Social Watch will organize -together with different partners- a number of meetings during the World Social Forum 2015 to be held from March 24 -28 in Tunisia.
These meetings will be an opportunity to review and reconsider new challenges of the Post 2015 framework and the Financing for Development process and the challenges the Arab countries are going through after the Arab Spring.
Goals for the Rich
Wednesday March 25 - 8:30-11:00 am
"Faculté de droits, Salle de Conférence"
Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND), Social Watch, Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN), Third World Network (TWN), Global Policy Forum (GPF).
The “Post-2015” process is currently right in the centre of the development discourse. It is not only about defining what comes after the MDGs, but offers the opportunity to respond to changing global realities, - be in the shift in geopolitical and economic power relations, or urgent global problems, such as accelerating global warming or growing inequalities. Conventional development concepts and their related goals and strategies do not provide adequate answers to these changing conditions and global problems. That is why we need a truly universal Post-2015 Agenda that defines particularly the goals, responsibilities and commitments of rich countries. In order to overcome poverty, inequality and environment degradation, the Post-2015 Agenda must become an “Agenda for the rich” and must include Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for the rich. The new paper of the Reflection Group on Global Development Perspectives discusses how the responsibilities of the rich should be reflected in Post-2015 Agenda and its goals and targets. At the workshop we will present and discuss its key findings.
Speakers: Ziad Abdel Samad (ANND), Roberto Bissio (Social Watch), Nicole Bidegain (DAWN), Barbara Adams and Jens Martens (Global Policy Forum) and Hubert Schillinger (Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung)
“PPPs: Good for development? or to open up new markets?
Wednesday March 25 - 8:30-11:00 am
Room I 210-I 211, Bloc Informatique, Faculté de Sciencies
Alliance Sud, the Tunisian Observatory for the Economy, IBON International, ANND and Social Watch
The new Tunisian parliament is going to discuss a bill that strives to promote public – private partnerships (PPPs) – that is the participation of private capital, local and foreign – in the implementation of all kinds of development projects. It is one of the conditions set by donors to the lending of additional credits to Tunisia. PPPs are very trendy at the international level because they are supposed to compensate the financial shortcomings of Southern countries. But is it up to the private sector to ensure essential State’s functions, among which the delivering of public goods like drinkable water, or basic services like vocational training and health? Isn’t the injection of private capital mainly meant to open up new markets for multinational corporations from the North? Who has to bear the risks bound to the failure of a project? Do all sectors need to be open or do limits need to be set? Experiences up to date are ambiguous and the private sector has not rushed into PPPs. The workshop will discuss this hot topic in Tunisia, in the Arab region and beyond.
Speakers: Peter Niggli (Alliance Sud); Ziad Abdul Samad (ANND), Mansour Cherni (UGTT); Does Vandousselaere (Habi Center); Mark Moreno Pascual, IBON (Philippines); Isolda Agazzi (Alliance Sud)
“Organizing an Internet Social Forum – A Call to Occupy the Internet” and for planning towards developing a “People's Internet Manifesto”
Thursday March 26 -3 pm-5:30 pm
Salle: AMPHI 4
The Internet Social Forum will be open to participation by all those who believe in the philosophy and values of the WSF, and that the global Internet must evolve in the public interest. It will be underpinned by values of democracy, human rights and social justice. It will stand for participatory policy-making and promote people's control of social technologies, as for instance is represented in the community media movement. It will seek an Internet that is truly decentralised in its architecture and based on people's full rights to and control over data, information, knowledge and other 'commons' that the Internet has enabled the world community to generate and share.
The Forum also proposes to launch a bottom-up process for developing a People's Internet Manifesto, involving all concerned social groups, communities and movements, in different regions; from techies and ICT-for-development actors to media reform groups, democracy movements, women's rights organisations and social justice activists.
For more information visit: www.InternetSocialForum.net
Securing Accountability and (a just sharing of) responsibility for the Post-2015 agenda
Friday, March 27, 2015, 11:30-14:00
Université de Tunis El Manar, Salle de Lecture 5
Jointly organized with CIDSE, Social Watch, Ibon and Justice, Development and Peace Commission (JDPC), Nigeria
Civil society has put forward and worked hard to defend a vision of a new Post-2015 Agenda that will approach human rights, environmental integrity and the urgency of dealing with climate change in a way that addresses the injustice and inequity inherent in gender, social, political and economic relations at all levels.
As we approach the final phase of agreeing on the framework, there are clear indications that we are further from reaching this vision in the post-2015 agreement than ever before. The role that large corporate actors play in this regard deserves particular attention and serves as the red thread through the many obstacles faced in reaching a just and equitable agreement. Against the backdrop of corporate capture, universality, good governance, an enabling environment and similar concepts have become risk laden. The way they are being used will only serve to perpetuate the unjust distribution of power and resources in the Post-2015 world.
We need to challenge this rhetoric in a way that reveals the discrepancies between aspiration and the real agenda of those with power and influence. By putting the issue of equity at the center of discourse, more emphasis on the principle of common but differentiated responsibility could counter the singular focus on issues that are driven by vested interests, like the socalled global partnership with Corporates, opening countries financial systems to be exploited by private finance in the name of sustainable development, shifting state responsibility for fulfilling international commitments to non-state, unaccountable actors and more.
Speakers: John Patrick Ngoyi (JDPC), Paul Quintos (IBON), Roberto Bissio (Social Watch), Jean Letitia Saldanha (CIDSE), Moderation: Barbara Adams (Global Policy Forum)
Post-2015 Agenda: what development, for whom and why?
Friday March 27 -3 pm-5:30 pm
Room to be confirmed
ATTAC France, Beyond 2015, Enda Tiers-Monde, IBON International, Our World is Not for Sale, Plataforma 2015 y más, RIPESS- Intercontinental Network for the Promotion of Social Solidarity Economy, Social Watch.
The Convergence Assembly on the post-2015 development agenda aims to bring together social movements and civil society organizations wishing to share their perspectives on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Financing for Development framework currently under negotiation at the United Nations in order to inform one another, share analyses and propose joint actions. The SDGs call for a paradigm shift. Let's make sure the peoples have a say in the development agenda to build more just and sustainable economies and societies!
