UNDER-SECRETARY-GENERAL STRESSES SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION’S PROFOUND ROLE IN SHAPING DEVELOPMENT COOPERATION AGENDA, AS 41ST SESSION OPENS
| Press Release SOC/4622 |
Commission for Social Development
Forty-first Session
2nd & 3rd Meetings (AM & PM)
UNDER-SECRETARY-GENERAL STRESSES SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION’S PROFOUND
ROLE IN SHAPING DEVELOPMENT COOPERATION AGENDA, AS 41ST SESSION OPENS
Commission Chair Says International Cooperation
Categorical Imperative for Fulfilling Social Development Goals
The Commission for Social Development began its forty-first session today, with Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs Nitin Desai stressing the Commission’s “profound role” in shaping the agenda for development cooperation.
For a long time, said Mr. Desai, it had been the Commission that had shaped the broader agenda that had emerged from the World Summit on Social Development (Copenhagen, 1995). Further, much of what was in the Millennium Development Goals was derived from issues included in the Copenhagen Programme of Action. Among the areas in which the Commission could add value was through its focus on the specific groups, such as youth and family, as well as being an important forum for national exchanges.
The Commission’s Chairman, Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury (Bangladesh), said that the current session’s theme, “National and International Cooperation for Social Development”, was daunting, in that it was so broad, and challenging in that it was so complex. However, “just as the kite rose against the wind”, he had no doubt that the Commission too would rise to the occasion, and its efforts would come to fruition in the delivery of a meaningful outcome.
Effective international cooperation, he said, was a categorical imperative for fulfilling social development goals. Developing countries needed resources, as well as the knowledge and capacity for their utilization. Such cooperation should be designed to reduce the information gap, help build capacity, promote a fair trading regime, protect the resource base, and generate employment and well-being of the people.
Also today, the Commission heard two country presentations. Rajan Katoch, Joint Secretary of the National Planning Commission of India, presented his country’s experience with the publication of subnational human development reports and their impact on social development.
Likewise, Siguian Compaore, National Project Coordinator from Burkina Faso, spoke about the assistance rendered by the Department of Economic and Social
Affairs (DESA) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to develop a poverty monitoring and analysis system at both the national and local levels.
The Commission also heard presentations by Adil Khan, Chief of the Socio-Economic Governance and Management Branch, DESA; Peter Gudgeon, Interregional Adviser in the Division for Social Policy and Development; Julio D’Arcy, Interregional Adviser; and Bob Huber, Officer-in-Charge of the Social Integration Branch of the Division.
In addition, Johan Scholvinck, Director of the Division for Social Policy and Development, presented the documentation for the current session, and Jacques Baudot, Coordinator of the International Forum for Social Development, presented the outcome of that meeting.
In other action today, the Commission elected Ivana Grollova (Czech Republic) as Vice-Chairperson from the Eastern European Group, and agreed that Vice-Chairperson Nicole Elisha (Benin) would serve as Rapporteur. Also, the Commission adopted its agenda and programme of work.
The Commission will meet again at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, 12 February, to begin its general discussion.
Background
The Commission for Social Development met this morning to begin its forty-first session. The theme for the current two-week session is “National and International Cooperation for Social Development”. (For further background, see Press Release SOC/4621 issued on 6 February.
Statements
IFTEKHAR AHMED CHOWDHURY (Bangladesh), Chairman of the Commission, said that the current theme “National and International Cooperation for Social Development” was critical to contemporary times. It corresponded to the urges of vast segments of humanity. It was daunting in that it was so broad. It was challenging in that it was so complex. However, just as the kite rose against the wind, he had no doubt that the Commission, too, would rise to the occasion, and its efforts would come to fruition in the delivery of a meaningful outcome.
He also mentioned the five sub-themes that would be addressed: sharing of experiences and practices in social development; forging partnerships for social development; social responsibility of the private sector; impact of employment strategies on social development; and policies and role of international financial institutions and their effect on social development strategies.
