II. Overview of follow-up activities initiated in 1997
Heads of State and Government have recognized
that social development and the implementation of the commitments made at Copenhagen are
primarily the responsibility of Governments, although international cooperation and
assistance are essential for their full implementation. The General Assembly, in its
resolutions 50/161 and 51/202, reiterated the Summit’s call to Governments to define
time-bound goals and targets for reducing overall poverty and eradicating absolute
poverty, expanding employment and reducing unemployment, and enhancing social integration,
within each national context; and to assess on a regular basis national progress towards
implementing the outcome of the Summit, possibly in the form of periodic national reports
outlining successes, problems and obstacles, and to submit such information on a voluntary
basis to the Commission for Social Development.
Since the previous report of the Secretary-General (A/51/348),
countries have provided additional information, both during the consideration of the item
on the implementation of the outcome of the Summit by the General Assembly at its
fifty-first session, and at the thirty-fifth session of the Commission for Social
Development, as well as by communications addressed to the Secretary-General. The
information covers administrative arrangements set in place by Governments, such as
designation of focal points and establishment of committees and commissions, as well as
substantive measures such as elaboration of policies, formulation of programmes and
organization of seminars, such as the Copenhagen seminars for social progress organized by
Denmark, host Government of the Summit, to enrich the discourse and formulate common
concepts and strategies on issues addressed by the Summit. This and other examples of
national initiatives are set out in the annex to the present report.
With regard to regional follow-up, the General Assembly, at both its
fiftieth and fifty-first sessions, renewed the Summit’s invitation to the regional
commissions, within their mandates and in cooperation with the regional intergovernmental
organizations and banks, to convene, on a biennial basis, a meeting at a high political
level to review the progress made towards implementing the outcome of the Summit.
The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC)
organized the First Regional Conference in Follow-up to the World Summit for Social
Development at São Paulo from 6 to 9 April 1997. The Conference, which represented a
continuation of the efforts made by the countries in the region to follow up on the
commitments made at Copenhagen, was attended by States members of the Commission,
observers from States Members of the United Nations, observer States of the United
Nations, representatives from the United Nations Secretariat and organizations of the
United Nations system, international organizations and non-governmental organizations, as
well as guests from all sectors of society. Participating countries presented reports on
implementation of the commitments undertaken at the Summit; a ministerial round table was
held on macroeconomic management and its impact on poverty; panel discussions were
organized on the three core issues of the Summit; and the ECLAC secretariat presented a
document entitled "The Equity Gap, Latin America, the Caribbean and the Social
Summit", which contained a diagnostic analysis of the social situation in the
countries of the region; a summary of the economic and social reforms under way in the
region; and policy proposals for the attainment of the objectives of the Summit.
The Conference adopted the São Paulo Consensus, in which the ECLAC
member countries renewed their commitment to actions required to achieve the objectives
agreed upon in Copenhagen, and agreed, inter alia, to prioritize the issues on the
social agenda and to ensure an appropriate allocation of resources in order to incorporate
social equity into growth; guarantee that social development was a State priority that
demanded not only appropriate government action but also the ongoing participation of
civil society; intensify the complementarity between high, stable growth rates and human
development; strengthening the role of social policies as State policies in the quest for
higher levels of social equity and social integration; ensure integrated approaches to the
economic, social and environmental dimensions of development; and establish a regional
information database of successful experiences in the field of social policy. Finally, the
ECLAC member countries requested the secretariat of the Commission to convene a further
meeting within two years to analyse the progress that had been made and the obstacles that
remain as regards social development in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Economic and
Social Council, in its resolution 1997/56 of 23 July 1997, adopted at its substantive
session of 1997, welcomed the convening of the meeting, expressed its appreciation for the
São Paulo Consensus and invited other regions to convene their respective evaluation
meetings on the Summit.
The Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)
will be convening the Fifth Asian and Pacific Ministerial Conference on Social Development
at Manila from 5 to 11 November 1997 to review national progress achieved and regional
actions taken in the implementation of the Agenda for Action on Social Development in the
ESCAP region, in the context of the Programme of Action of the World Summit for Social
Development; and to consider means of accelerating the implementation of the regional
Agenda at the national and regional levels.
