General

Henri Valot
GCAP Organisational Development Advisor

If you read the economic and development co-operation literature, you will clearly note a call for pro-poor policies. But one should now question: is poverty the problem? Or is it the alarming rate of wealth and inequality growth that is undermining poverty alleviation measures? There is something wrong and the fault does not lie with the Least Developed Countries or the poorest segments of our societies. The problem is not the poverty; the problem is the greed and the fact that speculation became dominant.

Wealth is not necessarily a problem, and it is the most common, universal quest. Right. But for all of us trying to understand what is going on, how do we make sense of the diversity of information we receive?
•    The wealthy, and the extremely wealthy are now everywhere in the media. We are flooded with important questions, such as: how do they spend their money? Who are the new extremely wealthy from India, Russia, China? What are the problems and challenges in the lives of the extremely wealthy?
•    European presidential salaries are usually around 20,000 euros a month. This would be the measure of remuneration for someone who is in charge of the public good in a country. But we hear that the remuneration of the captains of industry is significantly higher. Add their salaries, their stock options, and levels are reached that are simply unimaginable. It indicates that their job and responsibility is viewed as being more important than the public good. We regularly hear that these captains have been fired with a golden parachute of millions of dollars. Usually, he/she failed, cut jobs, lost markets but is able to secure a golden retirement.
•    But those European presidential salaries can be limited to 20,000 euros monthly, because many of them are in fact in collusion with the global capital. Some, like Berlusconi, are major industry captains or others have clear allegiance to global capital.
•    In 2004, for the first time since the end of the Cold War, military spending globally exceeded US$1 trillion. According to the 2005 Human Development Report, just the increase in military spending since 2000 would have been more than sufficient for all donors to reach the 0.7% target for aid spending (See ROA 2006).
•    “Bankers saved, human rights sacrificed” write Eric Toussaint and Damien Millet, from CADTM: “On the one hand, the amount of Official Development Assistance (ODA) distributed by the rich countries in 2007 is approximately 100 billion dollars. On the other hand, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the potential cost of the current international crisis is approximately 1,000 billion dollars, a result of the so-called 'subprime' crisis that emerged in the summer of 2007 and continues to wreak havoc.” .
•    Africa leaks: Contrary to a commonly accepted view, Africa is a net exporter of capital, says the economist Charles Abugre.  Between 1970 and 2000, whereas Africa received about $100bn in aid (including loans), it lost $274bn in capital flight induced by debt, trade mis-invoicing and imputed interest. Christian Aid calculated that over the past 2 decades, Africa lost in income terms the equivalent of over $270bn from the negative growth effects alone of trade liberalisation. This amount alone more than matches the accumulated value of grants, loans and net FDI channelled into the continent. It is also estimated that at least $11.5 trillion is currently held in about 74 tax havens – lost to tax authorities – by wealthy individuals. As is obvious from above, Africa is not as poor or as helpless as is often presented. Instead, it is a continent that leaks heavily. We have an obligation to plug the leaks, and to rely on domestic sources for financing development, which in turn also provide a more conducive environment for promoting democratic accountability than the dependence on aid, concludes Abugre.

There is something crazy going on. Add the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the so-called sub-prime crisis, and the fact that a trader can lose US$ 5 billion in half a day; then compare it to the actual cost of universal basic essential services (800 billion US$, according to UNDP).  Compare the fact that North Americans and Europeans spend more yearly on ice-cream than on official aid. Have in mind that 80% of the income of half the world’s population  is used to buy food and you will understand why people are in the streets as the price of rice rises.  As the UN says, it is not a famine per se, it is a new phenomenon: there is food everywhere in the large cities of the world, what happens is that the poorest and the most vulnerable inhabitants just cannot afford to buy it.

The rise of inequality

We all know the 80/20 law - 20% of the richest people own 80% of the wealth. But this is already outdated. While the richest 10% of adults in the world own 85% of global household wealth, the bottom half collectively owns barely 1%. Even more striking, the average person in the top 10% owns nearly 3,000 times the wealth of the average person in the bottom 10%. These are some of the results that emerge from a new UNU-WIDER study of the distribution of household wealth.

Global household wealth in the year 2000 amounted to $125 trillion, equivalent to roughly three times global GDP or to $20,500 per citizen of the world, by official exchange rates. In terms of PPP dollars, the corresponding world value was PPP$26,000 per capita, roughly the same as the average level in Poland or Turkey. Wealth levels vary widely across nations. Among the richest countries, mean wealth was $144,000 per person in the USA and $181,000 in Japan. Lower down among countries with wealth data are India, with per capita assets of $1,100, and Indonesia with $1,400 per capita (See The challenge of Inequality)

Social Watch therefore rightly asks “When will dignity for all be achieved? What is the bare minimum for a decent life for all? The world leaders who signed the Declaration did not define it clearly but its principles are embedded in the commitment to achieve certain targets by 2015. When will we achieve the basic standards of material dignity for the entire world’s people? Not in a hundred years unless we substantially accelerate the current trends of progress in social areas”!

