Social Watch E-Newsletter - Issue 140 - August 2, 2013

The global financial crisis led to greater job loss and poverty among women than men while rising food prices and responsibility for social reproduction take excessive tolls on the livelihoods of women.

Financial crises and austerity measures to combat crises undermine the human rights to work, education, health and nourishment and the capacity to provide care and social reproduction. Their consequences are particularly acute for women who are held responsible for reproduction and face unequal gender relations that function to deny them access to resources and opportunities. Regulation and recovery must therefore be rooted in a human rights based approach taking special note of women's rights and impacts on social reproduction.

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This year Social Watch Philippines and the Alternative Budget Initiative or ABI will particularly scrutinize the Priority Development Assistance Fund or “pork barrel” and the transfers and allocations for the government’s Special Purpose Funds. Department allocations will also be assessed by the Initiative, particularly the allocations for health, education, agriculture, social welfare and the environment.

It’s that time of the year again when Congress debates and finalizes the National Budget for 2014. Budget hearings, pork barrels, agency allocations and special purpose funds will be, or should be, buzzwords in media for the next few months.

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According to the  Millennium Development Goals Report 2013, launched by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, since their adoption more than 13 years ago, significant and substantial progress has been made in meeting many of the eight Millennium Development Goals.

However, progress is uneven, particularly for women and girls, and in many areas far from sufficient.

Too many women around the world are still dying in childbirth when we have the means to save them; only 53 per cent of births in rural areas are attended by skilled health personnel. In developing regions, women are more likely than men to work as contributing family workers on farms or other family businesses, with little or no financial security or social benefits.

The report also acknowledges that persisting gender-based inequalities in decision-making continue to deny women a say in the decisions that affect their lives.

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In his last speech as president of the United States, General Dwight Eisenhower, warned in 1961 that “we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex”.

Reformulating this famous alarm, last July 26 Peter Buffett wrote an opinion piece in The New York Times, where, under the title of “The Charitable-Industrial Complex" he explains how "inside any important philanthropy meeting, you witness heads of state meeting with investment managers and corporate leaders. All are searching for answers with their right hand to problems that others in the room have created with their left”.

A comment by Roberto Bissio.

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