level segment.  In this way, the Council was able to address the United Nations system and coordination aspects of the subject it discussed at ministerial level last week.

Abhimanyu Singh, Lead Manager of Dakar Follow-up Unit at the Education Sector of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), listed the challenges facing Education for All in rural areas and suggested as solutions: adjusting school calendars to rural life and economic routines; increasing community-based and community-owned learning activities; incorporating flexible approaches for nomads and other groups; overcoming social, cultural and poverty related barriers, especially for girls; and addressing security and safety issues. 

Jean Majeres, Chief of the Employment Intensive Investment Programme of the International Labour Office, said that economic development required economic growth, but for this growth to translate into benefits for the poor it must generate jobs and incomes.  Employment-intensive growth was needed. 

Eduardo Doryan, Special Representative to the United Nations of the World Bank Group, recalled that the implementation of internationally agreed goals concerning rural development was of primary importance in the global situation of today, which was characterized by interdependence and a rapidly expanding population. 

Issues highlighted during an interactive dialogue which followed the panel presentations were Education For All and the flagship programmes elaborated during Mr. Singh’s presentation, linkages between trade and growth in terms of development, and the need for capacity building at the national level for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.  The major point of the debate

was that economic growth alone would not suffice to achieve development, there was a need for a comprehensive approach to capacity building, which cut across sectors and involved all stakeholders.

Leading off the interactive dialogue were Lev Komlev, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development; Themba Masuku, Food and Agricultural Organization; and Maria Elena Chavez, Deputy Director General of the International Cooperative Alliance, who acted as lead discussants.  Also participating in the dialogue were representatives of Pakistan, Uganda, South Africa, Argentina, and Ethiopia.

Before concluding, Vice-President Sharma expressed the Council’s condolences to the peoples and governments of the Sudan and Bangladesh for the tragic loss of life in recent plane and boat accidents in their countries.

The Council will meet in closed session at 10 a.m. tomorrow to hold informal discussions.  It is expected to meet in public session later in the day.

Statements

ABHIMANYU SINGH, Lead Manager of the Dakar Follow-up Unit at the Education Sector of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), said that among the challenges facing Education for All (EFA) in rural areas were the fact that children’s access to education in rural areas was still much lower than in urban areas; that adult illiteracy was much higher in rural areas than in urban areas; that the quality of education was poorer in rural areas; and that most of the world’s poor and hungry lived in rural areas.  Education itself was a powerful tool for reducing poverty through giving voice to the poor; the problems and solutions of illiteracy and hunger were related.  Hungry children did not have the energy to attend school and to learn effectively.  Furthermore, education in the rural areas was made more complex by infrastructure problems, the urban bias in curricula, textbooks and teaching methods, and the fact that a child’s mother tongue was often not the language of instruction. 

Among the strategies put forward to promote education in rural areas, he suggested adjusting school calendars to rural life and economic routines; increasing community-based and community-owned learning activities; incorporating flexible approaches for nomads and other groups; overcoming social, cultural and poverty related barriers, especially for girls; and addressing security and safety issues.  Elaborating upon several UNESCO programmes for partnership in education, including programmes addressing the need for feeding at primary schools and incorporating civil society and non-governmental organizations, he said that in terms of international coordination, UNESCO had structured partnerships between national governments, multilateral and bilateral partnerships and partnerships with non-governmental organizations.  Finally, he said that the Global EFA Monitoring Report assessed the current status of EFA annually in terms of progress in implementing the commitments made at Dakar and the Millennium Development Goals.

JEAN MAJERES, Chief of the Employment Intensive Investment Branch of the International Labour Office, said that for this discussion, he intended to focus on policy tools that should enable the establishment of a better link between policy and action.  In this connection, he highlighted the Public Investment Programme, which was one of the main policy tools available to governments.  Economic development required economic growth, but for this growth to translate into benefits for the poor, it must generate jobs and incomes.  What was needed was employment-intensive growth.  The engine for growth was increased and sustained investment -– both public and private –- and the engine for poverty reduction was increased and sustained investment for the low-income groups.  Employment was the key factor.  In simple terms, it both contributed to the growth of output, and it remained the best means to distribute income.  Productive and remunerative employment must be an objective, not an afterthought. 