With regard to Sub-Saharan Africa:
•    In food security (child malnutrition and under-nourishment in children younger than 5): 50% of the region registers no progress and at the current pace, the goal would be reached by 2282
•    In women’s reproductive health (births attended by skilled personnel): 32% of the region registers no progress and at the current pace, the goal would be reached by 2130
•    In basic education (adult literacy and primary and secondary school enrolment ratio): 21% of the region registers no progress and at the current pace, the goal would be reached by 2079
•    In child mortality: 41% of the region registers no progress and at the current pace, the goal would be reached by 2155
•    In water and sanitation: 28% of the region registers no progress and at the current pace, the goal would be reached by 2159.

This increasing inequality damages our common humanity, and places all societies in danger. It has an impact on our common understanding of social justice; it also has severe consequences on growth and efficiency and on political legitimacy.

Social justice: The view that there are limits to tolerable deprivation is fundamental to most societies and value systems. All major religions express concerns about equity and place obligations on their adherents to address extreme deprivation as a moral duty. Public ideas reflect wider normative concerns. Surveys show strong opinions in many countries that the gap between rich and poor is too large, thus indicating an underlying perception of social injustice.

Growth and efficiency: Extreme inequality is not just bad for poverty reduction, it is also bad for growth. In the long run, efficiency and greater equity can be complementary. Poor people remain poor partly because they cannot borrow against future earnings to invest in production, the education of their children and assets to reduce their vulnerability. Land insecurity and limited access to justice can create further barriers to investment and pro-poor growth.

Political legitimacy: Extreme inequalities also weaken political legitimacy and corrode institutions. Inequalities in income and human capabilities often reflect inequalities in political power. Poor people (especially women), rural populations and indigenous communities are disadvantaged partly because they have a weak political voice, and vice versa. Where political institutions are seen as perpetuating inequalities or advancing the interests of elites, democracy and stability can be undermined.

The MDGs or more ambitious economic policies needed

We could ask ourselves if the resolution adopted by the General Assembly-2005 World Summit Outcome, “To adopt, by 2006, and implement comprehensive national development strategies to achieve the internationally agreed development goals and objectives, including the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)” has in fact happened.

Being unrealistic about the MDGs in our public rhetoric and campaigns “runs the risk of creating a climate of inaccurate pessimism about development and aid”, adds Brian Tomlinson.  Indeed, in the absence of radical reforms to foster greater global equality on the part of developed countries, beyond delivering more aid, an exclusive emphasis on MDG targets potentially sets up poor people and poor countries to take the blame once again for “their failure” to achieve the unachievable. Yet again, it will be said that these countries failed to take the advice of the international community and squandered billions of dollars of aid and debt relief without reaching the Goals”.

Commitment to the MDGs is no doubt worthy. However, we need to be wary of allowing them to be used as an excuse for avoiding difficult political issues, and ignoring the very real complexity of human development in its widest understanding. We need to ensure that we maintain a vision of social justice, gender equity, and human development that relates to more than just the MDGs.  To achieve the MDGs, economic policies have to be bolder and more expansionary, advocates Terry Mc Kinley.  Fiscal policies should be focused on substantially scaling up public investment, financial policies geared to channelling considerably more lending to productive private investment and monetary policies reshaped to target not just inflation, but also real economic variables, such as increases in incomes and jobs and meaningful reductions in poverty.

The call for substantially larger Official Development Assistance (ODA) contributions to many developing countries, especially in Africa, necessarily involves making Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP) objectives much more ambitious. Such an injection of funds should rapidly scale up public investment in physical and social infrastructure.  A sizeable share should be targeted, upfront, to enlarging ‘absorptive capacity’ - i.e., each country’s ability to effectively disburse these monies for development purposes (Nebie, 2004). Otherwise, national ownership of poverty reduction strategies will be sacrificed in the process.

Growth alone will not be sufficient to eradicate income poverty within a reasonable time-frame of two or three decades. Eradicating poverty requires reducing inequality through direct redistribution. It is not a matter of choosing between labour and transfer strategies, but of recognising them as complementary. As the work of Amartya Sen demonstrates, people-centred development for poverty eradication is ultimately about recognising the rights of the vulnerable in transforming the power relations, as well as affecting the cultural and social interests that sustain inequality. The poor are not objects to be acted upon by development officials who “deliver” the MDGs. The impoverishment  of large numbers of people in the South has been the consequence of complex national and international economic, social and political processes. The challenge of combating poverty therefore is not so much “political will” of donor governments, as it is strengthening the means to address unequal power, capacity, and access to resources for those whose rights are systematically denied - the poor, impoverished women and children, and other marginalised peoples.

Most societies see reducing poverty and addressing inequality and economic injustice as important goals for public policy. Extreme disparities undermine the pursuit of these goals, and limit the rate at which growth can be converted into poverty reduction. Similarly, extreme disparities in health and education reduce the scope of disadvantaged groups to take advantage of opportunities for improving their welfare. The appropriate response is to ensure that inequality and the measures to overcome disparities in life chances figure more prominently in the design of poverty reduction strategies. National income is not a good measure of welfare, because it ignores the distribution of income.

