Economic and Social Council

2008 Substantive Session

25^th Meeting (AM)

UNITED NATIONS EFFORTS MUST ENSURE RURAL SECTORS OF DEVELOPING COUNTRIES BECOME

ENGINES OF ECONOMIC GROWTH, ECOSOC TOLD, AS COORDINATION SEGMENT CONCLUDES

Drawing attention to the challenges ahead for the United Nations in its efforts to eradicate poverty and hunger, and adopt a more comprehensive approach to addressing those issues, the Economic and Social Council concluded its coordination segment today amid calls to help developing countries build capacities that would ensure their rural sectors became engines of economic growth.

The theme of this year’s coordination segment focused on the role of the United Nations system in implementing the ministerial declaration of the high-level segment of the Council’s 2007 substantive session.

Against that backdrop, Assistant Secretary-General for Policy Coordination and Inter-Agency Affairs Thomas Stelzer said the follow-up to the 2007 Ministerial Declaration had provided an opportunity to address several important dimensions of poverty and hunger, which were crucial guideposts for the United Nations’ overall work, food security, rural development, violence against women in all its forms and manifestations among them.

At the same time, he said the global food crisis had emphasized the tenuous link between crafting an immediate response to food needs and formulating longer-term strategies.  Today, there was consensus on the need to address food security, climate change and development challenges in a comprehensive manner, and attention now would be given to making that idea operational.  The entire system needed to refocus on the rural sector to ensure it became a growth engine.  The United Nations could play an important role in formulating poverty eradication policies and supporting countries in their allocation of scarce resources.

He stressed that a lack of economic opportunity, poor infrastructure and limited social services, particularly education, only compounded the problem of creating employment in rural areas, which was crucial for poverty eradication.  Violence against women was also an impediment and prevention was essential.  Better tools were needed to tackle that problem, and the functional commission had a critical role to play in that regard.

The day also featured a round-table discussion on “Coherence:  strengthening the normative and operational link in the work of the United Nations on rural employment”, which provided an opportunity to review how -- and to what extent -- the United Nations had embraced the directives of functional commissions in its programmes and operations.

Speaking on the panel were:  Tareq Md. Ariful Islam, Vice-Chairperson of the Council for Social Development; Olivier Belle, Chairperson of the Commission on the Status of Women; Juan Eduardo Eguiguren, representative of the Chairperson of the Commission on Science and Technology for Development; José Eduardo Dantas Ferreira Barbosa, President of the Executive Board of the World Food Programme; and Zdzisław Rapacki, Chairperson of the Governing Council of the International Labour Organization.  Assane Diop, Executive Director of the Social Protection Sector of the International Labour Organization moderated the panel.

Taking the floor first, Mr. Islam, speaking on behalf of Kirsti Lintonen, Chairperson for the Commission for Social Development, recalled past efforts to make full employment and decent work a central objective of development strategies, saying that the draft resolution adopted at the Commission’s 2007 review segment had set out a policy framework to achieve those goals.

An increased focus on rural employment was crucial for achieving the Millennium Development Goals and, with that in mind, the United Nations should help boost economic activities in rural areas, notably by creating low-end employment opportunities and establishing skill-training facilities.  It could play a pivotal role in complementing -- or even spurring -- national efforts, particularly in resource-strapped countries.  “The bottom line is to increase the employability of the marginalized rural workforce,” he said.

Mr. Belle focused his remarks on the lack of positive news for improving the lives of rural women, who were responsible for 60 to 80 per cent of food production.  There was growing concern that rural women’s employment did not actually provide them with a sustainable livelihood, and that they continued to be at a disadvantage to men in their work.  A significant number of women were involved in seasonal employment, which created income instability, and other inequalities persisted in their access to land and property rights.

Those were not new problems, he said, and he suggested strengthening the link between the Council’s deliberations and what was expected on the ground.  The many United Nations entities were valuable tools for helping local authorities implement the Council’s ideas.  Further, gender-sensitivity must be integrated into the Council’s work. “We cannot do that out of the blue,” he said, noting the need for precise indicators on violence against women, and other gender-sensitive indicators.

Next, Mr. Eguiguren said the Geneva-based Commission on Science and Technology for Development had observed that, in many countries, coherence between national information and communications technology policies and national development and poverty reduction strategies was inadequate.  In poorer rural areas especially, the potential of the Internet and other information and communications technology was not being fully utilized.  With that in mind, the Commission had recommended a draft resolution for the Council’s consideration for adoption this month, which called for “increased international cooperation at all levels and among all stakeholders to help rural areas access and benefit from the Internet and ICTs in general”.

Some of the Commission’s work had translated into concrete operations and programmes on the ground, he said.  Under a United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) initiative to set up a network of centres of excellence, which aimed to boost South-South cooperation in scientific research, more than 100 African scientists had been trained in such areas as agricultural genetic engineering, and information and communications technology applications for agriculture.

Mr. Rapacki said factors such as the persistence of rural poverty, rapid urbanization, globalization and climate change, along with the recent massive run-up in food and commodity prices, had thrown a spotlight on the need to urgently take collective broad-based action to reduce rural poverty.  Agriculture, among the largest rural “employers” for women, was characterized by diverse benefits and detriments:  while it generated a significant number of jobs, those jobs were heavily tied to seasonal factors and weather fluctuations.

At the same time, while rural economies were diverse and complex, rural labour markets were often characterized by relatively unskilled workers, low wages and low productivity, he continued.  Given that, increasing diversification and agricultural productivity through technical progress and investment were central to poverty reduction.

The final panellist, Mr. Barbosa, said such factors as an increasingly interconnected food supply chain, the rapid rise of supermarkets, and growing urbanization were “changing the face of agriculture in the twenty-first century”, creating benefits and risks in the rural developing world.  In Africa, where an estimated 54 million small-scale farms supported over 270 million people and produced some 81 million metric tons of food, many were unable to seize opportunities.  Constraints abounded, such as high transaction costs, asymmetric market information and weak small-holder market power.  Innovations for overcoming such problems existed, however, including in the provision of insurance products for poor farmers.

During a brief interactive discussion, speakers from developing countries welcomed strengthened cooperation between the major United Nations commissions on bolstering rural employment, but also called for concrete examples of programmes under way or joint initiatives under discussion.  Several things needed to be addressed urgently, including how poor countries could take advantage of the current food crisis to boost agricultural production, and, in turn, rural employment.  Others called for help building developing country capacities in the areas of information and communications technology to improve knowledge about job market requirements and market trends.

The Economic and Social Council will reconvene at 10 a.m. Thursday, 10 July, to begin consideration of its operational activities segment, which will feature a keynote address by United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro.

* *** *

For information media • not an official record