According to World Bank figures dating back to 1994, the most important component of the Public Investment Programme in developing countries was infrastructure and construction.  These investments had a huge employment creation and poverty reduction potential.  However, this potential remained largely untapped.  Many programmes around the world had shown that the labour-intensity of investments in a large number of sectors, though of course not all, could be substantially increased, without compromising on cost-effectiveness or on the quality of the end product.  For example, there was well documented evidence that for rural access roads, appropriate employment–based techniques existed that created three to five times more employment, at a lower cost than highly mechanized techniques and requiring less foreign exchange. 

Infrastructure investments for the low-income groups in the rural areas must improve their access to employment, to productive resources and to basic social services.  These investments must also include programmes to protect the productive resources and the natural resource base.  The Public Investment Programme was used above all as a financial channel to deliver physical outputs.  Public investment had a particular role to play as a catalyst to promote and support a number of policy objectives, such as job creation, decentralization, and capacity building for the private sector.  Through cooperation, the United Nations and its partners could support Member States to improve employment creation and poverty reducing outcomes of these public investments.  Policy development and integration were important elements in achieving the Millennium Development Goals.  However, nothing would be achieved from policies alone without operational tools to put policies into action. 

EDUARDO DORYAN, Special Representative to the United Nations of the World Bank Group, recalled that constraints on rural development were not a new phenomenon.  The implementation of internationally agreed goals was of primary importance in the global situation of today which was characterized by interdependence and a rapidly expanding population.  It was important to realize that what the United Nations currently had was a ‘laundry list’ of projects to be used in implementation.  What it needed to do was to turn this list into actual implementation architecture.  Among the questions this required asking at the national level were:  how were the outcomes of the major international conferences transmitted; what policy changes took place because of the conferences; and who was accountable for the failure or success of implementation?   And at the international level, such questions requiring answers included:  how were the outcomes embedded in institutional mandates; how did monitoring and evaluation take place; and who was accountable for ensuring implementation? 

In this quest to create an implementation architecture, he said the international community needed to examine the role of the Millennium Development Goals in terms of how they would fit into national strategies for implementation.  Effective national strategies should privilege a bottom-up approach, especially in regard of the evaluation and implementation of the internationally agreed goals.

LEV KOMLEV, of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), said the achievement of internationally agreed development goals was a core challenge for all developing countries.  It was true that rural development was at the heart of desirable sustained and sustainable development.  In the case of the least developed countries, rural development was a fundamental precondition of the reduction of extreme poverty and progress towards other development goals.  This was because the majority of the population of these countries lived in extreme poverty in rural areas.  Also, three quarters of least developed countries' labour force worked in the rural sector compared with one third in other developing countries.  In addition, during the past three decades the majority of least developed countries had seen a much slower decrease of birth rates than other developing countries, and the percentage share of agriculture in their GDP had been about two times higher.  In short, the poverty trap in which they were caught was characterized by vicious circles at different levels, ranging from the level of the household to the level of the international economy. 

Least developed countries must reduce supply-side constraints and increase their productive capacities, he continued.  This would allow them to increase the efficiency in their agricultural production and to allocate more resources to the production of alternative goods.  Development partners must support least developed countries by providing sufficient resources to them, including through increasing the level of debt relief and levels of official development assistance (ODA).  However, the lack of policy coherence could render even good development policies ineffective.  Agricultural production continued to be discouraged by a series of factors that were outside the control of least developed countries, such as subsidies in developed countries; tying of development aid; protective trade policies in more advanced countries; and unfavourable world market prices. 