In the Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) region, the Government of
Austria has decided to host an expert group meeting on employment questions in February
1998, as a follow-up to the Summit.
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In its resolution 50/161,
the General Assembly recognized that the implementation of the Copenhagen Declaration and
Programme of Action would require the mobilization of financial resources at the national
and international levels. In its resolution 51/202, the Assembly stressed the importance
of encouraging national initiatives for social development, including, inter alia,
credit for people living in poverty, particularly women, along the model of the Grameen
Bank in Bangladesh in connection with self-employment and income generation to address the
feminization of poverty, and noted with interest the micro credit summit to be held in
Washington, D.C., in February 1997.
The Micro credit Summit was attended by over 2,000 persons from 137
countries. The Micro credit Summit Declaration launched a nine-year campaign for an effort
to expand the reach of credit for self-employment and other financial and business
services to 100 million of the world’s poorest families, especially the women of
those families, by the year 2005. The Summit also recognized that building institutions
capable of providing micro finance services was only one of a broad range of strategies in
eradicating poverty.
Immediately following the Micro credit Summit, a one-day meeting was
held at the United Nations to discuss the link between access to credit and poverty
eradication in Africa. United Nations agencies and non-governmental organizations
discussed how the improvement of access to credit could empower Africa’s poor,
particularly women, to become more active participants in the development process, thereby
freeing themselves from poverty. The impact that access to micro credit could have on food
security, women’s economic empowerment, employment and self-employment, as well as
provision of basic social services, were some of the topics discussed, and ways of linking
the traditional banking systems to micro credit to facilitate access by the poor to credit
were also examined.
With regard to the question of the impact of structural adjustment
programmes on economic and social development, the Economic and Social Council, at its
substantive session of 1997, welcomed the decision of the Interim Committee of the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) to make the Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility
(ESAF) a permanent facility. The Council, however, called for further efforts to ensure
that internationally supported adjustment programmes, including ESAF-supported programmes,
incorporate social safety measures and restructuring of public expenditure, including
increases in expenditure related to primary education and primary health services, in line
with the recommendations of the World Summit for Social Development. The Council further
stated that the speed and sequencing of these programmes and safeguards for social equity
are critical for their success.
Also at the substantive session of 1997 of the Economic and Social
Council, the Secretary-General submitted a report on new and innovative ideas for
generating funds for globally agreed commitments and priorities (A/52/203-E/1997/85). The
report was prepared in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
and was based on the premise that the funds so generated should neither be viewed as a
source for financing the regular budget nor the peacekeeping budget of the United Nations.
It discusses public-private partnerships in mobilizing finance for achieving development
objectives, and national charges and fees drawing particularly upon national experiences
in the past few years in the area of environment protection. Specific recommendations were
put forward for consideration by the Council. After holding deliberations, the Council, in
its decision 1997/313 of 25 July 1997, took note of the report of the Secretary-General.
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At its high-level segment held from 2 to 4 July
1997, the Economic and Social Council carried out a comprehensive review of the theme
"Fostering an enabling environment for development: financial flows, including
capital flows, investment and trade". It had before it a report of the
Secretary-General (E/1997/67). The Council subsequently adopted agreed conclusions (see
E/1997/L.56) on the subject which, inter alia, provided a framework for
international cooperation and national policies and the role of the United Nations system.
The conclusions also addressed policy issues, including the need for an international
dialogue on issues of policy cohesion; the concern of marginalization faced by many
developing countries, the least developed countries and vulnerable groups in the context
of globalization of the world economy; the importance of reversing the overall decline in
flows of official development assistance and of achieving internationally agreed official
development assistance targets as soon as possible; the urgent need for effective and
equitable, development-oriented and durable solutions to the external debt and
debt-servicing problems of developing countries; the importance of sound macroeconomic
policies, which remain an essential ingredient to prevent volatility, particularly on
international financial markets; the particular importance of growth in foreign direct
investment in developing countries; and the need for an open, rule-based, equitable,
secure, non-discriminatory, transparent and predictable multilateral trading system as a
key element in fostering an enabling environment for development.
