Social Watch News
Published on Thu, 2014-11-06 09:50
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In a week, Governments at the United Nations begin their preparatory meetings for the International Conference on Financing for Development(FfD) in Addis Ababa in July 2015. That conference is widely viewed as the last opportunity to agree to a package of proposals on financial, trade and global governance measures before the summit meeting in New York in September 2015 to ring down the curtain on the Millennium Development Goals and raise the curtain on new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). If there is nothing underlying pretty words in the outcome document of Addis, there will be no time to come to meaningful "means of implementation" for the SDGs two months later. That will condemn the global effort to devise SDGs over the past few years to empty rhetoric. Governments at the UN thus recognize that the Addis meeting must be a "success", but does anyone see the Governments of North and South coalescing around any interesting proposals? Well, they have about 3-5 months to find those proposals. Perhaps we can help move the discussion in a fruitful direction.
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Published on Thu, 2014-11-06 09:46
1 for 7 Billion's NGO partners from across the world have written to all UN Member States to call for an open, fair and inclusive process to select the best possible candidate for Secretary-General of the UN.
Signatories include: Avaaz, Amnesty International, CIVICUS, Equality Now, FEMNET, Forum Asia, Social Watch, Third World Network, Women’s Environment and Development Organization and the World Federation of UN Associations.
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Published on Thu, 2014-11-06 09:41
There is no job description for the world’s top civil servant, except to solve its messiest problems. There are no campaign rules, nor is there any list of qualifications, except what is left unsaid: He (and it has always been a he) must be palatable to the world powers. Now, as jockeying begins for the selection of the next secretary general of the United Nations, to be chosen in 2016, momentum is building to open up the process. A coalition of nongovernmental organizations, supported by some former United Nations diplomats, is calling for a formal application process, including transparent selection criteria, an official shortlist of contenders and a chance for all member nations to evaluate the candidates.
The effort reflects a growing frustration with the dominance of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, which bargain for influence over every important office within the system, most importantly the post of secretary general. The choice is made largely in secret, in council meetings held privately and in tough negotiations among officials from the five powers.
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Published on Thu, 2014-11-06 09:26
In a recently-released human rights audit of the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development Finance’s report (hereinafter “the Report”), RightingFinance (RF) evaluated from the perspective of international human rights law principles such as equality, participation and maximum available resources, the portions of the report devoted to private finance. The emphasis placed on “blended finance,” alongside investment climate issues and regulation of private investments were important issues that the response by RightingFinance addressed.
The Committee’s report, delivered last August, is an important input into the intergovernmental deliberations that will decide on means of financing the Sustainable Development Goals.
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Published on Thu, 2014-10-30 23:00
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Published on Wed, 2014-10-29 16:00
Third International Conference on Financing for Development, July 2015 The third International Conference on Financing for Development will be held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from 13-16 July 2015. It will gather high-level political representatives, including Heads of State and Government, and Ministers of Finance, Foreign Affairs and Development Cooperation, as well as all relevant institutional stakeholders, non-governmental organizations and business sector entities. The Conference will result in an inter-governmentally negotiated and agreed outcome, which should constitute an important contribution to – and support the implementation of – the post-2015 development agenda.
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Published on Wed, 2014-10-29 15:43
It is imperative that a Human Rights-based approach to food security is adopted in order to eliminate hunger and provide access to healthy, nutritious and affordable food for all, the new UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Ms Hilal Elver, has said.
In her first report to the UN General Assembly (A/69/275), which is holding its sixty-ninth session in New York, the rights expert, who is from Turkey, said that in order to advance the implementation of the right to adequate food, renewed political commitment is essential and stakeholders must look to those countries that have made significant progress in adopting policies and legislation in this regard.
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Published on Wed, 2014-10-29 15:20
The employment situation of young people in El Alto is not different from that of young people living in the biggest cities of central parts of Bolivia. High information grade, the increasing presence in the wage-earning sector and in the tertiary sector economic activities, as well as stronger hiring for low qualification jobs that in fact does not lead to the substantial improvement of the quality of juvenile education, are similar features that also characterize the youth labour dynamics in El Alto.
Nevertheless, considering high information grade at the labour market of El Alto, the situation of young people demonstrates major signs of employment insecurity translated into high employment instability, low income and social vulnerability. In this context, according to information of the CEDLA, in 2011 only 5 of every 100 employed young people were possessing suitable job positions.
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Published on Wed, 2014-10-29 15:10
RightingFinance has released a human rights audit of the report by the UN Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development Financing. In their assessment, members of the Initiative said that the centrality of human rights and equality should not only permeate the new development goals agreed in 2015, but also the full range of means to finance them.
The Committee, comprising 30 experts nominated by regional groups, was created by the UN the General Assembly pursuant to one of the agreements in the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20). The Committee had the mandate to assess financing needs, consider the effectiveness, consistency and synergies of existing instruments and frameworks, and evaluate additional initiatives, with a view to preparing a report proposing options on an effective sustainable development financing strategy to facilitate the mobilization of resources and their effective use in achieving sustainable development objectives.
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Published on Fri, 2014-10-24 15:41
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