THEMBA MASUKU, of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO),raised the issue of collaboration and cooperation in the field of rural development.  He said rural development was one of the core priorities of FAO in its partnership attempts to help developing countries achieve the Millennium Development Goals.  The FAO had issued  joint publications on the impact of HIV/AIDS on rural development and food security.  Concerning the aim to halve the number of people living in poverty by the year 2015, he stressed the need to ensure food security through increased production on a sustainable basis.  One of the distinguishing features of FAO’s food security programme was that it aimed towards participation at both the local and national levels.  The FAO field offices were responsible for the briefing of Governments and other shareholders of the special programmes, planning and formulation, and participation in the National Steering Committee when required.  Part of the Special Programme was training courses in rural areas in ground water control and diversification methods.  On the topic of donor partners, he explained that several joint missions had been undertaken by FAO and donor countries.  Particularly involved were the European Union, Japan, Republic of Korea, Libya and Switzerland.  Each project had a budget of around $ 1 million.  There was also a South-South initiative, an important aspect of the Special Programme seeking to gain more and more interested parties.

MARIA ELENA CHAVEZ, Deputy Director General of the International Cooperative Alliance, said all stakeholders -– the international community, governments, civil society including businesses, trade unions, and all people’s organizations -– must work together to reach the Millennium Development Goals.  Using her own organization as an example of the types of partnerships that must be increasingly developed, she said the International Cooperative Alliance brought together people from all sectors of the economy and also collaborated with a wide group of actors.  Its strength was that it was an enterprise and, therefore, not only provided goods and services, but also jobs and incomes so dearly needed for development.

She added that cooperatives provided 100 million jobs worldwide, 20 per cent more than multinational enterprises.  Enterprises of all types linking up with local communities to develop markets, products and services brought with them capacity building and training, and in many cases jobs and incomes.  The International Cooperative Alliance also participated in the International Agri-Food Network which linked various industries in the food chain, a partnership which she believed made rural development a reality.  However, the private sector in all its forms could only meet this large and growing responsibility within the appropriate legal and institutional frameworks, which were the responsibility of governments.  Security of land tenure, protection of intellectual property rights, availability of credit for rural development, a favourable investment and regulatory climate and expeditious customs procedures were just some of the conditions required.

Interactive Dialogue

A speaker suggested that the current state of the world economy, which had entered a long period of erratic and slow growth because of the lack of demand and gluts in labour and products, could indicate to the current discussion the need to look at how demand, whether for growth or for rural development, was triggered.

Another speaker asked for further information on the partnership programmes described by Mr. Singh, in terms of what was being done to forge further cooperation with additional agencies.

In response, Mr. SINGH recalled that there were nine EFA flagship programmes, which promoted interagency cooperation within the United Nations and with governments and civil society.  For example, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) was the lead agency for the Secretary-General’s programme for girls’ education, in which UNESCO was also involved.  Other UNESCO programmes had led to partnerships with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labour Office.  Each of the UNESCO programmes had its own website and was assessed individually.

Another delegate asked for elaboration on the impact of the World Trade Organization trade round on the consistency of development policies in countries.

Recalling the blurring of boundaries between the issues discussed at recent international conferences, Mr. DORYAN said that actions at the country level could be linked to those at the international level, and that influence flows did not operate on a one-way-only basis.  For example, increasing girls school attendance could have an impact, not only in the area of literacy, but also in addressing

such issues such as the need for increased security and for latrines -– which could provide a source of employment.  This could all lead to economic growth.

One speaker, noting that according to current statistics, only six African countries were experiencing growth at the rate necessary to attain the Millennium Development Goal of halving poverty, asked what should be done in the context of working together for rural development to transfer various commitments into action?

While Mr. Majeres noted that growth alone, if unaccompanied by increased employment, would not permit countries to attain the Millennium Development Goals, Mr. DORYAN said that in order to help countries to achieve these goals, there had to be capacity-building at the national level -– he predicted this would be the main subject of discussion at the international level, as well in 10 years’ time.  The donor community and development partners needed to support this capacity-building through directly budgeting for it -– through foreign direct investment.  As had been seen last Friday, one country (Senegal) had been examining the necessity to combat rural poverty, which necessitated adopting a comprehensive national plan.  Economic growth alone would not suffice to achieve development; there was a need for a comprehensive approach, which cut across sectors and involved all stakeholders.

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