Aid

My name is Abdul Awal and I am have already been doing so much as part of a whole week of action on poverty since October 13th.  We have had a press conference and several excellent discussions calling on our government and rich countries to take more concrete actions to end poverty. Time is passing for our leaders to do the right thing and honour their Millennium Goal promises. Today, I am back to my office and preparing for tomorrows mobilization on World Food Day.  I will join a farmer’s stand up event in the coastal town Noakhali, where farmers are joining hands to demand their right to food and agricultural reform in favor of the marginalized farmers in the newly raised Char area.  On Saturday, I will take part in the central Stand Up event of civil society in the capital city Dhaka at the Central Shohid Minar while on 18th, some great cultural events will take place in Robondra Sorobar, Dhaka city with hundreds of young people and citizens set to take part.
It will really shine a spotlight on the plight of so many people in this country so I am really looking forward to the weekend! awal@nrdsbd.org

My name is Hector Bejar and I am Standing Up this weekend at the launch of a report on how my country, Peru is doing in achieving the Millennium Development goals on Friday in Lima.  We all want to know how Peru is doing on addressing hunger, poverty, healthcare, literacy, environmental degradation and discrimination against women. Progress has been so unequal between the different goals and also between different regions of our country.  This means that the challenge now is to build a integrated social policy and dedicate a greater percentage of the public sector budget to addressing poverty.  We want to see the macro economic plan changed from one that serves the interests of big business and their development to one that addresses the needs of everyone in the country. 

For the first time ever, the parliament is discussing about increasing the ODA four-year budget more than the government has proposed. The State Council (Senate) and the National Council agreed to approve an increasing up to 0.5% and requested the government to present a corresponding credit application in 2009. The GCAP campaign has contributed to significant change in public opinion from “aid is useless and there's no need to increase it" into the opposite. The anti-aid-campaign that some influential media had been leading since 2005 has ebbed away last winter.

According to Reuters, new 2009 estimates compiled by the Bank show that weaker economic growth will push 46 million more people below the poverty line of $1.25 a day than was expected before the crisis emerged in 2007. An (extra) 53 million people will stay trapped on less than $2 a day. This is on top of the 130 million-155 million people pushed into poverty in 2008 because of soaring food and fuel prices. 

In Ireland the GCAP coalition, led by the NGO platform Dóchas, has come out strongly against its government's decision to slash aid. 

About the Irish Aid cuts

Ireland’s aid agencies recognise that unprecedented times call for strong measures, but taking such an enormous portion from the aid budget – more than 10% of the sum budgeted in October – will seriously hit the poorest of the poor. 

"We acknowledge that the Government faces difficult choices but are dismayed at the size of this cut, the third significant chop to the aid budget in just 7 months. This raises serious question marks about the strength of Government commitment to delivering on its international pledges to fight poverty. The latest reduction of €95 million comes on top of earlier cuts in July 2008 (€45 million) and October 2008 (€15 million). Our ODA/GNP ratio will now drop from 0.57% to 0.53% in 2009." said Dochas, the Irish platform of development NGOs. 

Key messages:

Ireland was proud of its leadership in tackling international poverty as aid spending increased, but international standing depends on adherence to principles, commitments and pledges in difficult times as well as in good times. 

Ireland has publicly committed to achieving the UN target of spending 0.7% of national income on overseas aid by 2012. This promise was made at the highest possible level, at a gathering of world leaders at the United Nations. 

Ireland was very happy to gather the international praise and recognition that this promise to the world’s poor has brought us. Now that our resolve is being tested, we cannot change our minds and forget about our promises to the bottom billion. 

Ireland’s economic reputation has taken a severe hit in the past couple of months: we have rejected Europe by voting No to Lisbon. We have stopped being an example of entrepreneurship with the demise of the Celtic Tiger. And we have lots the trust of international investors through our banking scandals. 

But we still have our moral credibility: Ireland has long been a leader in the international fight against poverty. 

Ireland’s international credibility depends on adhering to its principles and pledges in difficult times as well as in good times. 

The world’s poor are already being hit by the financial crisis, soaring food prices and climate change, and cannot withstand an aid crisis too. 