International finances and GDP as public good

More than ever, we have the technology and the financial means to reduce poverty. To do so, civil society must be attentive to:
•    Developing the major agenda of national ownership and capacity development (See the current discussions on the Paris Declaration at betteraid.org)
•    Supporting and disseminating, through our Open Universities the work of alternative economists, and promoting our alternative indices and indicators
•    Supporting the reflection on “Innovative sources of finances”, including taxation of international financial movements
•    Supporting campaigns aimed at corporate transparency
•    Campaigning against tax concessions and for progressive tax policies
•    Working with relevant networks to campaign for the end to banking secrecy and tax havens
•    Advocating for participatory budgeting at all levels and linking all the innovative participatory budgeting experiences being held everywhere (see some Budget Tracking and Poverty Expenditure monitoring tools)

NUSA DUA, BALI -- Expect humidity with increased carbon emissions might as well be the weather forecast yesterday when the United Nations Climate Change Conference opened in the posh Nusa Dua tourist enclave in Bali, Indonesia.

Expect heavy traffic and loads of contradictions might have been an advisory as well.

More than 10,000 people from 190 countries, including five heads of states, environment ministers, industry lobbyists, and civil society and environmental campaigners are taking part in the event, which seeks to create a new treaty to replace the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol.

I was stuck in traffic on my way to Nusa Dua yesterday morning and almost came in late for the conference opening and the 9:00 am media stunts to take place in front of the Bali Convention Center where the conference is being held. I arrived two minutes after nine, nervous and pleased at the same time because I thought I would be stuck on the road forever, inside a Blue Bird, the local cab, the fare for which costs an arm and a leg.

Riding a bicycle to the site makes sense – in fact, hundreds of bikes are being provided by the UNFCCC for the delegates for free. By biking, one can get past the traffic jam caused by the huge SUVs carrying government officials and all sorts of posh delegates who, to be sure, will not be taking part in the parallel Civil Society Forum activities. But one can also get serious sunburn from riding exposed to the sun in hot Bali weather. One can get sick as well from the pollution caused by the increased number of fossil fuel-guzzling automobiles on the streets, which have added to the already high number of motorcycles, the locals' main mode of transport, -- which adds up to the greenhouse gas emissions and environmental stress.

Say Bali and the word paradise comes to mind – if you say Bali years ago, that is. Today, Bali stands for paradise lost. Intense tourism, pollution, deforestation, warming weather, the 2004 Indian Ocean quake that triggered massive tsunamis in many parts of Asia, as well as the terrible terror bomb attacks in 2002 and 2005 have reduced it into one of those popular island getaways, which require one to first read a travel advisory if one is planning to go there.

This week until next, Bali is in the center of the global discussion of a future climate regime. The Bali meeting will have to produce ways to reach a consensus on climate adaptation and mitigation, transfer of technology from developed to developing countries and financing scheme to curb and overcome the impacts of climate change. This is taking place while logging, most of it illegal, destroys thousands of hectares of land in Bali and all over Indonesia, adding up to the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Indonesia has one of the world's largest areas of rainforests. Massive illegal logging and burning of forests have stripped it of more than 70% of its original forest cover. As a result, Indonesia is now the world's third biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, next to the United States and China. Today, the Jakarta Post bannered a story on Indonesia's state minister for the environment Rachmat Witoelar's optimism that a consensus would be reached during this conference. Witoelar said many governments have warmed up to the idea of creating a new agenda for negotiating solutions for the warming of our world.

But while others have warmed up, the US remains frosty to the idea of drastic emission cuts. The US is seen as the biggest obstacle to forging a new pact with binding limits on emissions. George Bush has stated that they are keen on a common, long-term goal decades in the future without specific targets or limits. Curbing greenhouse emissions, he said, must be ""in a way that does not undermine economic growth or prevent nations from delivering greater prosperity for their people."

It has been seventeen years since the first global climate treaty was signed by almost all the world's nations, which set voluntary goals for curbing the emissions of greenhouse gases. The Kyoto Protocol, the first legally binding treaty signed by most of the world's leading greenhouse gas producers, was ratified in 1997 as an addendum to the original pact, setting mandatory limits on emissions for the industrialized countries that ratified it. The US refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol citing drastic emission cuts would harm its economy and that China and India are two of the world's major emitters, which should also curb their emissions.

Today, seventeen years later, those countries that ratified Kyoto have largely failed to meet their targets. And the US remains as pig-headed about setting specific targets as before.

The UNFCCC, however, has stated that any long-term policy response to climate change must be acceptable to all, including the US. The debates and compromises are on.

Yesterday, GCAP's Ben Margolis was interviewed twice and twice he was asked for his opinion on the US position. It seems that the biggest issue here, which dominates discussion and which the media is picking up at the expense of drowning the voices of groups vulnerable to climate change, is what is the framework for negotiations that is acceptable to the US.

lani villanueva

Bali is beautiful. This small tropical island, part of the Indonesian archipelago and perched off the East coast of Java is, for the next two weeks, playing host to a major UN climate change conference.

I am here for the first week of the conference with colleagues from the Global Call to Action Against Poverty – the world’s largest anti-poverty movement, with national platforms in more than 100 countries. I will try to send updates from the conference looking at both what is being discussed – but also to give a flavour of the conference itself.

There is no longer serious debate that humans are causing significant climatic changes, and that the poorest nations and people in the world are being hit first and hardest by these changes. So can Bali be the moment when negotiations truly begin on a crucial follow up to the Kyoto Protocol as well as on other vital areas including adaptation and deforestation?

