Demonstration in Rome against
cuts in social spending.
(Photo: Alessandra Raimondi
/Flickr/Creative Commons)

As governments all over the world, from industrialized and developing countries alike, have cut their expenditures in the last two years and prepare further savings for the next, the first casualties are the welfare programs, as contributions from grassroots organizations included in the Social Watch Report 2012 make apparent. But austerity measures have proven useless to overcome the crisis, and could even plunge the world into a recession, according to a growing number of experts and international agencies.

“Austerity fiscal policies that cut on social spending started to be implemented in debt-affected countries and are now spreading even to countries that do not suffer from debt problems or fiscal deficit,” wrote the coordinator of Social Watch, Roberto Bissio, in the overview of the report.

Emily Sikazwe.
(Photo: DanChurchAid)

Religious leaders and politicians have to combine efforts against gender based violence and sexual assaults on children in Zambia, urged Emily Sikazwe, executive director of Women for Change, focal point of Social Watch in that African country.

Demonstration against mining
in El Salvador.
(Photo: Upside Down World)

Hundreds of civil society organizations from all over the world are calling the World Bank and the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), associate to the institution, to dismiss the demand of compensation initiated by Canadian company Pacific Rim against the Government of El Salvador, which forbade a cyanide-leach gold mining project presented by the firm.

Photo: Government in the Lab

The news has been filled with contention over Egypt’s November elections, but far less attention is being paid to the voting in Tunisia—also recently liberated from the rule of a dictator. In her analysis for Owni.eu and Government in the Lab magazine, Mary Elizabeth King recounted the democratization process and remarked the role of the Tunisian League for Human Rights, focal point of Social Watch in that country.

Occupy Wall Street marks a new
trend in US society. (Photo:
David Shankbone/Good Magazine
/Flickr/Creative Commons)

A growing number of US citizens raise their voices “demanding a new social contract” as the multiple world crises are increasing “poverty and income inequality at historic levels.” This unprecedented movement nurtures hope in a change of policies and behaviors “geared toward the well-being of Americans and the rest of the human race,” according to the US national contribution to the Social Watch Report 2012, launched last week.


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