The other item on the agenda, the review of relevant United Nations plans and programmes of action pertaining to the situation of social groups, was equally important, he said. Under it, the Commission would examine and deliberate on issues of youth, disabled persons, the family and ageing, particularly relating to modalities for the review and appraisal of the Madrid International Plan of Action.
Indeed, he continued, effective international cooperation was a categorical imperative to fulfil social development goals. Developing countries needed resources, as well as the knowledge and capacity for their utilization. Therefore, they needed international cooperation to make those available. Such cooperation should be designed to reduce the information gap, help build capacity, promote a fair trading regime, protect the resource base and generate employment and the well-being of the people.
It was his belief that economic and social development could take place against a matrix of pluralism, democracy, good governance, human rights, gender justice and women’s empowerment. However, it could not be fully achieved without international support.
NITIN DESAI, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, stressed that the Commission had played a profound role in shaping the agenda for development cooperation. For a long time, it had been the Commission that had shaped the broader agenda that emerged from the World Summit on Social Development (Copenhagen, 1995) and its subsequent “plus five” meeting. Also, much of what was in the Millennium Development Goals was derived from issues included in the Copenhagen Programme of Action. The Millennium Development Goals were providing an important organizing principle for development cooperation and were attracting a great deal of support for their implementation.
Also important, he said, was the growing role of social development in the mandates emerging in other areas, such as the Doha round of trade negotiations and the Monterrey Conference on Financing for Development. In addition, there had been a growing recognition that the outcomes of the different conferences were highly interlinked. For that reason, the General Assembly had set up a working group to consider a more integrated follow-up to the United Nations conferences.
Given that growing desire to better connect the various processes, and the growing importance the social dimension had in other development discourses, where could the Commission truly add value? he asked. Among the areas in which it could add value was through its focus on the specific groups, such as youth and family. Also, the particular characteristics of each country needed to be recognized and for that reason the Commission was an important forum for national exchanges.
Turning to the priority theme, he said that in many ways the social dimension was one of the most important driving forces in policy development. The drive for development with a human face had led to the Social Summit and all that came after it. There were many anxieties about globalization, arising from the notion that the way in which that phenomenon was proceeding did not allow for the pursuit of social development at the national level.
A big change in the post-war world, he noted, was the role of the private sector and the issue of social responsibility. An important initiative in that regard had been the corporate reporting initiative, which focused on reporting the social and environmental effects of corporate activities. There was a huge interest in the corporate sector in that regard. The increasing role of global civil society was also crucial.
Introduction of Reports
JOHAN SCHOLVINCK, Director, Division for Social Policy and Development, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, introduced the Secretary-General’s reports. While international cooperation, especially international economic cooperation, was well defined, the concept of international cooperation for social development had received less consideration. Every country’s social development agenda covered vast terrain and no report, however comprehensive, could pretend to be exhaustive.
Highlighting key elements of the five sub-themes identified in the Secretary-General’s report, “National and international cooperation for social development”, he said that the first theme -- sharing of experiences and practices in social development -- was vast in and of itself. National capacity-building was an essential key to development. With the adoption of the United Nations Millennium Declaration, the United Nations system had focused on capacity-building in its operational and other activities. Building the capacity of developing countries to create effective structures and to formulate policies for development was a primary objective of international cooperation.
The second theme -- partnerships -– was a core theme of the report as a whole, he said. In discussing various forms of partnerships, the report highlighted some important lessons from recent experiences with social development partnerships. Partnerships should not be considered a substitute for multilateral efforts. The report highlighted the role of the international financial institutions and their effect on national social development strategies. International financial institutions should strengthen their efforts to ensure that concern for improved social outcomes was incorporated into their policies.
Regarding the sub-theme, social responsibility of the private sector, he said that many countries were emphasizing the social responsibility of the private sector. That was in no small measure due to the growing awareness of the indispensable role of market mechanisms and forces in the process of development. As a basic guide to minimum standards, the private sector should apply internationally acknowledged legal norms, treaties and agreements.
