SOCIAL WATCH E-NEWSLETTER - ISSUE 12 - October, 2010

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SOCIAL WATCH E-NEWSLETTER
Issue 12

October, 2010

 
 
GLOBAL AND REGIONAL NEWS
 The crisis isn't over
 Stop the G20 agenda: 20 countries must not decide the fate of the world
Hunger: a structural problem
 The World Bank neglets its environmental and human rights responsibilities
 Re-tooling development: civil society policy forum kicks off
 Social Watch workshop for Latin America
 
SPOTLIGHT ON...
 Social Watch Philippines
 
EYE ON NEW RESOURCES 
 New MDG progress index
 IDB to develop indicators of child development in Latin America
 Guidelines for writing on women's economic, social and cultural rights in shadow reports
 
EVENTS CALENDAR

October

6-9 October - Washington D.C., USA
Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group

14-15 October – Inchoen, South Korea
Civil G20 dialogue

20-22 October - Santa Cruz, Bolivia
Social Watch Regional Capacity Building Workshop for Latin America

November

7-12 November - Seoul, Korea
People's Conference Week prior to and during the G20 Summit Meeting

25–27 November - Manila, Philippines
Pan-Asian workshop “Pathways to regional development: setbacks, alternatives and citizens’ participation”

December

29 November-10 December 2010 - Cancun, Mexico
2010 United Nations Climate Change Conference

December (date tbc) – Brussels, Belgium
Launch of the European Social Watch Report 2010

 
 
 Civil G20 dialogue in Korea
 

Photo credit: Michael Switow
 

20 countries must not be allowed to decide the fate of the whole world

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LETTER FROM THE SECRETARIAT

The medicine is too bitter
Roberto Bissio

"You have to imagine the IMF as a doctor", said Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund, in an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel. "The money is the medicine. But the countries - the patients - have to change their habits if they want to recover. It doesn't work any other way."

But the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) believes there are other ways. And a recent study on the economic policies recommended by the IMF to 126 middle and low income countries concludes that the treatment prescribed to resuscitate their economies may be prejudicial to children and their mothers.

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SOCIAL WATCH IS AN INTERNATIONAL NGO WATCHDOG NETWORK MONITORING POVERTY ERADICATION AND GENDER EQUALITY
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The international secretariat of Social Watch also receives funding and support from the Ford Foundation and the Coalition of the Flemish North South Movement - 11.11.11.
The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of Social Watch and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Union, Oxfam Novib, the Ford Foundation and the Coalition of the Flemish North South Movement - 11.11.11.
     
 
SPOTLIGHT ON..... SW National Coalition
GLOBAL AND REGIONAL NEWS
EYE ON NEW RESOURCES

Social Watch Philippines

Since it was set-up in 1997, Social Watch Philippines (SWP) has annually put forward a strategy of advocacy, awareness-building, monitoring, organizational development and networking. Based in Quezon City, one of the major cities in Metro Manila, the network that started with twenty seven civil society organizations and individuals has now grown to embrace more than a hundred citizens’ group, networks  and individuals. 

SWP’s work includes monitoring progress and shortfalls in social development based on the government’s commitment to various international conferences and agreements as consolidated in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and which is embodied in the Citizens’ Report on the MDGs which is published periodically.  It evaluates policies, recommends programs and engages government agencies, international financial institutions and the UN System to address key poverty issues and human development concerns.  Furthermore,  SWP’s work in budget advocacy across the years, popularly known as the Alternative Budget Initiative, has led to increased budgetary allocations in the areas of education, health, agriculture and the environment, and has been cited by government as a pioneering effort of citizen’s participation in public finance.

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The crisis isn't over - not without global partnerships on unemployment and environmental sustainability
The current crises reflect a model blind to environmental and human rights issues and confusing economic growth with progress in society. A coherent analysis of the common causes of the multiple crises and their interdependencies is needed now. This presupposes overcoming the current fragmentation in the development discourse of politics, science and civil society.
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Stop the G20 agenda: 20 countries must not be allowed to decide the fate of the whole world
Social Watch, along with more than 100 social organizations throughout the world, is calling to mobilize against the false solutions to the global crisis that have been put forward by the Group of 20 developed countries (G20). Organizations in all five continents claim that the proposed financial reforms will only serve to maintain the financial architecture that brought about the crisis, and that the G20 are not proposing far-reaching measures to tackle the very serious situation the planet is facing..
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Hunger: a structural problem
The FAO and World Food Programme (WFP) recently released the annual report "The State of Food Insecurity in the World". The new estimate of the number of people who will suffer chronic hunger this year is 925 million - 98 million down from 1.023 billion in 2009. However, the fact that a child dies every six seconds because of undernourishment related problems is still unacceptable by any standard.
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The World Bank neglegts its environmental and human rights responsibilities
Thursday 7 October (Washington D.C.)
Who is responsible if a hydroelectric project financed by the World Bank displaces a whole population or pollutes rivers? These kinds of questions were raised in debates between representatives of civil society organizations and Bank officials in the forum about policies that affect civil society, which was part of the annual IMF and World Bank Group meetings in Washington DC from 6 to 10 October.
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Re-tooling development: civil society policy forum kicks off at World Bank Annual meetings
Tues 6 Oct (Washington D.C)
The need to build a new development paradigm with alternative measures that can provide evidence based development policies was the subject of discussions at the kick-off of the Civil Society Policy Forum of the WB and IMF Annual Meetings taking place here in Washington D.C. 6-10 October 2010. Is there a shifting trend in the way governments design development policies for social progress?
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Social Watch workshop for Latin America
The Social Watch International Secretariat together with the Centre for Research on Labour and Agrarian Development (CEDLA) in Bolivia co-organized the Social Watch regional workshop for Latin America that took place from 20 to 22 October 2010 in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia.
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New MDG progress index
How well are individual countries progressing towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)? Despite an extraordinary public campaign to mobilize support for the MDGs, including the UN MDG Summit in New York in September 2010, until now, there has remarkably little effort to track progress at the country level in a way that non-specialists could readily understand.

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IDB to develop indicators of child development in Latin America
A new initiative by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) called "Regional Project on Child Development Indicators" aims to produce, for the first time, statistical data on child development outcomes for children aged 24 to 59 months in Latin America and the Caribbean.

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Guidelines for writing on women´s economic, social and cultural rights in shadow reports

Source: ESCR-net
http://www.escr-net.org

NGO alternative or shadow reporting within the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) can be strategically utilized to increase awareness on the rights and obligations contained in the treaties and promote integration of all women’s human rights.

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