My initial impression is, perhaps unhelpfully. Let me explain.

First the conference itself. Planes carrying delegates (the irony is lost on few) come down low over the narrow strip of water that separates the island from Java, and land at Denpasar on the South tip of Bali. Those delegates are whisked away in gas-guzzling people carriers to the exclusive resort of Nusa Dua, home to countless five star hotels and to the main convention centre where the meeting will take place.
 
In luxurious surroundings, and under the hot Balinese sun, delegates waft from hotel to conference centre in taxis, bell boys carry suitcases into air-conditioned rooms, talk is of clause 4 of this and article 15 of that, Balinese security guards and police patrol the boundaries, and locals are kept firmly out. In such surroundings I fear the emergency of climate change is lost. Radical action suppressed by freshly fluffed pillows.
 
And yet, around 12,000 government officials, civil society activists, UN staff, private sector representatives and others are arriving over the weekend for the 13th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and there are, perhaps, a few important features that distinguish this meeting from its predecessors and give hope that decisions can be made. 

The unity of dialogue, the role of civil society, and the timing of the conference are all playing a role to ensure that this conference is definitive in shaping global decisions. 
 
Having recently been at the World Bank and IMF annual meetings, it is already clear that civil society is far more integrated into the process here than at the Bank and Fund. Here the negotiation halls are open to all accredited delegates, the civil society forum is running parallel to the main conference and dialogue is free and open between all sides.  This is highly significant as it means that decisions reached will have been done so in a relatively transparent manner and are therefore more likely to have the support of all key actors.
 
Not unrelated is the fact that this conference is historic in the unity role players are facing in the debate.  While in many areas of economics and politics, different interest groups are brought to the discussion table largely to protect their own interests in a largely zero sum game, with climate change, business, government, and civil society stand to lose, and lose in a drastic way, if there is not unified, quick action.
 
Finally, the timing of this conference is working in its favour.  The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has become a widely accepted body for scientific evidence on climate change allowing a vital agreed basis for dialogue on agreements and future treaties. It’s fourth assessment report released this year highlights the need for drastic action in the most startling terms yet.
The ravages of climate change are already being felt, from Bangladesh to New Orleans. There is now widespread public awareness about climate change, and the more it is affecting the lives of citizens, the more they are demanding action from decision makers.  With a political incentive to act together against climate change, Bali could just be the place where promises are finally turned into action.

For the sake of all of us, let’s hope so.

Ben Margolis

There is something wrong when 38.8 million people stand up in solidarity against poverty across the world in one day, and it's nowhere prominent in the major US press.  It's wrong that of those 38.8 million, yes 38.8 MILLION, North America only contributed 109,828 to that number (see at stand against poverty website).

I don't claim to be a political activist, in fact, far from it.  I have my views, but don't ask me to stand up and be able to eloquently and convincingly debate them.  I also don't claim to have the answers...did I contact the press and try to get the word out?  No. (to my defense, I had only heard about the Stand Up world-wide event less than 2 weeks before it was to happen, and did, on short notice organize a small 14 person event in my community.)  That again, to me means something is wrong.  How come I hadn't heard about it?  Moreover, how did I not hear that last year 23.5 Million people stood up for this same cause and broke a world record?  I watch the news, read the newspaper every day.  I may not be an "activist" but I do consider myself pretty well informed on world events, and a strong advocate of social justice.

I probably sound like a broken record you've all heard before, but if something's broken, shouldn't it be fixed?  All too often we hear on the nightly news and in the newspaper of the casualties of war, the killings of kids, by kids, in our own towns.   It leads a person to want to turn off their television and tune it all out.  There is too much violence, too much hurt, too many crooked politicians.  The list could go on and on.  But you know what?  There are also a hell of a lot of people out there combating every one of those issues and trying in their own way to make this world just a little better.  And the more we hear these stories, the more hope there is that one day we'll overcome these issues.

So why is it, when 38.8 MILLION people Stand Up and Speak Out for something as important as extreme poverty - something 189 world leaders pledged to eradicate by 2015, including our very own United States, it's not a MAJOR story? 

The point of Stand Up and Speak Out was to show how many people DO care, and hold the governments responsible for the promises they made.  But if 38.8 MILLION people stand up, and it's not deemed newsworthy, then something is wrong.  Something is wrong when you go to "Google News" and type in "stand up against poverty" and you have to dig 4 pages deep before you come to an article published by a US new source. 

I don't believe in the "ugly American" any more than I believe in the "Islamic terrorist" or the "lazy illegal immigrant."  Individuals are terrorists, individuals are lazy, and yes, some individual American's behave very ugly.  What I DO believe, is that humans are generally good people.  38.8 MILLION of them proved that yesterday.  But unfortunately, millions more don't know that, because apparently it's not newsworthy.

Sincerely,

Jill Allison
Bainbridge Island, Washington
ghosthair@gmail.com

This letter was sent last week to several local and national news agencies in the US.

On my two recent visits to the UK and in London specifically, over the last two months and both admittedly combined, not longer than 1 working week, I was astounded by the conditions facing working people particularly those working in supermarkets, bookshops and pharmacies. Here my experience was with Marks and Spencer’s, Boots, and Borders Bookshops.