Background

During the second week of february, Dóchas met with the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Minister of State for overseas aid. At the meetings they expressed:

• Shock and disappointment at the disproportional levels of the cuts to date (June 08 €45m; October 08 €15m; February 09 €95m)
• Understanding of the need for the cuts, but not at the price of reneging on Ireland's international commitments e.g. .6% in 2010 and .7% in 2012
• That Irelands ODA programme is the central element to foreign policy, a source of great international standing and influence for Ireland and that continuous periodic cutting damages our reputation and standing with important donors such as the UN, EC, US, UK, Dutch and Nordics.

The Doha Financing for Development Conference is over and my partner Rebeca will start quizzing me tomorrow. How did it go? What really happened?

Well, the two day pre-conference of the Civil Society was rather good. In a serious process of consensus building we went right through the first draft outcome document of the Doha conference. We had enough expertise in our networks and 250 people attending to have well researched argumentation in the room, and we put together a solid civil society paper of improvements and additions on all issues for our governmental delegations. The Qatar government funded southern participants – but only for the pre-conference, so more then half had to leave before the official conference opened.  

The official UN meeting opened against the horrific backdrop of the Mumbai attacks with blood and violence on our TV screens. It proved that no ‘war on terrorism’, masculine competition and a ‘winner takes all’ mentality can stop terrorist, communal or domestic violence. Growing fear feeds violence. We need global justice and cooperation, values taught in schools which do not miss a single child. We need more women in leadership, respect in practice for human rights and lives at household, national and global levels.  

A press conference gave us the opportunity to hand over our input to the President of the General Assembly who gave an impassioned speech about the urgency of putting need above greed, and changing paradigms in our world to solve the multi-crises we face. He spoke of our input in his opening speech to the General Assembly the next day where Gemma Adaba from ITUC was our strong civil society voice, high on the five-minute speakers list.  

French president Sarkozy, holding the EU presidency, made a strong plea for urgent solutions especially for Africa – and for an African seat at the table of different multinational institutions. But for me he was too ‘pro’ his own G20 initiatives and rather ‘divide and rule’ towards the G77 as well as the EU, in stressing the French bond with Africa. His proud claims about 60% of official development aid coming from Europe and the extra 1 billion Euro for the food crises that has just been decided on made me snort cynically…..yes 60% of about 100 billion euros. And the French are still not near reaching their promised 0.7% of GNI for aid or supporting fair trade practice. He didn’t mention the 260 billion Euro either, which the EU just approved for stimulating the economies of Europe itself: encouraging consumerism in order to keep production going.  Save the car industry, who cares about climate change.  If that money was spent on eradicating poverty we could build have two billion more people to build sustainable economy with decent production and consumption patterns.  

The USA delegation was the same, they kept boasting about being the biggest bilateral aid donor, and having doubled that in the last 8 years. As it was only 0.16% of their GNI in 2007, and they have never committed to the 0.7% they too talk better than they act.  After all twice (nearly) zero remains (nearly) zero. 

Strong speeches came from the two special envoys to this conference: the development minister from Germany, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeuland (on urgency and content) and the finance minister from South Africa Trevor Manuel (demanding solutions, and a stop to power games between Washington and New York). 

Negotiations begin

Then the circus of negotiations and official round tables and side-events started – for four long days. The six round tables started badly, with civil society invited but given virtually no airtime. Only on the last day the roundtable on systemic issues allowed for three CS speakers allowing for some real input and dialogue at last. 

The side events suffered always from having too many speakers, but were actually very good and interesting.  My favourite was on Decent Work, chaired by Mary Robinson with a great line up of speakers : ambassadors from Norway and Bangladesh, multilateral institutions, UNCTAD and more good civil society input. We also had a great dinner with UNIFEM – arguing about needing a new UN women’s conference in 2010, not called Beijing plus fifteen…. with new, young energy,like we saw in Porte Alegre, Brazil in 2005. It needs to be about designing and implementing transformational gender strategies, as well as exchanging notes on stopping violence and making more inroads with quota’s and gender mainstreaming.   