He said the impact of employment strategies on social development was another complex sub-theme. Social partners, especially employers and trade unions, were crucial in achieving national consensus on how employment policies were designed and implemented. Social dialogue should be the cornerstone of employment strategy formation. There was an urgent need for increased cooperation in the area of international migration, to ensure that migratory labour movements at the global level did not derail national employment strategies.
Social development was generally seen as a national task, supported by the international community largely by means of aid, capacity-building and technical cooperation, he said. That was strange, in that the Millennium Declaration was most decidedly of a social nature. While the international community had committed itself to reaching a number of social goals by 2015, it had no mechanism to deal with those goals directly. He hoped that the Commission’s agreed conclusions would be able to rectify the ultimately untenable situation.
The first section of the “World Youth Report 2003” contained a review of the current global situation of young people, he continued. The report contained a brief review of the 10 priority areas of the World Programme of Action for Youth to the Year 2000 and Beyond, as well as five new issues. The second section of the report presented an evaluation of the World Youth Forum of the United Nations system, last held in Dakar in August 2001.
The report entitled, “Preparations for the tenth anniversary of the International Year of the Family in 2004”, included suggestions for a successful observance of the anniversary. The tenth anniversary of the International Year would be observed in 2004 for several reasons, including the need to increase awareness of family issues and to stimulate efforts to respond to problems affecting the situation of families.
The report on the review and appraisal of the World Programme of Action concerning Disabled Persons had three objectives, he said, including the review of trends and policies since the General Assembly’s last review during its fifty-second session. A basic conclusion of the review was the strong commitment of governments to equalize opportunities and to promote the rights of persons with disability in the context of development. Advancements of persons with disabilities in a broad human rights framework would require fresh thinking.
The Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing contained 18 issues and 239 recommendations, he said. There was no way to effectively follow the plethora of recommendations at the global level. Effective implementation had to run via regional entities to the national and local levels. The Secretariat’s note advocated a “bottom-up” approach. Issues of ageing varied not only from country to country, but also within countries. The review should start at the local level, with close involvement of civil society, especially older persons themselves.
JACQUES BAUDOT, Coordinator of the International Forum for Social Development, presented the findings of the second meeting of the Forum, held last October in New York. The Forum, launched 15 months ago, was an initiative of Department of Economic and Social Affairs bringing together persons from different regions, mostly representatives of civil society, for informal debates on issues of international cooperation and development. The subject of the second meeting, “Cooperation for Social Development: The International Dimension”, was relevant to part of the priority theme of the Commission’s agenda.
He made the following four points drawn from the Forum’s debate. The first pertained to the question of the conception of social development. While there was a minimalist and a comprehensive conception of social development, the Forum took a comprehensive approach. It considered international cooperation for development, in its various normative and operational dimensions, and attempted a broad assessment of the effects of that cooperation on the social development of developing countries. In other words, it took a social perspective on international cooperation.
The second point concerned the question of the very existence of social policy as an identifiable domain of public action, comparable to economic policy, trade policy or foreign policy. The ideas that permeated the dominant political culture and that, to a growing extent, gave a contour to international cooperation for development, seemed to marginalize social policy and contribute to its disappearance from the domain of political action.
Third was the central and related question of the coherence of the various facets of international cooperation for development, he continued. The sentiment of the Forum was that such coherence left much to be desired. It was felt that the issue was a subject deserving greater consideration, under the leadership of the United Nations.
Fourth, he continued, the social development of developing countries implied the participation of those countries in the globalization process; in the benefits, costs and in the decisions that gave it its orientations. A greater and more institutionalized participation of developing countries in the globalization process was a necessity, and would increase the likelihood of that process being beneficial to the maximum number of people.
Country Presentations
Mr. SCHOLVINCK said that never before in the Commission’s history had there been an attempt to link its normative work with its work in the field.
ADIL KHAN, Chief of the Socio-Economic Governance and Management Branch, Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), presented an overview of the work of that branch. The two countries presenting today had been selected because of the innovative work they had undertaken in the area of social development, he said. The presentation was based on the Commission’s mandates at the country level and would provide an overview of the DESA advisory services. In 1966, the Economic and Social Council first recognized the linkage between social and economic development. Also in 1966, the Commission recognized the need to link United Nations technical cooperation to the Commission’s mandates.