The cashiers were all standing. I was astounded. I asked the one Ghanaian origin new slave, at Marks and Spencer’s: hey bro, why don’t you sit?” He laughed and said that he sits after work. All the working time – 7 hours I believe – Standing. I further asked, if they had union representation, he laughed off, my question.

At another time as we were seeking Ha-Joon Chang’s Kicking Away the Ladder, as we have on an earlier visit bought his latest Book Bad Samaritans, and bookshop after big bookstore. They were standing. When visiting the Boots for cosmetics I asked an Asian worker there: “someone stole your chair!” he was cool, and replied that “we never had chairs, it was like
this when I began working here.” Thus, it was clear that this was a condition of employment and was I thought underwritten by a belief by the bosses that commercial and catering workers are more productive when they are standing.

I was concerned that the strong union movement, led by the Trade Union Congress that I had known over the decades may be fading, but I was equally concerned that this was not an issue for the National Union of Students, Oxfam, and Action Aid are seemingly silent on this basic violation of worker and human rights. I was aware of the irony that whilst we are campaigning for the world community to “stand up and speak out against poverty in terms of the Global Call to Action and supported by the United Nations and other UN agencies – here workers were standing all day whilst their rights were being trampled. Most of the workers were either old or new immigrant communities and almost all I saw wore my skin – dozed with a lot of healthy melanin.

The highlight of the Stand UP campaign is the 16 and 17 October – the latter being the UN recognized international day for the eradication of poverty. Last year over 23 million people stood up and broke the Guinness Book of record for the most number of people standing for such a progressive cause. In part the stand up is aimed at creating awareness of the Millennium Development Goals and to create awareness on the powers that be – corporates and governments to do more to create a justice based society.

I wondered whether the unions could not take this as a dispute to the International Labour Organisation or whether civil society should not join with the union and the TUC. A labour lawyer in South Africa volunteered to do a class case for UK workers – wont that be a good case of solidarity!

Hassen Lorgat

my last visit was returning from london 23 September 2007 not reluctantly ...

From Wahyu Susilo

Poverty statistical figures' debate

Although there are two parties debating over the similar issue of poverty rate figure, but both parties positioned their analysis on similar measure, i.e. quantitative statistical analysis. The growth of economics science indeed escalated leaving the other branches of social sciences behind when mathematical analysis (econometrics) became the backbone of economics science. Nevertheless, the economics science also leaves its aspect of "humanity" when the basic needs of human life and death are only actualized in "numbers".

Quite regretfully when the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), that became the global commitment for poverty eradication in the early twentieth century millennium, there were more people using quantitative indicators in the elaboration of their objectives and targets. This is one of the MDGs' weaknesses when they are used as advocacy tools in demanding the promise and commitment of countries signing the global pact. In the two presentations of MDGs' progress report in Indonesia in 2004 and 2005, the progress reports were also full with cold and rigid statistical figures, without any qualitative explanations which were able to talk more.

In such situation, the NGO's activists develop social analysis to identify the core problems of poverty through participatory poverty assessment (PPA) method. The method intends to bring back the nature of poverty analysis which actually is based on the real needs of the poor people. Thus the output of the analysis is qualitative narrations which are uncommonly used by our techno-economist dominating the macro-economy policy planning.

The qualitative narrations can be the guidelines in formulating poverty eradication policy. The only poverty eradication policy ever formulated using the method was the National Strategy for Poverty Eradication which was adopted as Chapter 16 of the Peraturan Presiden (Presidential Regulations) No.7/2005 on Medium Term National Development Plan/Rencana Pembangunan Jangka Menengah Nasional year 2004-2009. Unfortunately, the document was not used as road map in poverty eradication. The document became meaningless when the country (in this case, conspiracy between the executive and legislative) produced macro-economy policy legislation that was oriented to the market and investment, in accordance to the recommendations of multilateral institutions and donors who were the sources for development funding debts.

Insensitive Policy

When poverty is being debated solely in statistical figures, tables or graphics, there will not be any full and total comprehension on poverty that has been genuinely felt and experienced by the people of Indonesia. And the debate would only produce insensitive policy for it was formulated without any total and full comprehension and direct involvement on the reality of poverty. The Regional Regulation on Public Order that is put in effect in DKI Jakarta is the actual example of policy that was made without any feelings and full and total comprehension.

Almost always there were denials from the reigning authorities when the media or NGOs launched the reality of poverty (for instance death caused by malnourishment /malnutrition) experienced by the poor community in a region. The denials could be done by minimizing/shrinking the data by stating the numbers of the dead/famine victims/malnutrition case was still in small percentage. Other form of denial was by ignoring the data, often even warded off by stating that the people experiencing death/malnutrition/hunger were not the people of that area (the immigrants). Those various denials indicate there was indeed an understanding that the poor was needed to be sacrificed by those wealthy people.

The poor as "criminals"

Apart from merely being "numbers", the poor people often are considered and treated as "criminals". Still in the atmosphere of the Idul Fitri, the time when all people (including the officials) should actually open their inner heart, the regional government has dispersed terror and threatened the poor people trying to find better luck in the capital city.