Contact with official negotiations, was mostly bad news. The paragraphs on climate change and tax evasion were tricky, some found there to be an overdose on gender….but the main fight in town was about where the follow up process was to be placed.  

There were strong attempts from the Bush administration on its last legs, to ensure that the responsibility for redesigning and overviewing the financial architecture of the world stayed with the Bretton Woods institutions, and/or in the hands of the G20.  

The G77 doesn’t trust the IMF, correctly concerned that their standard recipe is in their macro-economic DNA: cutting down on governmental spending and keeping education, health and wage bills low which means keeping the next generation stupid and poor. The IMF now wants to sell its gold to pay for its own oversized staff, but would not consider that to solve the food crises or to invest in local agriculture.  Giving this responsibility to the IMF was referred to by someone like asking an arsonist to put out the fire. For me it is like letting a wife-beater who has no sense of guilt or shame back into the house.  

Actually the top of the IMF and the World Bank didn’t even bother to show up, illustrating their lack of respect for the UN and the developing countries. A Dutch dimplomat told me this was because the G77 didn’t want them to come – quite incorrect, but a telling example of blaming the south in northern diplomatic gossip. The G77 obviously wants to be involved in the follow up, for which this process must stay in the hands of the General Assembly of 192 countries. Europe first backed the G77 completely, but then threatened not to hold a firm stand, not to challenge the USA enough, and started to favor some developing countries above others.  

I heard from many sides that this is the usual UN pattern ….first lots of agreement, just a few paragraphs to solve. Europe starts supporting the developing countries, then the USA plays out their power position, goes for the lowest common denominator, threatens a veto and a failed conference. That forces compromises in which Europe gives in too much – and finally often a rather weak result which particularly the global south is not very happy with. 

The Civil Society Ballot Box

We as civil society got so frustrated on the second day, that we staged a quick and fun action with two ballot boxes, asking delegates what they voted for: ‘democratic people centred development’ or ‘Bush&co’. We got quite some attention and publicity, made delegates laugh – and we heard later from negotiating delegates that this had an impact in isolating the USA.  

Outcomes

It was nice to hear that the Dutch Minister of Development Bert Koenders played an important role in the last phase of negotiations. And yes, the end result of four days was back to the original text: ‘the UN will hold a conference at the highest level on the world financial and economic crisis and its impact on development’…..run by the president of the General Assembly. On content the outcome document is not too bad, reaffirmation of Monterrey’s agreement to eradicate poverty, no slippage on the volume of aid, better gender and decent work language, a little advance on stopping tax leakages and acting on climate change. But many issues were referred to the next conference -  with a different and hopefully more democratic USA player at the table. 

So this was a victory for inclusive global democracy, for developing countries and for civil society. But do we have time for these kinds of power battles? It took most of the official UN energy during the four days, which should have been spent on the real issues, the urgent crises and on working towards solutions with the corporate sector and civil society present. In this sense it was very much ‘business as usual’- although every speaker claimed it was not, that we need urgency, paradigm shifts etc. etc. 

The Crises get left for another day

What a result - four days spent agreeing to another expensive UN meeting. If this power play could have been finished on day one, the excellent governmental, UN and Civil Society brains present could have got on with making real plans for the bail out of the most vulnerable peoples. Men, women and children starving, selling their last assets to survive, not getting water, energy, education or health service, needing support in their local agriculture, microfinance, small but growing trade… in the short term this Doha Conference offers them nothing. And how I long for world leadership which connects the dots of the different crises. We need leaders who grab this opportunity to design sustainable production and consumption patters, to really eradicate poverty and educate the bottom billions so that they can be the motor of a home-grown real economy. Leadership which challenges us in the developed world to change our lifestyles in the name of justice but also for the survival of our human species. 

As Tuesday’s Civil Society press release concluded: Doha: A missed opportunity...

Written by Sylvia Borren, GCAP Global Council Co-Chair

Now, Canadian aid spending is directed to go exclusively to programmes that reduce poverty, are consistent with human rights standards, and include the priorities and ideas of people living in poverty. It includes transparent monitoring that looks at the impact of aid on both women and men.

