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 Social Watch, a worldwide coalition of civil society organisations, has published its new annual report entitled "Rights Is The Answer". It argues that an approach based on human rights is the only way to overcome the current global financial, food, energy and climate crises, and provides examples of how the current financial architecture has ignored or openly violated those rights and triggered spiralling inequity all around the world.
Social Watch acts as a watchdog network, monitoring government compliance with their international commitments, and has been publishing an annual report since 1996. The 2008 report, launched on December 1, documents how governments are falling short of their commitment to eradicate poverty and achieve gender equity through the testimony of civil society groups in 59 countries. 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 to a near halt over the last two decades. According to the Social Watch calculations, universal compliance with the Millennium Development Goals is now an impossible feat, if the world governments maintain a "business as usual" attitude. In one of the articles from the 2008 Social Watch Report, Simon Stocker (Eurostep) and Mirjam van Reisen (EEPA) document how the promises made by the European Commission (EC) to focus its development aid strategies on promoting poverty eradication have not been fulfilled in reality, 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. Confronted by the numerous structural and circumstantial obstacles created by the fatal flaws in the global financial architecture that block the full realization of the human rights of all the world´s citizens, Social Watch calls for the convening by the United Nations of a comprehensive, inclusive process to review and reconstruct the international financial and monetary institution. As Roberto Bissio urges, "In the transition from the current system - which has fostered instability and inequality - towards a just, sustainable, and accountable one, human rights must be the starting point and not some distant goal in the future." You can find the report here. Sources: |
