Social Watch news

“Poverty eradication and women empowerment are our priorities” said Lebanese minister of Finance, Raya Haffar Al-Hassan at the joint launch of the Social Watch report in Arabic and the Arab Assessment of the Millennium Development Goals that took place in Beirut on July 9. Speaking in Behalf of the Arab NGO Network for Development, Ziad Abdel Samad welcomed the minister as “one of us”, remembering her past association with civil society organizations and with the United Nations system, for which she worked before joining the government. He welcomed the public discussion of the budget that is currently happening “for the first time in Lebanon” and challenged the minister to go one step further and invite civil society organizations to actually participate in the elaboration of future budgets.

Several speakers from the Social Watch network and its member and allies intervened during the UN General Assembly hearings with civil society and the private sector in New York last June 14 and 15. The hearings were convened in preparation of the UN Summit on the Millennium Development Goals that will take place next September.

Source: UN Millennium Campaign
The world is still on track to achieve the Millenium Development Goal (MDG) target of cutting the rate of extreme poverty in half by 2015 says a new report by the United Nations a few months before a major General Assembly meeting in September is to review progress so far. Many countries are moving forward, but unmet commitments, inadequate resources, lack of focus and accountability, and insufficient dedication to sustainable development have created shortfalls in many areas. Some of these shortfalls were aggravated by the global food and economic and financial crises. Download the report (PDF)