Social Watch E-Newsletter - Issue 260 - June 3, 2016

Issue 260 - June 6, 2016
Social Watch reports
Spotlight report on the 2030 Agenda
 
   
 

Egypt: Lack of strategy in the 2030 strategy

   
 
Constitutional Assembly
(Photo: ANHRI)
The defining feature of the framework for Egypt's national sustainable developmental strategy is the lack of a detailed roadmap to achieve several key goals, especially reducing poverty and unemployment and tackling the informal sector, for which it also lacks indicators. This is in addition to the lack of clarity in implementation mechanisms and the lack of consistency among the goals, despite the overarching strategy. The indicators used to measure the goals reflect the Government's continuation of the neoliberal approach, which is contingent on the development of the private sector and dependent on it to finance the development goals. Thus, for example, to reduce the deficit, the strategy does not include raising taxes on companies, instead opting to tax consumers, such as with the 10 percent value added tax (VAT). In addition, the strategy differs in important ways from previous development strategies, none of which were discussed in Parliament or through any sort of social dialogue.
This report examines key economic, social and environmental dimensions of the implementation framework and includes recommendations for needed changes if it is to be successful. Read more

 

   
   
 

Kenya: Merely tinkering with status quo will not do

   
 

The successful implementation of the 2030 Agenda requires bold and transformative steps that are urgently needed to shift the world on to a sustainable and resilient path. In order for it to be a collective journey, on which no one should be left behind, the scale and ambition of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals and 169 targets require a broad and integrated approach not only to balancing and realigning the normative architecture of the global economy but also to restructuring regional and national political-economic practices. Politics as usual and economics as the determined by the rich and powerful will have no place on this new path. Merely tinkering with uncomfortable edges of the micro-economic status quo will not do. The historical direction and social-structural content of such a shift will involve the modification of the deep structures of poverty in the periphery economies up to and including addressing the different aspects of state autonomy and the underlying democratic deficits that stand on the way of building sustainable national economies. Read more

 

   
   
 
Social Watch starts publishing country reports 2016

Social Watch coalitions around the world are contributing their assessments and reports to the global Social Watch report 2016, under the overall theme Goals for 2030... and obstacles to getting there. The Social Watch network thus joins the current global discussions around a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and on a new development framework and the need for civil society monitoring.

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 connection between civil and political rights and tax policy is so strong, that in a 2014 report on tax policy and human rights, the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights in 2014 said that the link runs both ways. That is, civil and political rights bear consequences for tax policy. But the formation of accountable states is closely tied to the emergence of taxation. And where tax abuse and unfair tax practices erode confidence in government the environment will be less prone to foster the right to take part in the conduct of public affairs. Read more

 
   

 

 
SOCIAL WATCH IS AN INTERNATIONAL NGO WATCHDOG NETWORK MONITORING POVERTY ERADICATION AND GENDER EQUALITY
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