Social Watch E-Newsletter - Issue 176 - July 11, 2014

Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations Network (PNGO) calls on the international community and the Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-Moon to provide an immediate international protection to the Palestinian people and exert immediate and urgent efforts to stop the Israeli occupation's aggression in the Gaza Strip.

PNGO warns that the Israeli occupation totally ignores the international conventions and treaties including the Fourth Geneva Convention by committing horrible crimes against the Palestinian civilians by targeting their houses using war jets, artilleries and gunboats in the light of the Israeli tight siege on the Gaza Strip. Read more

With 17 months before the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) reach their targets by the December 2015 deadline, the United Nations is trumpeting its limited successes – but with guarded optimism. “Global poverty has been halved five years ahead of the 2015 time frame,” says Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in the latest status report released Monday.

"Unfortunately, the trend in the U.N. secretary-general's office and many developed countries is to place hopes in private corporations and 'multi-stakeholder partnerships' that fudge the massive problems caused by many corporations." -- Yoke Ling Chee.

Roberto Bissio, director of the Uruguay-based Social Watch, told IPS the global average the United Nations celebrates is almost exclusively due to China – and most of that poverty reduction in China happened before the year 2000. “Thus the MDGs are credited with outcomes that happened before they existed,” he said. Read more

The 48 least developed countries (LDCs), described as the poorest of the world’s poor, want to be an integral part of the U.N.’s post-2015 development agenda currently under discussion. An Open-ended Working Group (OWG), which will continue its 13th round of negotiations next week, is expected to come up with a set of new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to replace the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which reach their deadline by the end of next year.

"The neo-liberal policies that have failed LDCs will continue to drive the agenda." -- Demba Dembele.
Dr. Arjun Karki, president of Rural Reconstruction Nepal, and international coordinator of LDC Watch, a network of LDC NGOs, said “there should be no more excuses, or failed development paradigms based on predatory economic liberalisation in trade, finance and investment which have only led to multiple crises and a widening inequality gap.” He said LDC Watch demands a “stand-alone goal” for LDCs so that the most vulnerable and marginalised countries are kept at centre stage. Read more

During the last meeting of Heads of State and Government of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS Summit), held in Durban, South Africa, in 2013, BRICS’ leaders announced the decision to establish, already in 2014, the BRICS Development Bank. For the next BRICS summit, to take place in the city of Fortaleza, Brazil, on July 14, 15 and 16, they announced signing of a formal agreement on this Bank, but there are still a lot of expectations and doubts about the basis on which it will be constituted.
IBASE (Brazilian Institute of Social and Economic Analysis) has been developing studies and debates with different organizations and social movements from the BRICS countries, in order to understand and analyze these national experiences and their major implications, both from the economic point of view (see “Development Banks in the BRICS Countries”) as from the social and environmental politics point of view (see “Transparency Policies and Socio-environmental safeguards”).
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The old debate around ends and means usually deals with unacceptable procedures claiming legitimacy because of the intended results. Not any more. In the current international debate around development goals for the United Nations, the “ends” are set so low that no major effort is really required from anybody. “No means are needed if the goals are meaningless” commented report editor-in-chief Roberto Bissio at its launch.

The Social Watch Report 2014, launched today in New York during the ministerial meeting of the High Level Political Forum of the UN, is a summary review of fifty country reports and an analysis of global trends by civil society organizations. The report, titled “Ends and Means” and it monitors how government and international institutions are doing in implementing their solemn commitments to eradicate poverty, achieve gender justice and promote sustainable development.

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