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Disappointed Delegates Pack Their Bags
As delegates to the Social Summit and Geneva 2000 Forum begin to pack their bags to return to their various countries, many are taking a long, hard look at the achievements over the last few days and many are coming up disappointed.
Oduor Ongwen, who heads Kenya’s umbrella NGO Council is disappointed that, the conference failed to tackle the review of the 10 commitments made at the first social summit in Copenhagen in 1995.
’I am disappointed because I thought the meeting would review what has been achieved,’’ he told Terra Viva. ‘’What I see are deliberate diversions from the main issues.’’
He says the goal set in Copenhagen for developed countries to commit at least 20 percent of their Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) funds to Third World countries has been ignored. ‘’I thought it would be in the interest of the African countries to push the issue forward,’’ he says.
For some, the discussions on the impact of globalisation on developing countries were more of the same and some have grown weary of the talk.
“Globalisation is the process that brought us to the Caribbean, through slavery. The new globalisation is just another form of slavery,’’ says Hazel Brown a delegate from the Caribbean.
Brown says globalisation has resulted in the current banana trade war between the Caribbean and Latin American countries, following the decisions by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) against preferential treatment of Caribbean bananas by the European Union. ‘’We’ve been told that globalisation presents opportunities. For us, it is an opportunity to put us against each other,’’ she says .
Bisi Ogunleye, of the Country Women Association of Nigeria (COWAN) says the old globalisation, has resulted in poverty, unemployment and urbanisation.
‘’The old globalisation turned our farmer into a labourer in his own farm. How can anyone tell me that the new globalisation can help our people?” she asks.
’The rural women are not afraid of new ideas, what we are afraid of is who owns the process and how much is in it for rural women.
’Promoters of globalisation say it has opportunities. But rural women have been knocked to the ground by the first globalisation.,” she says.
Ogunleye is disappointed that most African governments discuss the issue of globalisation at international meetings, without consulting their rural populations which are most affected by the process .
Read TerraViva
The IPS renowned international newspaper will publish a special edition in Geneva, at the United Nations General Assembly Special Session (Copenhagen+5). Follow the conference on line day by day from June 26 through July 1, with exclusive reports by a team of 13 IPS journalists from Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, Europe, North America and Latin America.
A selection of the IPS Coverage from Geneva will also be carried by TerraViva Daily Journal (New York) and TerraViva Europe (Brussels),.
Has the world lived up to its 1996 commitments..?
Solidarity 2000 starting 17th of June!
MS's big summer event Solidarity 2000 will start very soon now, with a week-long variety of debates and arrangements. The activities range from encounters between young people from Balkan, Africa and Central America to big conferences on the planet's social development and environment.
Judge by yourself:
The 1996 Copenhagen Social Summit final report in English, French and Spanish.