Social Watch E-Newsletter - Issue 143 - August 23, 2013

"A life of dignity for all" should be the common goal of world governments, says Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the United Nations in the report sent on Friday August 16 to the General Assembly of the UN.

In his report, Ban proposes as overarching objectives "Poverty eradication, inclusive growth targeting inequality, protecting and managing the natural resource base of our planet within a rights-based framework and cognizant of the nexus between peace and development ". This requires "economic shifts to sustainable patterns of production and consumption, effective governance and a renewed global partnership and means of implementation."

A comment by Roberto Bissio. Read more

Authorities from several countries and international experts took part in a high-level panel discussion in the context of ECLAC's First session of the Regional Conference on Population and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean in Montevideo, Uruguay, where they highlighted the importance of a paradigm change in the current development model, with a view to constructing a post-2015 regional agenda.

Meeting participants analysed the region's current situation, which is more resilient than developed economies while also facing many challenges in terms of equality, productivity and sustainability. They agreed on the need for consensus around a development agenda based on equality with a medium-term vision and a clear sequence of events: closing remaining gaps in terms of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), placing people at the heart, and aiming for universal sustainable development goals (SDGs).

Read more

"Citizen monitoring and accountability of governments, corporations and international institutions are essential for a new development agenda to succeed".

Roberto Bissio, Coordinator of Social Watch, shares his reflections on the Social Watch Philippines' National Consultation on the High Level Report on the Post 2015 Agenda.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKiTyM9gz88

For Bolivia – and generally the rest of Latin America—the demands for economic and social inclusion during the 1960s and 70s were associated to the struggle for greater political participation and the transition to democratic government. Therefore, social organizations devoted their energy to fighting dictatorships, considering that political rights and democratic openness would bring as a consequence the much-awaited economic democratization and the improvements in life standards for the whole population.

But political participation in democracy through voting (but delegated in terms of representation to the monopoly of the political parties) and progress in respect for individual political rights (recognition to ethnical, gender and other differences) came together with a liberal economic model based on deeply despotic premises. These were the obsession to maintain stable macroeconomic variables, reducing the State’s role to a minimum of regulation and welfare provision with goals according to those imposed by our main advisors, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, in the application of the new recipe. These latter, in turn, would spare no resources in loans to support such changes. 

An article by Gustavo Gómez, CEDLA.

Read more