Social Watch News
Published on Thu, 2014-06-05 10:24
Post-2015 and the Poison Threads – Shift the Gaze In this paper Amitabh Behar talks about the ‘golden threads’ of global development versus the ‘poison threads‘, the latter according to Behar are the real causes of endemic poverty, growing inequality and exclusion. ‘The global leadership and the UN face the sizable challenge of making a historic choice between continuing the legacy and hegemony of neoliberalism or of weaving together a “new deal” which is truly transformative and puts the poor and ordinary citizens at the center’, says Behar in the paper. The paper is available here. Social Watch India, 2014. |
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Published on Sat, 2014-05-31 00:00
Book Review By Prof Kuldeep Mathur The Citizens Report on Governance and Development 2013 is the seventh Citizens’ Report of National Social Watch. Democracy is not an easy system of governance. It is fragile and its essence cannot be guaranteed only because there is an assurance of periodic elections. Its fragility is dependent on several factors among whom is the way its governing institutions function and the kind of policies that are determined by them. This requires constant vigilance lest the people who come into power and institutions that they oversee function according to the mandate given to them by the people who have elected them go astray. This vigilance can be exercised only if there is information available to the people. Thus, transparency and availability of information is critical to hold then accountability. |
| Published on Fri, 2014-05-30 23:00 |
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Published on Fri, 2014-05-30 17:05
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Published on Fri, 2014-05-30 09:33
Civil society groups from Asia and the Pacific met in Bangkok from May 15-17, 2014 to develop regional recommendations on just and sustainable development for action at the Asia Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development. The Asia Pacific region has seen rapid growth, and significant improvements in the lives of millions of people over the last decades but grave challenges remain. The region still has the largest concentration of people without adequate food, income and employment. Inequalities in the distribution of wealth, power and resources between and within countries, and among rich and poor, men and women, social groups, and current and future generations, are growing and undermining wellbeing for the majority of the population. |
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Published on Thu, 2014-05-29 16:15
Before the world economy has been able to fully recover from the crisis that began more than five years ago, there is a widespread fear that we may be poised for yet another crisis, this time in emerging economies (EEs). Once again, most specialists on international economic matters have been caught unawares. In fact, the signs of external financial fragility in several emerging economies have been visible since the beginning of the financial crisis in the US and Europe. The South Centre has constantly warned that the boom in capital flows that had started in the first half of the 2000s and continued even after the Lehman collapse is generating serious imbalances in the developing world along with the danger of a sudden stop and reversal. |
Published on Thu, 2014-05-29 15:00
On Tuesday the 27th of May 2014, Mirjam van Reisen was interviewed by the Dutch newspaper the ‘Volkskrant’ concerning the human trafficking of Eritrean refugees. She explains that those in power in Eritrea richly profit from the human trafficking and even find ways to extort money from Eritrean refugees in Europe via taxation. In addition, it is likely that Eritrea also profits from the extortion of Eritrean families in Europe who pay human traffickers money in order to save their kidnapped relative. An incredible amount of money circulates within these human trafficking practices and estimations surpass 600 million Euro’s in the last 5 years alone. In order to protect Eritrean refugees and in the attempt to stop these criminal practices, Mirjam van Reisen advises to close all Eritrean embassies in Europe, to better secure refugee camps where refugees are kidnapped from, and to cooperate with refugees to reveal and capture those responsible for these criminal practices. |
Published on Thu, 2014-05-29 13:46
Every year the World Bank issues its Doing Business Report, which contains a ranking of each country’s business environment. In 2012, the President of the World Bank, Dr. Jim Yong Kim, appointed an Independent Panel of experts to review the report. The panel, chaired by South Africa’s Minister of Planning Mr. Trevor Manuel, appeared to be an opportunity to change the report for the better. The Panel, indeed, came up with substantive recommendations for an overhaul of the Doing Business. But most of them have been ignored. Those who understand the power of this report and its associated rankings to drive governments and give them the cover to put the interest of private companies ahead of the rights of working people and their families may win again if we don’t speak up. |
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