Social Watch News
Published on Fri, 2016-05-06 11:30
The adoption of the Guiding Principles on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2012 was a significant victory in the effort to end extreme poverty. It acknowledged that poverty is not simply a matter of lack of income. These Guiding Principles clearly identify actions that governments and other relevant actors should take to ensure that all people are able to enjoy their human rights. ATD Fourth World worked alongside our partners to complete this important document. The next step in their work was to translate these principles into language that everyone can understand and to suggest actions at the local level that groups working alongside people in poverty can put into place. In collaboration with a group of ten international non-governmental organizations active at the field level, they developed an implementation handbook on these Guiding Principles. |
| Published on Fri, 2016-05-06 00:00 |
Published on Thu, 2016-05-05 00:00
The Panama Papers have helped expose how politicians, criminals and corporations around the world hide their cash and avoid taxes. In Papua New Guinea (PNG), foreign owned logging companies are profiteering, using some of the same tricks. Recent research by the Oakland Institute revealed that most logging companies operating in the country are not paying corporate tax. Despite decades of operations and the country being today the largest exporter of tropical timber in the world, logging companies barely declare any profit. This deprives PNG of hundreds of millions of dollars in much needed revenue. |
Published on Fri, 2016-04-29 11:21
While all human rights are indivisible, economic and social rights entail specific principles that bear relevance for tax policy. Economic and social rights require that states devote maximum available resources to their progressive realization. The principle of non-retrogression sets forth that states should not take measures that deliberately lead to retrogression on the enjoyment of such rights. States also have an immediate obligation to ensure the satisfaction of, at the very least, minimum essential levels of economic, social and cultural rights. |
| Published on Fri, 2016-04-29 00:00 |
Published on Wed, 2016-04-27 11:27
Aldo Caliari, Director of the Rethinking Bretton Woods Project at the Center of Concern, reports on the outcomes of the first ECOSOC Financing for Development Forum that took place April 18 to 20, 2016 in New York. The Forum was intended to be the centerpiece of a reinvigorated follow up to the Financing for Development process created by the Third Financing for Development Conference held in Addis Ababa in 2015. "[...] those observing the first event to follow up on [2015's] commitments were suddenly awakened to the bitter reality of transitioning from paper to the realities of implementation." |
Published on Tue, 2016-04-26 10:54
During the debate on “achieving the Sustainable Development Goals” held in the framework of the ECOSOC Meeting at the UN, Barbara Adams from Global Policy Forum and Social Watch said that we are having a situation where governments on one hand singed a climate change agreement and on the other hand are pushed by bilateral investment treaties that are obstacles in many cases to be able to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. |
| Published on Fri, 2016-04-22 18:15 |
Published on Fri, 2016-04-22 13:48
The traditional definition of aid is being eroded at the same time that governments have committed to achieving the UN's ambitious Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Jeffrey Sachs, special adviser to the UN Secretary-General on development, told IPS Thursday. "A lot of governments have a kind of magical thinking which is, we're all for the Sustainable Development Goals but don't come to us if you want to achieve them, go borrow from the private markets," said Sachs. Aldo Caliari, who represents civil society in UN Financing for Development (FfD) negotiations, told journalists here Monday that there has been a "significant shift in the language" in these negotiations towards "a larger presence of the private sector". |
Published on Fri, 2016-04-22 12:15
This paper discusses the newly issued World Bank report on the welfare of the Syrian refugees in Lebanon and Jordan, based on the analysis of UNHCR data. It points some significant aspects not addressed, especially the effects Syrian pre-crisis public policies. It highlights the gap between the lack of proper socioeconomic assessment of both refugees’ and hosting communities and the fact that resilience and integration policies are already been negotiated with the Lebanese and Jordanian governments. This is while there no such efforts dealing with Egypt, Iraq and mainly Turkey, who are receiving large numbers of refugees. In addition, the Civil Society organizations are channeling a large share of the humanitarian aid, while they have, as well as the Syrian refugees’ and hosting communities, no proper voice in the debate. |
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