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DEVELOPMENT: Rights In Times of Crisis
By IPS Correspondents
DOHA, Dec 1 (IPS) - For the past three decades, indebted developing countries have been forced by
the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank to deregulate financial
and labour markets, privatise national industries, abolish subsidies, and reduce
social and economic spending.
Now - during the worst financial crisis since the 1930s - northern
governments that control these multilateral financial institutions have
launched a massive and unprecedented programme of government
intervention, nationalising banks, injecting massive subsidies into ailing
institutions and re-regulating their financial sectors.
"This double standard is unacceptable," asserts Roberto Bissio of the
international Social Watch coalition. "The financial system, its architecture and
its institutions must be completely rethought."
Only an approach based on human rights can overcome the current crisis,
argues Social Watch in its 2008 report, ‘Rights is the Answer’, launched
Monday at the International Conference on Financing for Development in
Doha, Qatar.
"Human rights must be the starting point," the document states, "and not
some distant goal in the future, and a rights-based approach to development
[with gender equality, decent work and human rights at its core] must be the
main guiding principle."
Social Watch, an international NGO watchdog network monitoring government
compliance with international commitments, has published this annual report
since 1996.
The report documents the relation between human rights and the economic
and financial architecture in 59 countries through the testimonies of
grassroots activists and civil society analysts in these countries.
The national reports show how the pervasiveness of extreme poverty and
gender inequity is intimately linked to the immediate effects of the current
triple crisis and to longer-term painful economic adjustments ingrained in
the global financial architecture.
Social Watch documents the widespread, haphazard implementation of
policies promoting economic liberalisation and deregulation. They found that
these policies have provoked the curtailment of people’s economic and social
rights around the globe, that liberalisation and deregulation now curtail the
ability of many developing countries to comply with their international
commitments to end poverty and achieve gender equality.
The growing income inequalities both within and between countries spurred
by capital flight, tax evasion, and privatisation have slowed down the
progress on key social indicators. According to the Social Watch calculations,
meeting the eight Millennium Goals is virtually impossible if world
governments maintain a "business as usual" attitude.
In the first thematic report of the 2008 Social Watch document, Nicholas
Shaxson and John Christensen of the Tax Justice Network demonstrate how
weak tax reporting policies allow for illicit financial flows. They cite from a
University of Massachusetts study that estimates capital flight from 40
African countries over a 35-year period amounted to 420 billion dollars
(2004 dollars). Compare this with their total external debt, which amounted
to 227 million dollars in 2004.
According to Shaxson and Christensen, "We can no longer focus so strongly
on aid, without bringing tax into the core of the debate. Tax is the most
accountable, and sustainable source of financing for development."
In another thematic report, Mirjam van Reisen and Simon Stocker of Eurostep
document how the promises made by the European Commission (EC) to focus
its development aid strategies on promoting poverty eradication have not
been fulfilled, due in large part to Europe’s overriding interest in liberalising
trade flows.
EC aid to developing countries is now largely channelled towards improving
infrastructure and facilitating trade, instead of contributing towards the
realisation of basic social rights such as access to health care and education.
Kinda Mohamadieh of the Arab NGO Network for Development provides a
developing country view in her thematic report on social and economic rights
in the Arab region. In recent years, Mohamadieh says, economic liberalisation
has actually thwarted attempts to strengthen democracy in the region.
Social Watch calls for the convening by the U.N. of a comprehensive, inclusive
process to review and reconstruct the international financial and monetary
institutions - a demand that has become a bone of contention at the Doha
talks here.
Only an international conference convened by the U.N. that includes
developing countries and civil society can yield benefits for the majority of
the world's people, according to Social Watch.
(END/2008)
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