In 1995, the issues of human and social development were given greater priority, he said. The term “governance” first appeared in the development nomenclature. The General Assembly special session in 2000 reaffirmed the Copenhagen commitments. Due to globalization, the world had witnessed both economic growth and inequality. The need for an equitable and just trading system was also articulated for the first time. The Millennium Development Goals highlighted the need to eradicate extreme poverty, gender equality, improved maternal health, among other things. The Millennium Development Goals included time-bound, physical targets.
The vanguard of social development, engagement with the private sector, required a major value shift, he said. The Department of Economic and Social Affairs provided advocacy, policy advice, capacity-building, and the introduction of tools for mainstreaming social development. Enhancing partnerships and strengthening social capital was another important area for development management.
To implement its technical cooperation activities, the Branch used both regular budget and extrabudgetary resources. Extrabudgetary resources were demand based and funded more than 90 per cent of the Branch’s activities. The total programme budget amounted to some $101.7 million. The 2002 annual budget was some $20 million. Africa accounted for the highest percentage in terms of regional distribution. Countries, mostly through the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), funded extrabudgetary activities. Regular budget funds –- some $2 million -- were equally allocated among the various regions.
The Branch’s activities also included building partnerships; enhancing social capital; gender mainstreaming; and strengthening corporate responsibility, post-conflict development and institution-building. DESA was well-positioned to assist in change and advocacy. The Department was close to the Commission. Its location in the Secretariat gave it a neutral position vis-à-vis the countries. Many of its activities were funded through a trust fund.
The Department was also well positioned to transfer knowledge throughout the countries, he added. It was less equipped to implement downstream techncial activities. In recent times, subnational development reports had proved an effective tool for raising social consciousness and mainstreaming social development in the overall parameters of the government. One important initiative was the South Asian Citizens Social Charter. In the Arab region, Saudi Arabia was trying to incorporate a model of social expenditure. The Department also had activities in countries with economies in transition.
Support and resources were needed to mainstream Millennium Development Goals into the national development framework, he said. While demands were increasing, resources were decreasing. Doing more with less was the challenge. Expanding governance without increasing government was the challenge. Many countries had experienced economic growth, while remaining poor.
The representatives of Argentina, El Salvador and Cuba asked several questions on social development issues in Latin America. The representative of Cuba asked what the role of the public sector was in public services.
Mr. KHAN said that government participation did not mean government control.
RAJAN KATOCH, Joint Secretary of the National Planning Commission of India, presented his country’s experience entitled, “Operationalizing Social Development through National Human Development Reports: The Indian Experience”. The presentation focused on the Indian State of Madhya Pradesh, which published a subnational human development report –- the first anywhere in the world -– as well as the impact of the report.
He noted that in India, a union of 28 States, social sector responsibilities lay with individual States. Although progress had been made, the country still had a long road to travel. Also, the progress had been uneven with emerging regional disparities. Therefore, more disaggregated data was needed. For example, the infant mortality rate of one State was four times that of another State. Madhya Pradesh was one of four Indian States with the poorest social indicators. The making of the report was left largely to experts in the field and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with experience in Madhya Pradesh.
The report had been released at a very high level, with much media attention, he said. It had also provoked political reactions and had several domestic effects. The report was received positively by civil society and the media. In addition, three other States announced that they, too, would publish their own human development reports.
The report had brought human development to the forefront, he stated. It had also become an instrument of policy, resulting, for example, in increases in State health and education expenditures. In addition, some NGOs felt it was a useful tool and others used the report to pressure the Government on its human development agenda. It had also led to a government-NGO collaboration to draw up a livelihood strategy for the State. Since its publication, four more States had also published their own State human development reports -– Karnataka, Sikkim, Rajasthan and Maharashtra.
