SOCIAL WATCH E-NEWSLETTER - Issue 117 - February 8, 2013

In some areas of its foreign policy, Switzerland does not earn the best marks for its contribution to the Millennium Development Goals. Its finance and trade policy is driven by self-interest and contributes to restricting the policy space of poor countries. Although Switzerland has substantially increased its development budget and pursues good pro-poor development cooperation by international comparison.

As a donor country Switzerland is bound primarily by the eighth Millennium Development Goal (MDG). This means that it should support the poorest countries in realising development goals 1 to 7 and adapt its trade policy and that of its financial centre to the needs of the poorest countries. Its endeavours towards a coherent, pro-development policy have also remained rather modest.

Read more

The national MDG targets in Cameroon are far from becoming a reality by 2015. It is recommended to concentrate efforts on transparency in the management of public resources, on improving the quality of the education system, strengthening the Expanded Programme of Immunization and reducing childhood diseases, and the implementation of sustainable development programs, in particular through legislation on land and environmental management standards in the growth strategy.


Read more

The achievement of the MDGs in Nicaragua is in imminent danger due to the serious difficulties faced by virtue of several factors, such as low economic growth, increasing population demanding food and work, and growing corruption.
Although there has been progress in some of them, this is not enough and does not approach the goal. The agricultural export model, which to date has generated only precarious and informal jobs condemning the people who do them to live under the poverty line, as well as a regressive tax system, are closing the country's ability to seize the historic opportunity of the democratic transition. Read more

Over sixty national Social Watch coalitions around the world are contributing their assessments and reports to the global Social Watch report 2013, under the overall theme of "Ends and Means." The Social Watch network thus joins the current global discussions around a set of Sustainable Development Goals and on a new development framework to be put in place when the MDGs expire in 2015.

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.