Social Watch news

The Forum, to be held on the 14th & 15th of December 2010 in Geneva, Switzerland, is a valuable platform for minority representatives to contribute their knowledge and experiences to the UN Independent Expert on Minority Issues, and, indirectly, to the UN Human Rights Council. It also provides a wonderful opportunity for minority representatives, NGOs, state parties and UN officials to meet, mingle, share ideas and learn about important issues related to the rights of minority populations. The previous Session of the Forum was very successful; over 500 delegates were present and over 100 actively participated in the discussions!

Source: IPS and UNEP

The UN Environment Programme released a report that concluded the agreed 2009 reductions, even if fully met, are only 60 percent of the reductions needed to keep global temperatures from rising by more than two degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, which scientists – and the accord – say is necessary to prevent catastrophe. 

Based on notes from Ian Percy*

The process of ministerial discussions around aid effectiveness that produced the Paris Declaration in 2005 and continued in Accra 2008 with the Accra Agenda for Action will have a new High Level Forum (HLF4) in Busan, Korea, in 2011. An intergovernmental Working Party (WP-EFF), with the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) and the World Bank acting as secretariat, is organizing the Busan meeting. Social Watch is part of the coordinating group of the BetterAid coalition, an alliance of civil society organizations (CSOs) that tries to influence this process and shift the discourse from aid effectiveness to development effectiveness.

The International Council of the World Social Forum met in Dakar and discussed the organization and program of the next WSF that takes place in Senegal, 6-11 February 2011. Social Watch will organize several activities including the presentation of the 2010 Report in French and Arabic. Learn more on how to participate in the WSF.

The Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND) will be hosting the launch of the Social Watch Report 2010 in Arabic at the regional forum that ANND is going to hold on 6th and 7th of January 2011 in Beirut. This Forum will host around 100 participants and will come in light of the preparations for the Arab Economic and Social Development Summit 2011 to be held in Egypt.

 

The gender unit of TWN-Africa is hosting a round-table on gender and regional economic integration in Africa on 18-19 November, 2010, in Accra, Ghana.  The meeting brings together scholars, feminist economists and gender experts, as well as policy-makers, to discuss issues of gender equity and Africa’s economic integration. 

Beijing/Berlin/Montevideo/New York/Uppsala, November 15, 2010 – Today, an alliance of civil society groups, networks and foundations, including Third World Network, Social Watch, DAWN, the Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation, Global Policy Forum, terre des hommes, and the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, launched the Civil Society Reflection Group on Global Development Perspectives. 

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