The passing of the Better Aid Bill also reinforced the effectiveness of civil society research and advocacy to influence governance and policy matters at the national level. Additionally, it built a critical mass of parliamentarians supporting Make Poverty History, who are now working with GCAP to engage parliament on the quantity of aid, G8 policy demands, and more.

As an open platform, GCAP supporting organisations engage with different parts of coalition work.  Make Poverty History Canada’s, primary objectives are around more and better aid. The Better Aid Bill was put forward by parliamentarians supporting Make Poverty History, and was coupled with mobilisation of 75,000 individual supports of Make Poverty History Canada, who were disaggregated by voting district, and presented petitions to legislators. Thanks to the development of a strong online network, the coalition put pressure on elected representatives through street demonstrations, massive emails and local communities’ pressure during the political campaign previous to elections. While led by Make Poverty History Canada, the lobbying and mobilisation activities took place in conjunction with growing and diverse groups, including the First Nations, student and youth groups, Oxfam, and organisations working on domestic poverty issues. Campaigning is now ongoing to ‘get to the point’ of .7% and pushing for proper implementation of the bill.

Visit the GCAP Canada page for more information.

Negotiations on the Draft Outcome Document (DOD) were on a roller coaster ride when the European Union (EU) announced, on the evening of the first day, that they would agree to the document as is and stop the gruelling paragraph by paragraph, line by line analysis of the document which had been going on so far. The following morning everyone waited anxiously for the committee of the whole to meet and see how delegations would respond.

Following further meetings and negotiations, the G77 announced that they would accept the EU proposal. At this point, the Russian Federation mentioned concern about one paragraph on climate change, then Japan mentioned concern about three paragraphs, but that overall they could leave the rest of the text alone.

It seemed things were going well, and that a draft would be ready by the afternoon, but then, the US then spoke up with objections and a laundry list of contentious paragraphs. 

This made all the countries that had accepted the EU proposal, including the EU itself, decide to go back to the line-by-line approach.

In light of the blocked negotiations by the US, a few NGO representatives, including Kinda Mohammedia, Sylvia Borren and Adelaide Sosseh amongst others, organized a Group of 192 (G-192) vote with the NGO delegates in the Media Center and a sign on petition available at www.petitiononline.com/G192vote .

Noting attempts to block the current negotiations on the Doha Review Conference on Financing for Development (FfD), civil society advises UN members to take a vote on the President’s proposed Doha outcome document.

The majority of the G192 can and should ignore anti-democratic power-play by the Bush administration.

Ballots were distributed. Votes were cast. More news coming soon...

It seemed like NGO reps were multi-tasking all day since declarations and statements were being drafted and edited throughout the day as well!  I attended the Women setting the Agenda: Women's Human Rights, Right to Development and Financing for Developments (FfD) session which was a workshop "addressing the centrality of gender equality to the FfD agenda,...building upon women's movements proposals to all the FfD chapters." The outputs were inputs into the Forum Declaration, the second day's press release, as well as a Women's Statement. We also strategized on the Draft Outcome Document and current negotiations, and planned advocacy for the Sheraton, site of the official conference beginning in two days, Nov. 29. 

The plenaries provided much food for thought. One interesting intervention came from someone who wasn't on the agenda, Oscar de Rojas, the Executive Director of the FfD Office. He provided some insight into the state of play around the negotiations and urged NGOs to do what we do best and that's encourage  governments to deliver at this conference.  Negotiations continue and apparently things are as one unnamed delegate (not Oscar) described as "very critical."  Amb. Abdelaziz, one of the co-chairs of the negotiations who was scheduled to be on the programme, was unable to join us for the closing plenary. 

Governments to abandon negotiations?

There was talk of governments wanting to abandon the negotiations and instead agree to a one-pager stating they had reaffirmed the Monterrey Consensus, although this would surely indicate a collapse of the FfD process.  The G20 meeting a couple of weeks ago has cast a long shadow over the FfD negotiations and threatens to be a power grab rather than having those negotiations fall under the umbrella of the UN. The non G8 countries within the G20 are silent within the FfD process. The US is said to be playing hard-ball during the final days of a lame duck administration. Only 50 Heads of State are planning to attend the conference (about the same number as Monterrey), however this list does not include the head of the country where the financial crisis is taking place -- the USA. Even Calderon, Mexico's president. who was expected to attend for historical reasons, among others, connected to the Monterrey Conference, has bowed out.  Most will arrive Saturday, give their speech and press conferences on Sunday, then slip out of the country to leave the nitty-gritty details to be worked out at the ministerial level.