The high officials in the capital city stated that there will be deporting new hundreds of thousand immigrants (majority are poor people) who always come to Jakarta during the coming home period after Idul Fitri. Is the capital city only for the prosperous people?

If the threat is really implemented and the Provincial Government of DKI Jakarta mobilizes Satpol PP (Civil Service Police) for Operasi Yustisi (operation to seek for illegal immigrants), the Provincial Government of DKI Jakarta is doing exactly like the Government of Malaysia who mobilized Rela "capturing" the Indonesians in Malaysia.

Affirming the commitment

Regarding the commitment on poverty eradication, not only Indonesia has become the part of the global pact of MDGs, but also has become the country ratifying the ICESCR (by the Act No 11/2005). The covenant even is more operational and juridically binding because it mandated the existence harmonization the legislation at national level. Nevertheless, until the present day the government's political intention/will has not shown any signs of harmonizing the acts on the sectors of economy, social and cultural. The conservativeness of budgetary politic which is reflected in the State Budget is the evidence of ignorance of main covenant ratification implementation.

Until now, our State Budget only functions as the conservation of high cost bureaucracy, the door of corruption, but it remains to far to facilitate the effort to make the citizen smarter and healthier, let alone free them from the chain of poverty.

Kompas, Indonesia 17 October 2007

“Where will you stand up tomorrow?” I asked a friend of mine today in an e-mail.  I’ll be in Delhi, he e-mailed back. “What about you?” Well, I’ll be in the office, I replied. I’ll be waiting for updates from national coalitions, writing breaking news reports, updating the web site and sending links to the media and to all who would care to know about how the various Stand Up and Speak Out events across Asia are turning out.

Up until I wrote this e-mail, I have not given any thought as to how I will be able to stand up or if I will be able to stand up at all given that I have work to do that requires me to stay inside the office. I simply did not think about it. I did not have a plan. What I thought about are the items in my ‘to do’ list. What I have is a media plan. And I was only being flippant when I tossed the where-will-you-stand-up question to my friend. 

I got lost in the rush of preparations for this historic mobilization and found myself all at sea, floating among the flotsam and jetsam of email exchanges, urgent meetings and multitasking. It dawned on me that tomorrow millions of people will make history, even break a Guinness world record, while I hunch over my laptop.

I decided standing up does not become immaterial when one is part of the preparations. I decided standing up on October 17 is a decision one has to make for reasons political as well as personal.

I have my reasons. One of them is the boy who tried to sell me a candle and a prayer while I was visiting a cathedral during a trip in Cebu City. He was small, maybe about three years old, when his grubby fingers tugged at my shirt. Our eyes met but only for a split second. He was pushed aside when a throng of older children and grand mothers, all wielding candles, swooped down on me. I heard him wail before I saw him, hugging a nearby lamp post, inconsolable.  I have never felt so ashamed. I felt shame for feeling sorry for him, and shame for appearing stupid in front of people whose eyes closed in on me and who must have thought I should know better than to be ambushed by a bunch of hustlers.      

One of them is the emaciated, half-blind woman who knocked on my office one day asking if she can have one mattress for her family. We were distributing old, dirty mattresses, hand-me-down from a university, to people whose homes were buried under volcanic debris. The lot was intended for a group of beneficiaries when she walked in that day.  I was to tell her that but before I could open my mouth, she knelt in front of me, begging. They have nothing, she said, her six children are huddled inside a makeshift hut, all of them sick with diarrhea, and her husband, a fisher, has been missing at sea.

Tomorrow I will slip out of the office for a few minutes to stand up and be counted. I will stand up side by side with others to demand that change come soon to the sleeping bodies that crowd sidewalks in many parts of Asia, to the millions of families living with hunger and the stench of garbage and decay, to the women and children whose lives hang precariously on a balance that for them tomorrow is another lifetime. 

But I will stand up especially for the boy who learned to walk on a cathedral’s grounds, amid the stench of burning candles and the hum produced by people praying in concert, and who, as soon as he was able to walk, got into the urgent business of trying to survive. I will stand up especially for the half-blind woman whose six children, starving and ill, waited for her at home one day and all she brought home was an old mattress.#   lani villanueva

 “Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step”                                      

Martin Luther King jnr

The Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP) decided in Beirut in March 2006 to continue its work. Policy demands contained in the Johannesburg statement were confirmed in Beirut, with an emphasis on national accountability. Indeed, the issue of governance was brought to the fore and campaigners from the South and the North mentioned the importance of dealing with governance in their countries while also tackling global issues of debt, trade and aid. The decision was taken to keep our global policy messages at a broad and inclusive level in order to incorporate diverse sections of civil society at the global level. However, at the regional, national and local levels, more clearly focused and detailed policy constructions and messages targeting national governments and national change agendas are necessary.

We see now GCAP coalitions developing their demands and messages, based on the broad policy framework of the Beirut Declaration.

National platforms have increased from only 15 in January 2005 to approximately 115 in September 2006.  The formation of autonomous national platforms was part of the plan, building at the national level on existing organizations and networks, based on their own national concerns and contexts. The process of building a global campaign based on national coalitions and networks is very much a process in the making. The potential for building on existing coalitions, networks and organizations, of mobilization, varies by region and country depending on the political environment, the existence or strength of NGOs and existing coalitions and networks.