In the area of poverty eradication, the Council considered, at its
substantive session of 1997, the report of the Secretary-General on the implementation of
the agreed conclusions of the 1996 coordination segment of the Council on the coordination
of the United Nations system for the eradication of poverty (E/1997/58), and adopted
resolution 1997/60 of 25 July 1997 on "Eradication of poverty", in which it
reaffirmed that the goal of eradicating poverty in the world was an ethical, social,
political and economic imperative; welcomed the steps already taken by the functional
commissions, in particular the Commission for Social Development and the Commission on the
Status of Women, to implement the recommendations of the Council on the coordination of
the multi-year programmes of the functional commissions related to poverty eradication;
and decided to carry out in 1999 an overall review of the theme of poverty eradication in
order to contribute to the special session of the General Assembly in the year 2000 for
the overall review of the Summit and to the five-year review of the Beijing Platform for
Action.
The Council also adopted resolution 1997/61 of 25 July 1997 on
integrated and coordinated implementation and follow-up of the major United Nations
conferences and summits, in which it, inter alia, reaffirmed the need to continue
to ensure the harmonization and coordination of the agendas and work programmes of the
functional commissions by promoting a clearer division of labour among them and by
providing clear policy guidance to them; and stressed the importance of ensuring that
reports on conference follow-up submitted to the Council and its functional commissions
draw on the experiences gained at all levels; it also stressed the need, for that purpose,
of enhancing cooperation in the preparation of such reports between relevant departments
of the United Nations Secretariat and the United Nations funds and programmes.
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In the United Nations Secretariat, the
responsibility of assisting in the implementation of the follow-up to the Summit and the
servicing of the intergovernmental bodies involved rests with the newly created Department
for Economic and Social Affairs. The Department is also entrusted with the role of focal
point for the First United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty. The Department
will continue to work with all actors in social development, including Governments, United
Nations organizations, intergovernmental organizations, non-governmental organizations and
the civil society in assisting in the implementation of the outcome of the Summit.
Initiatives such as organizing and participating in workshops and seminars, conducting
research on themes addressed by the Summit, have been pursued and will intensify. At the
same time, the Secretary-General continues his dialogue with heads of State and
Government, inviting them to accelerate the momentum of implementing the commitments
reached at Copenhagen and urging them to use sessions of the Commission for Social
Development, the Economic and Social Council and the General Assembly, as well as through
the commissions, to report successes, problems and obstacles in the implementation of
those commitments.
It will be recalled that three ad hoc inter-agency task forces (on
basic social services for all; on employment and sustainable livelihoods; and on the
enabling environment for social and economic development), as well as the Inter-Agency
Committee on Women and Gender Equality, were established by the Administrative Committee
on Coordination in 1995 to provide system-wide, coherent support to national actions, to
follow up decisions of recent international conferences in the economic, social and
related areas, including, specifically, the World Summit for Social Development.
Members of the Commission for Social Development had the opportunity to
be informed of the work of these bodies by their respective chairpersons at the
Commission’s special session in 1996 and its thirty-fifth session in 1997. The
Chairman’s summaries of the two dialogues are set out in the respective reports of
the Commission to the Economic and Social Council.3 An account of the work of
the inter-agency task forces and committee, including the elements particularly relevant
to follow-up activities to the Summit, is contained in the report of the Secretary-General
on integrated and coordinated implementation and follow-up of the major United Nations
conferences and summits (E/1997/73) submitted to the Council. In its resolution 1997/61 of
25 July 1997, the Council stressed the need for the Administrative Committee on
Coordination to ensure that there was effective inter-agency support to the work of the
intergovernmental bodies dealing with conference follow-up, including the Council and its
functional commissions, that there was regular updating and feedback on the incorporation
of the work of the task forces at the country level; and that the Council should be kept
fully informed of the work and decisions of the Administrative Committee on Coordination
concerning integrated and coordinated implementation and follow-up of the major United
Nations conferences and summits.