Next days

Tomorrow, NGOs will have the first press conference focusing on certain key points, two being the centrality of financing a people-centered development and pressing for an effective follow-up mechanism within the UN.  Gemma Adaba (ITUC) has been selected to present the civil society statement on the morning of the first opening plenary (a prime spot for NGOs who usually get the last slot around midnight on the last day of a conference/summit). Many NGO representatives from the South who are unable to afford the next four days left today, having been funded only for the Forum. The Forum Declaration is being finalized tomorrow morning to have ready for the press conference. It includes a laundry list of points and demands.

On a personal note, I must say I've never experienced a Thanksgiving holiday like this one ever -- grabbing a meal in 15 minutes and eating curry instead of home-cooked turkey and fixings. With events like those in Mumbai in the back of our minds, a few of us at dinner raised our glasses and expressed sincere thanks for all, for so much with which we are blessed.

Working on adrenaline and coffee during the day and staying up late in a time warp means little sleep for many of us in Doha!  I accompanied a colleague with a serious case of red eye to the Doha Hamad General Hospital for free medical service the other night. That experience alone is a separate blog entry!

This blog was submitted by Rosa Lizarde of the GCAP Feminist Task Force.

Read the full text of the press release from the second day of the Civil Society Forum:
Get out of the “woods”! Civil Society supports UN-led Summit on finances

Read the full text of the Women's Statement:
Doha 2008:Women’s Rights & Gender Equality in Financing for Development

“Is the United States a ‘failed state’? Its financial mismanagement has triggered a worldwide crisis.”

These were the words of Social Watch coordinator Roberto Bissio, a challenge to some 300 civil society delegates meeting yesterday at the Civil Society Forum in Doha, Qatar.

The Draft Declaration to be considered by the Forum states that:

The world is consumed by an urgent triple crisis of energy, food and finance that not only threatens the realization of the MDGs, but also the stability of the world’s economies.

The Northern governments and financial system are responsible for the current financial crisis, but the costs and the impacts are paid for by the entire world, and by the poorest countries in particular. Moreover, climate change is threatening the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people, in the North and the South.

The Forum is addressing the international crises that threaten our climate, development and social justice, and developing recommendations for change to carry into the official Conference starting on November 29. The draft declaration (PDF), accompanied by an extensive folio of key recommendations, constructively addresses the six point agenda of the official conference in detail.

Yesterday's opening plenary was moderated by Rosa Lizarde, from the GCAP Feminist Task Force. Here is her account of the day:

Yesterday we opened the Civil Society Forum on Financing for Development in Doha, "Investing in a People-Centered Development." The opening plenary included the participation of H.E. Ambassador Mohammed Abdullah Al Mutib Rumaihi, Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, and Roberto Bissio who presented the keynote address on the trends, challenges, the financial crisis and the impact on the FfD process, among other points.

As the moderator, I highlighted the current climate in which we are meeting, "No doubt, in the past six years since Monterrey we have seen many changes in the economic, social and financial sectors. As you all may recall, six months prior to the FfD in Monterrey, in September of 2001, a shock was felt around the world and it undoubtedly colored the outcomes of Monterrey. These days, the world is experiencing other shocks and other stresses that will also, no doubt, color or shade the outcome of Doha. "

It was a full day of activities, with work being done on the civil society draft Declaration, break out groups focused on the six agenda items of the Draft Outcome Document, analysis on the state of negotiations, and workshops in the evening on various topics of discussion.

The Forum continues today, when a Final Declaration will be agreed on for delivery to the official Conference.

Read the full text of the Civil Society Forum Day 1 press release:
Crisis the focus as Civil Society gathers for two day debate

Other documents and materials:
Financing for Development 2008