SIGUIAN COMPAORE, National Project Coordinator from Burkina Faso, said his country had some 11.3 million inhabitants with an annual per capita gross domestic product (GDP) of some $220. Despite high economic growth in the 1990s, the country remained poor. Burkina Faso’s human development index was among the lowest in the world. Some 61.2 per cent of the population lived below the
$1 per day poverty line. In 1999, the Government had prepared a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) involving the range of civil society actors. The process to implement the framework involved capacity-building and called for the international community’s support. The Monterrey Summit had highlighted the key role of the PRSP in achieving the Millennium Development Goals.
Burkina Faso’s poverty reduction strategy involved a range of activities, such as those to strengthen participation at the local level, he said. The country’s long-term strategy was holistic in nature. The UNDP provided the funding for the project and DESA provided technical support. The Government was also working in partnership with other bodies, including the World Bank, the European Union and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
The implementation of the project had enabled the Government to implement the recommendations of the 1995 Copenhagen Summit, he said. Burkina Faso was one of the first countries to implement a poverty reduction strategy, which meant that it had not been able to draw on the experience of other countries. Lessons learned included the need to ensure capacity building and better coordination in the efforts of development partners. Key challenges included enhancing the participatory process by building the capacities of the different stakeholders, strengthening the follow-up system and improving cooperation with development partners.
SERGE BOUDA, Minister of Finance of Burkina Faso, thanked the Commission for its interest in the case of Burkina Faso. He supported the main thrust of the presentation, which, among other things, stressed the need for greater involvement in the war on poverty. Partnership was at the core of the campaign against poverty. Within the State, that meant redistributing responsibilities between the central Government and local communities. In 2003, Burkina Faso would revise its strategic framework and, where necessary, mainstream the Millennium Development Goals into the poverty reduction framework. The Government planned to hold a round table to strengthen the international community’s commitment in assisting Burkina Faso’s achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.
PETER GUDGEON, Interregional Adviser in the Division for Social Policy and Development, spoke on the social implications of macroeconomic management in the Middle East. Since 1990, DESA had assisted the Saudi Government in updating its planning and economic management systems. It was a multi-sectoral project within the Saudi Ministry of Planning, undertaken in partnership with the UNDP.
Saudi Arabia, he noted, accounted for 25 per cent of the world’s oil reserves and was strategically important in the region. Over the last 20 years, despite government efforts, the country was still heavily dependent on oil.
With the fluctuating price of oil, the mainstay of economic growth had faltered. GDP per capita had declined over the last 20 years and the growth rate had also fallen, due to the lack of a diversified economy.
One of the most serious social consequences of the declining growth rate was a decrease in the employment rate, he said. Population growth was 3 per cent per annum, and the country was facing a huge problem with Saudi nationals being employed. “Saudization” of the work force was a major issue. The Government had tried to strengthen its economic diversification policy. Also, there had been a move towards privatization and encouragement for growth, through private sector stimulation. The policy was beginning to pay off and should yield results in the next five to 10 years.
DESA technical cooperation fell under three main areas, he said. They were the development of a new suite of short- and medium-term economic models, development of the long-term strategic planning model and support for the Saudi vision and development strategy. The DESA could provide valuable partner to those countries seeking one. The Saudi project was one example of such a partnership.
JULIO D’ARCY, Interregional Adviser in DESA, made his presentation entitled, “Training Workshop in the Latin American Context on the Follow-up to the World Summit for Social Development”. The commitments of the Social Summit and their implementation were the framework within which the activities of the subregional network in Latin America and the Caribbean were carried out. DESA authorities had used development funding to support those efforts. The main objective of the network was to strengthen national capacity to follow up on activities to implement the Copenhagen commitments.
The first workshop was organized with the Guatemalan Government in November 2000, he said. As a result, the eight participating countries formed a subregional network to better implement the Summit’s commitments. The second workshop, held in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines in November 2001, had adopted a model for network activities and a plan of action for 2002 to 2003 to consolidate its activities. In 2002, the Mexican Government had organized a meeting with the representatives of the same eight countries to discuss indicators and indexes to implement the Copenhagen commitments and Millennium Declaration follow-up. Another network get together was being planned for the end of February.