UNDP continues to assist countries in following up Summit commitments
to poverty eradication, at the country, regional and global levels. Important results have
included increased gender mainstreaming in development programming, increased
possibilities for UNDP to be engaged in the development of micro finance sectors as a tool
for poverty alleviation, self-employment and social integration of excluded groups, and
the broadening of the institutional base for civil society organization cooperation with
the United Nations system.
The Human Development Report 1997 is devoted to an analysis of
global poverty, including suggestions on new ways to measure it (the new human poverty
index) and a framework for combatting it. With the additional support of the poverty
strategies initiative (a multi-donor programme launched immediately following the Summit)
UNDP is working with over 80 countries in supporting national anti-poverty strategies in
various stages of preparation. In partnership with the United Nations Children’s Fund
(UNICEF) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), UNDP has also initiated efforts
in several countries to explore the feasibility of promoting 20/20 compacts. It is also
involved in planning the international "second-stage" event as a sequel to the
1996 Oslo meeting on 20/20 convened by the Government of Norway.
UNDP participated actively in the Inter-Agency Task Force on Employment
and Sustainable Livelihoods, chaired by the International Labour Organization (ILO), led
two of the seven country reviews and prepared a note on operationalizing the concept of
"sustainable livelihoods". The sustainable livelihoods approach can provide
added structure to employment/livelihood strategies, permitting more sensitive analysis
and policy determination for those actually living in poverty. Notable in this context is
the UNDP MicroStart Pilot Programme, which was designed to respond to the rapid
developments in the micro finance sector. MicroStart provides institutional and capital
support to micro finance institutions and networks in 25 pilot countries, thereby
increasing direct access to financial services and building on the indigenous economic
capacity of poor people and microentrepreneurs.
UNDP also supported a project on social exclusion that analysed the
processes and patterns that prevent people from taking part in the economic and social
life of their community. It also addressed the question of what kind of policies are
required to promote the social integration of excluded groups. Building upon the results
of the project, UNDP is currently exploring ways in which the analysis of exclusion could
make anti-poverty strategies more effective. Issues of exclusion and the breakdown of
social ties are also being used to analyse and develop policy and programme directives on
how development programmes can contribute to the rebuilding of the social fabric in
societies torn apart by civil conflict and violence.
The International Labour Office was designated as task manager with the
principal responsibility of preparing the report of the Secretary-General on the priority
theme: productive employment and sustainable livelihoods (E/CN.5/1997/3), which was
submitted to the Commission for Social Development at its thirty-fifth session. The
report, described under section III below, contains a number of recommendations for
consideration and discussion by the Commission. The report on world employment 1996-97
published by the International Labour Office also provided the basis for a number of
discussions on the subject, including a seminar organized by the Secretariat.
The International Labour Office also chaired the Administrative
Committee on Coordination Task Force on Employment and Sustainable Livelihoods. A number
of comprehensive country-level employment reviews were undertaken, the framework of which
encompassed the major features affecting the level and quality of employment, including
national macroeconomic and sectoral policies covering such issues as savings, investment
and enterprise development; labour market policies and institutions; democratic
policy-making and social dialogue; gender discrimination and child labour; and trade and
capital flows and migratory movements. The country reviews were conducted in Hungary,
Nepal, Indonesia, Morocco, Zambia, Mozambique and Chile and were completed by February
1997. A 15-point set of guidelines was drawn up by the Task Force, which stated that a
sound macroeconomic policy framework needed to be established; priority had to be given to
efforts to expand productive employment in both the farm and non-farm sectors; the general
level of education and of technical competence of the labour force had a vital bearing on
increasing productivity, efficiency and international competitiveness; countries must
design and formulate clearly a strategy for full employment and sustainable livelihoods
based on social dialogue with the fullest possible degree of involvement of
employers’ and workers’ organizations; a comprehensive strategy was needed in
response to the discrimination faced by women; targeted programmes and policies were
needed to remedy accentuated forms of environmental degradation and to assure
sustainability of development; and liberalization and structural adjustment policies
should be pursued to stimulate greater private sector participation, greater integration
of countries into the world economy and enhanced competitiveness of domestic industry and
better use of technology and capital.