New partners are coming on board every week. Since there were less global events this year, coalitions focused on their own calendar, and respond to social and economic justice needs. The G20 was meeting in Australia, and Make Poverty History (MPH) Australia has been acting and supporting the involvement of other coalitions concerned, such as the South-African coalition. Hopefully, the actions promoted by MPH Australia will inspire follow up in South Africa in 2007. Equally, the Japanese coalition was involved in the civil society preparations for the G8 in Germany, as Japan will host the 2008 G8.

The way the campaign operates is therefore changing. GCAP 2006 is less driven by global events. The emphasis is on national demands and activities. GCAP campaigners support each other and national coalitions by sharing experiences, best practices, knowledge, analysis, materials and tools.  As a consequence, the 2005 International Facilitation Group became the International Facilitation Team (IFT), in which all regions are represented.  It took time to establish this international steering committee, but it is now fully operational; its members voice concerns, actions, from all parts of the world. The IFT represents national coalitions, international organisations, youth and children, workers and religious constituencies. Similar structures were established at the regional level, with the Asian, African and Latin American Facilitation Teams.

Where Are We Coming From?

GCAP was initiated as an international alliance of organizations, networks and national campaigns to pressure world leaders to act on poverty and hold them accountable for commitments they have made regarding debt, trade and aid.  It was conceived as a direct response to the opportunity (and challenge) presented by the congruence of three major international events to take place in one year, 2005. GCAP’s demands set forth in the Johannesburg Statement, adopted by consensus of 60-70 diverse organizations called broadly for eradication of poverty, trade justice, debt cancellation, significant increase in the quantity and quality of aid, and national efforts to eliminate poverty, with achievement of the MDGs as a first step.  GCAP’s goals were and are by necessity broad, to accommodate the very wide spectrum of viewpoints expressed by those present. Given accountability of representatives to their own organizational constituencies, the construction of a statement broad enough to encompass the whole, yet sharp enough to present an effective policy and lobbying platform meant that the consensus was a fragile one, and its maintenance a key challenge.

Justice delayed is justice denied

“First, was the realisation that there is a huge gap between the rhetoric of working to make the world a just place and the reality of implementation, particularly from those that wield immense power. So while we acknowledge the progress made every day in the lives of ordinary people around the world as a result of action taken by ordinary citizens for the public good, we must also acknowledge that ‘justice delayed is justice denied’’

An assessment of achievements reached in the course of 2005/2006 in relationship to the goals of the Johannesburg Statement would need a close monitoring. Multilateral debt write off, commitment to the largest single ODA increase ever, reduction of export subsidies by 1 billion/euros/year by 2013, and other gains made at the three international fora must be limited by the conditions attached to them. Above all these include forced expansion of liberalization and privatization, leading to erosion of public services and greater impoverishment.

Some gains were made in the area of gender equality through extensive collaboration among women’s groups.  The GCAP Feminist Task Force contributes to a growing recognition of the interrelationship of issues, help reconsidering the Johannesburg Statement, making stronger connections between issues of debt, aid and trades and the complex web of other human rights and social development issues.

While it is difficult to measure the policy impact of GCAP, there were some notable achievements in terms of constituency building.  The value of the various planned activities, concerts, stunts, demonstrations, lobbying, etc. was thought to be in their combination, rather than one or another singled out.  Some of the achievements were the increased mobilization with synergy created by the combination of high profile activities: concerts, stunts, demonstrations, march, etc., and the extensive global recognition of the white band, to symbolize a growing global social movement around issues of poverty. The political influence with elected political officials and leaders made possible by the mass mobilization, and the recognition and respect for GCAP in international fora, with space created for civil society input, e.g. the GA Informal Interactive Hearings. Finally, GCAP supporters wrote valuable MDG shadow reports, produced useful tool kits and information materials and established new and productive working relationships

A Global Call and a Modern Campaign

Some associations and partnerships have influenced the way in which GCAP is perceived, both to its benefit and its detriment.  Some saw GCAP as focusing on high visibility to the detriment of grass-roots mobilisation. At the same time, building on existing coalitions is central to GCAP’s strategy.  All our efforts this year were directed to dovetail with existing mobilizations and movements in order to gain support and achieve widespread mobilization. The need to create effective ties to national entities of such international bodies as the ITUC, and faith-based organizations operating at the local level has begun, with emphasis shifting from global fora and events to the regions and national platforms. 

Is this Global Call a Modern Campaign? Definitely, as the emblem of the campaign –the white band- and its national variations are in itself very appealing to the youth constituencies. GCAP uses a combination of actions: lobby work at the UN, the EU the AU and at government levels; evidence based advocacy with the public presentations of MDG shadow reports; media work and celebrity support, stunts, concerts; traditional marches, vigils and pickets; but also online campaigning, e-action using email, sms, faxes.