The network sought to strengthen the capability of national institutions and the capacity of government and civil society by exchanging information and experiences through training and other activities. It did so through the use of institutional and technical instruments. Among the issues addressed was how to link Summit follow-up with national policy formulation.
Turning to the lessons learned, he said that institutions were interested in implementation of the Summit’s commitments. There was also interest in having a regional vision. In addition, there was a gap between international commitments and action at the national level. The network might become an efficient tool to help fill that gap.
BOB HUBER, Officer in Charge of the Social Integration Branch, Division for Social Policy and Development, in a presentation entitled “mainstreaming a social component in policy development”, said that social analysis had first been discussed as a tool at the Copenhagen Summit. At that time, however, it had been seen only as a tool for assessing the impact of structural adjustment. Five years later, the General Assembly special session considered social assessment in a far greater context. It was seen as a tool to promote participatory assessment in bringing the views of people of all categories in anti-poverty strategies. It called for the establishment of participatory mechanisms.
Social assessment as a policy tool was one of the Commission’s sub-themes last year, he said. The Division had developed an international project, in which it selected small-scale projects in various countries. The underlying structure of the project included identifying national counterparts and training for civil society actors on the methodology of social assessment techniques. Participants were assisted in carrying out studies at the field level with the training they received. The next step was to ensure that the results of the studies were reintegrated into government policy. The last step was to integrate institutional social assessment at the country level, through institutional mechanisms.
The Division was trying to introduce the use of social assessment in macroeconomic sectors to obtain social feedback, he said. To do that, the Division was studying the process itself to ensure that outcomes of social research impacted on policy formulation. The project had received positive feedback. A major issue was the presentation of the project’s findings to minimize defensiveness in the people receiving the results. Future priorities included identification of local partners, training in methodologies and training field researchers. The Division had had good results in Jamaica and Bulgaria in terms of institutionalization.
DIANE MARIE QUARLESS (Jamaica) said the presentations had underlined the link between the Commission’s work and what happened in the field. She was
impressed by applications of the two case studies, particularly India’s presentation on the subnational Human Development Report and the importance on social issues in the planning process. The use of social assessment as a policy tool had been beneficial in Jamaica. The process of reforming the social safety net required specific requirements. The social assessment tool provided a new kind of approach in terms of a participatory qualitative assessment.
PHILIP ANDREW EVANS (United Kingdom) said the United Kingdom was pleased to provide funding for the work on social assessment. The results achieved so far were encouraging. A characteristic of the work was that it was being done by national partners, who could best judge the merits of social assessment. The benefits of social assessment were being increasingly recognized. They improved understanding between social goals and other key areas of policy. Social assessment contributed to the formulation of better social policy. It also strengthened accountability and forged partnerships between governments and civil society.
The United Kingdom’s support extended beyond DESA, he said. The United Kingdom was also working with PRSP countries on the development of poverty and social impact analysis. Partnership was a key word in all the work, including between governments and the international community. He encouraged DESA to disseminate the results of its work and to work with others to develop that important tool.
Summing up the discussion, Mr. KHAN said that the overall feedback from the Commission was appreciation of the technical cooperation work done by DESA over the past 30 years. After the presentation of the overview paper, El Salvador spoke of subregional networking and how that had benefited from technical cooperation provided by DESA. Cuba supported that view, saying that such cooperation should continue and be sustained to ensure national implementation of the Summit’s commitments. It was that sort of partnership that led to better quality implementation.
India’s case was unique and had shown how a tool such as the human development report could be used to mainstream social concerns in the overall development agenda, he said. It also showed that the report should not be taken up and then forgotten as just another document. Emphasis should be given to follow up and action. The Burkina Faso example also extolled the virtues of partnership to analyse, assess and plan poverty alleviation programmes. The Saudi example highlighted how an oil-rich country was passing through a difficult time and how social development issues were becoming increasingly important.
The Latin American experience, he said, showed that sustained advocacy could and had produced results and that regional efforts could contribute to capacity-building efforts at the national level. Social assessment could also be an important tool, as another presenter had stated. That presentation highlighted the challenges in mainstreaming social assessment as a tool within policy planning of governments.
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