The World Bank convened high-level expert meetings in 1996 and 1997 on
the subject of "social capital", as part of its work on sustainable development
and the measure of the wealth of nations which was stimulated by the Summit. In addition
to natural capital, physical or produced capital, and to the now widely accepted notion of
human capital, social capital refers to the functioning of the various institutions that
are critical to individual welfare and social integration. Social capital can be depleted,
for example, by corruption and political alienation. It can be enhanced, for instance, by
ethical behaviour and trust among economic partners. Work on this concept of social
capital will enhance the understanding and measurement of the development process.
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The Summit and the General Assembly both
reaffirmed the need for effective partnership and cooperation between Governments and the
relevant actors of civil society, the social partners and non-governmental organizations
in the implementation of and follow-up to the Copenhagen Declaration and Programme of
Action. The Assembly, in its resolution 51/202, encouraged non-governmental organizations
to participate in the work of the Commission for Social Development. The Economic and
Social Council, in its decision 1997/298 of 23 July 1997, decided, as an interim measure,
to invite those non-governmental organizations that were accredited to the Summit to
attend the thirty-sixth session of the Commission, provided that they had started the
process of application for consultative status in accordance with Council decision
1996/315 of 14 November 1996. It should be noted that representation and participation of
non-governmental organizations at the thirty-fifth session of the Commission was the
highest in the history of the Commission.
Since the World Summit for Social Development, the various actors of
civil society have played a major role in supporting follow-up activities to the Summit,
to remind Governments of their commitments made at Copenhagen and to sensitize public
opinion on follow-up activities. In that connection, conferences, seminars and symposia
have been organized at national, regional and international levels. Operational activities
have been conducted at the field level. A few examples are given below.
The Business Association for the World Summit for Social Development
has contributed to the establishment of an International Business Advisory Council. The
Council brings together governmental bodies, the United Nations Industrial Development
Organization (UNIDO) and entrepreneurs from different countries to work on common
strategies aimed at fighting unemployment and promoting social progress and development.
The International Council on Social Welfare (ICSW) and the
International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), in collaboration with the
Friedrich Ebert Foundation, organized a non-governmental organization forum on the items
before the Commission for Social Development just before the opening of the thirty-fifth
session of the Commission. ICSW supports the holding of regional ministerial meetings on
the follow-up to the Summit by organizing a non-governmental organization forum before
each meeting. Such a meeting took place at São Paulo in April 1997 for the Latin American
region. Another meeting is scheduled for November 1997 in Manila, the Philippines, for the
Asian and Pacific region. In addition to the launching of the Social Development Review,
ICSW has developed a website on social development and the Summit.
In 1996, the initiative "Social Watch" was launched by a
group of non-governmental organizations to monitor social development policies and
programmes formulated and carried out by countries in implementing decisions of the
Summit. In the 1997 edition, the emphasis is on issues such as the dimensions of poverty
and globalization and the status of women. A description of follow-up actions taken by 25
countries is also featured. The organization participated effectively at the Commission
for Social Development and continues its efforts to work actively in the social
development field, gathering statistics and data for the analysis and comparison between
national reports. A workshop on social indicators will be organized by Social Watch in
Montevideo at the end of August with the aim of perfecting their methodology and
instruments, so as to enhance the efficiency of organizations of the civil society in
their monitoring activities.
In May 1997, ICFTU convened a symposium on structural adjustment,
globalization and employment creation at Dakar. Attended by over 100 union leaders from
the African region, the symposium was a microcosm of important parts of the development
debate and its implications on societies and economies of African countries. Also
attending the meeting were representatives of the United Nations system, the African
Development Bank, the European Union and the Organization of African Unity (OAU).
The European Federation for the Welfare of the Elderly organized a
conference on "Elimination of Poverty in Old Age" in December 1996, in the
context of the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty. The Conference was also
viewed as a follow-up to the World Summit for Social Development and a preparatory
activity for the International Year of the Older Person in 1999.
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Notes
3 Official Records of the Economic and Social Council,
1996, Supplement No. 9 (E/1996/29) and ibid., 1997, Supplement No. 6
(E/1997/26). |
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