2006 Month of Mobilisation

The Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP) Month of Mobilisation 2006 was launched on September 16.  Coinciding with the World Bank (WB) / International Monetary Fund (IMF) Annual Meetings, the launch aimed to highlight the harmful impact of World Bank and IMF policies on poor countries. Under the slogan of ‘We Must Have a Voice’,  GCAP highlighted the role the IMF and World Bank play in restricting the ‘voice’ of poor countries in determining their own economic policies, as well as highlighting the lack of ‘voice’ that poor countries have in the way the two institutions are governed. 

The Month of mobilisation culminated with the Stand Up against poverty event: between 11am on Sunday 15 October and 11am on Monday 16 October, 23,5 millions  people from all over the world stood up against poverty. They rose from sitting or kneeling to a standing position for one minute, while someone read a STAND UP pledge.

Will GCAP Make History?

GCAP did not make poverty history in 2005, but GCAP is truly based on the amazing efforts done by all the existing anti-poverty campaigns of the world. GCAP might make history by connecting CSOs and supporting their engagement with decision-makers at all level. If one should recognize that GCAP remains a fragile alliance, we see CSOs getting together and developing common actions and demands, based on the Beirut Platform. Some are using GCAP outreach to showcase their specific and unique experience and knowledge. Most of us know that CSOs are essential in the difficult exercise of “localising the MDGs” and of the promotion of the UN agreed goals.

There is an emergency. The crisis of poverty and inequality has reached an unbelievable scale. Over thirty thousand children are dying every single day just because they don’t have clean water, enough food or the most basic of medicines. More people have died from extreme poverty in the last ten years, than all of the wars of the 20^th century put together. And the most tragic thing about all of these deaths is that we can afford to stop them. The world has never been richer, yet we have never left so many to die. For all civil society and members of the public, GCAP is your call to get involved and show the world that we are a strong voice that cannot be ignored.

IFT Support team at CIVICUS - January 2007

CIVICUS provides support to the GCAP International Facilitation Team, with a small team, based in Johannesburg, South Africa. One of CIVICUS’ overall goals is to work towards breaking down barriers to effective collaboration within civil society. The MDGs initiative allows for the possibility to achieve this goal. Engaging around the MDG campaign will boost civil society’s capacity to engage national governments and intergovernmental bodies, while increasing their collective experiential knowledge of the politics and operational dynamics of engagement with governing institutions.

Bali is beautiful. This small tropical island, part of the Indonesian archipelago and perched off the East coast of Java is, for the next two weeks, playing host to a major UN climate change conference.

I am here for the first week of the conference with colleagues from the Global Call to Action Against Poverty – the world’s largest anti-poverty movement, with national platforms in more than 100 countries. I will try to send updates from the conference looking at both what is being discussed – but also to give a flavour of the conference itself.

There is no longer serious debate that humans are causing significant climatic changes, and that the poorest nations and people in the world are being hit first and hardest by these changes. So can Bali be the moment when negotiations truly begin on a crucial follow up to the Kyoto Protocol as well as on other vital areas including adaptation and deforestation.

My initial impression is, perhaps unhelpfully, maybe. Let me explain.

First the conference itself. Planes carrying delegates (the irony is last on few) come down low over the narrow strip of water that separates the island from Java, and land at Denpasar on the South tip of Bali. Those delegates are whisked away in gas-guzzling people carriers to the exclusive resort of Nusa Dua, home to countless five star hotels and to the main convention centre where the meeting will take place.
 
In luxurious surroundings, and under the hot Balinese sun, delegates waft from hotel to conference centre in taxis, bell boys carry suitcases into air-conditioned rooms, talk is of clause 4 of this and article 15 of that, Balinese security guards and police patrol the boundaries, and locals are kept firmly out. In such surroundings I fear the emergency of climate change is lost. Radical action suppressed by freshly fluffed pillows.
 
And yet, around 12,000 government officials, civil society activists, UN staff, private sector representatives and others are arriving over the weekend for the 13th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and there are, perhaps, a few important features that distinguish this meeting from its predecessors and give hope that decisions can be made. 

The unity of dialogue, the role of civil society, and the timing of the conference are all playing a role to ensure that this conference is definitive in shaping global decisions. 
 
Having recently been at the World Bank and IMF annual meetings, it is already clear that civil society is far more integrated into the process here than at the Bank and Fund. Here the negotiation halls are open to all accredited delegates, the civil society forum is running parallel to the main conference and dialogue is free and open between all sides.  This is highly significant as it means that decisions reached will have been done so in a relatively transparent manner and are therefore more likely to have the support of all key actors.
 
Not unrelated is the fact that this conference is historic in the unity role players are facing in the debate.  While in many areas of economics and politics, different interest groups are brought to the discussion table largely to protect their own interests in a largely zero sum game, with climate change, business, government, and civil society stand to lose, and lose in a drastic way, if there is not unified, quick action.
 
Finally, the timing of this conference is working in its favour.  The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has become a widely accepted body for scientific evidence on climate change allowing a vital agreed basis for dialogue on agreements and future treaties. It’s fourth assessment report released this year highlights the need for drastic action in the most startling terms yet.
The ravages of climate change are already being felt, from Bangladesh to New Orleans. There is now widespread public awareness about climate change, and the more it is affecting the lives of citizens, the more they are demanding action from decision makers.  With a political incentive to act together against climate change, Bali could just be the place where promises are finally turned into action.

For the sake of all of us, let’s hope so.