Social Watch E-Newsletter - Issue 316 - October 20, 2017

Issue 316 - October 20, 2017
Social Watch reports
Spotlight report on the 2030 Agenda
 
   
 

Cyprus: the SDGs as catalysts for solving the division

   
 

The Cypriot government strongly supported the process of developing the post-2015 sustainable development agenda and has repeatedly expressed its commitment to the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, it has yet to adopt a comprehensive policy framework for implementation of the goals in the national context, concludes the independent report contributed by the Center for the Advancement of Research & Development (CARDET), a member of the global Social Watch network. This report discusses the progress made towards a national strategic framework for the implementation of the SDGs and identifies the steps taken, the challenges and opportunities as well as the issue of budgeting. As Cyprus is a divided country looking for reunification, the SDGs could act as catalyst during the implementation of a solution to the national problem. Read more

 

   
   
 

The State-Private Sector-People Nexus: The Thai agriculture initiative

   
 

The SDGs have served as a pretext to include private sector representatives on high-level governmental bodies in Thailand. In the Sustainable Development Committee, civil society only plays a minor role when compared with businesses.
A government-initiated Civil-State (Pracha-Rath) policy aims to promote the role of the private sector in investment, establish cooperation between private sector and community enterprises and develop new agricultural schemes. Although this claims to help farmers by lowering the prices of chemical fertilizers, the Social Watch report notes that “the real intention is to boost the sales of these chemical agricultural materials”. The policy is “irrelevant to sustainable agricultural development” it claims, “because excessive usage of pesticides has always been a major problem for Thai farmers”.
On the positive side, the Thai report registers that public opposition to genetically modified organisms (GMOs) led to the cancellation of an attempt to amend the 1999 law on plant variety protection to include provisions favourable to seed companies. Read more

 

   
 
Social Watch publishes country reports 2017

Social Watch coalitions around the world are contributing their assessments and reports to the global Social Watch report 2017 on the national implementation of the 2030 Agenda in its first year. Stalled, or slipping back, is the theme that appears in many of the contributions. Natural and un-natural disasters, some of them of catastrophic proportions, appear again and again not just as an obstacle to faster progress towards the agreed goals, but in fact setting the clock back. Part of the reason for lack of progress has to do with an over-reliance on public-private partnerships, urged by the World Bank as a way to finance implementation of the SDGs.

The Social Watch national platforms are independent coalitions of civil society organizations struggling for social and gender justice in their own countries. The Social Watch network has been publishing since 1996 yearly reports on how governments implement their international commitments to eradicate poverty and achieve equality between women and men.

   
   
 

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) released their ranking of the best and worst cities to be a woman in Canada. The report, by CCPA senior researcher Kate McInturff, is now in its fourth year and provides an important snapshot of the discrimination faced by women across the country–underemployment, a persistent wage gap, and life-threatening barriers when it comes to health, personal security, and more.
It is also a wake-up call–a reminder that in the absence of meaningful government intervention, Canada's gender gap has persisted.
Canadian prime minister is setting a feminist agenda for his government. That means federal departments are starting to ask the right questions about how their policies and programs impact men and women differently. It’s a start. But as they're trying to close the gender gaps in jobs, education, health, safety and more, they need funding and action working together so that every city in Canada can be a good place to be a woman. Read more

 
   
   
 

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) should change its priorities and finally let go of the outdated conditionalities of privatization, deregulation of markets, and "austerity" in social services, which in the past have engendered human rights violations, and instead make loans subject to a new set of conditions. This is the view of the Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, Mr Alfred de Zayas (of the United States), in a report presented to the seventy-second session of the UN General Assembly in New York.
Bearing in mind that power dynamics are changing the international order, it is time for the World Bank and IMF to revisit their Articles of Agreement and discover their new vocation to promote development and human rights through "smart" lending practices that benefit not only banks and speculators, but billions of human beings, he said. Read more

 
   

 

 
SOCIAL WATCH IS AN INTERNATIONAL NGO WATCHDOG NETWORK MONITORING POVERTY ERADICATION AND GENDER EQUALITY
Social Watch >>
Social Watch E-Newsletter
For comments, sugestions, collaborations contact us at:
socwatch@socialwatch.org
To stop receiving this newsletter send a message with the subject "unsubscribe" to: 
socwatch@socialwatch.org