Geneva 2000: The Next Step in Social Development.

High-level government officials met in Geneva this summer the General Assembly special session on Social Development to evaluate the impact and implementation of the ten Commitments contained in a Declaration made in Copenhagen five years ago. From 26 to 30 June 2000, the session formally entitled "World Summit for Social Development and Beyond: Achieving Social Development for All in a Globalized World" but known as "Geneva 2000" took a hard look at the accomplishments and set-backs to the global social development agenda that was adopted at the 1995 Social Summit.

Change cannot always be grasped in numbers, especially where well-being and quality of life are concerned. In fact, the more important changes following Copenhagen are not immediately tangible, but should be noticed nevertheless. This is visible in how social issues are viewed, namely, as vital to the development of any country. This was manifested in the global reaction to major financial crises in East Asia. the Russian Federation and Brazil, where debate revolved around the social consequences of the financial turmoil. It is seen also in the fact that trade negotiations now include a social dimension. The realization that social and economic policy have to be reconciled is spreading, and it has begun to effect national and international policy-making. The shift in policies has been accompanied by a shift in national and international public opinion on social issues.

An encouraging development has been the strengthening of civil society, including non-governmental organizations and volunteers. By forming partnerships with Governments and promoting common interests, they have contributed to the creation of participatory and inclusive societies.

Even had the only achievement of the Social Summit been the increase in attention to and awareness of social issues, and the acknowledgement of their significance for everyone's future, it would still have been a big step forward for the world's peoples whose immediate concerns have become more visible. The next step is to act according to those widely acknowledged principles and to focus on those countries which have suffered stagnancy or even set-backs. These were some of the questions before the delegates of the special session this June.

Inequality in incomes, skills and access to social services has remained a major obstacle to the implementation of the Copenhagen Commitments. According to former Foreign Secretary Jagat Mehta of India, "the fundamental philosophy of the Summit was to make development more people-centred. In that philosophy, the underlying principle was of equity in access to livelihood, health, education and other social services, in an enabling national and global order. However, what we have today, as we approach the next century, is a pattern of disabling inequities in the international macroeconomic environment, which goes to debilitate social and economic development in the developing world."

A growing number of people are afflicted by poverty because of the inequitable distribution of opportunities, resources, incomes and access to employment and to social services. In many countries, the gap between those in high-quality, well-paid employment and those in insecure jobs with low levels of social protection is growing.

Geneva 2000 has been a chance to make States aware of the fact that it is necessary not only to achieve frill employment, but also to provide job security. The debate on promoting employment opportunities has come to focus on the problem of the "working poor": people who work for low wages and with inadequate social protection. Economic growth and the increasing number of jobs alone are not enough: it is crucial to make economic growth more employment-friendly.

While the overall progress in reducing unemployment has been slow and uneven, there has been increased attention by Governments, as well as civil society, to the goal of full employment. Employment promotion has increasingly been put at the centre of socio-economic development, since its importance to poverty eradication and social integration is widely recognized. Many developing countries have introduced programmes to create jobs in order to stimulate people-centred development.

Delegates to Geneva 2000 agreed that new standards were necessary to measure productivity and efficiency that show the true cost of unemployment and poverty which allow countries to set strategies for job creation and poverty eradication. They asked that an international strategy to increase employment be adopted, balanced with policies to maintain low inflation rates. There was also agreement to improve social protection systems through the sharing of best practices. Efforts to implement the Copenhagen Summit's call for universal access to basic health services did not achieve as much as expected, according to the World Health Organization. In particular, WHO found growing inequities in access to health care services within and between countries since the Summit. HIV/AIDS especially has a devastating impact on social progress and further exacerbates inequality and poverty.

Geneva 2000 agreed on a commitment to protect basic social services, especially health and education, when dealing with international financial crises. It also agreed on the need to provide low-cost medicines to people in developing countries and to protect basic social services. Other agreements were aimed at combating the HIV/AIDS pandemic and setting a target of reducing the infection level among young people in Africa by 25 per cent by 2005.

Firm commitments to eradicate extreme poverty and substantially reduce overall poverty were also made by developing countries at the Copenhagen Summit. Yet they, too, have run into numerous roadblocks--financial crises, heavy debt burdens, protectionism, war and civil conflict, and a string of natural disasters. Also apparent has been a lack of political will to make poverty reduction a policy priority in developing countries. Progress has been stalled while donors continue to fall short in providing the support needed to confront these problems. In addition to working towards the increase in official development assistance (ODA), the 20/20 proposal, which was initially agreed to in Copenhagen, was encouraged in the five-year review in Geneva. The proposal urges donor countries to ensure that 20 per cent of their ODA should be earmarked for social programmes, while developing countries should allocate at least 20 per cent of their national budgets for social development. So far, only 10 per cent of ODA and a n average of 15 per cent of a country's budget have been used for these purposes.

Many speakers at the special session agreed that the eradication of poverty, mainly through concerted job creation efforts, was of paramount importance in constructing stable and civil societies. The United Nations sees poverty as the factor underlying many of our social problems, including malnutrition, illiteracy, inadequate housing and ethnic strife. On the first day of the special session in Geneva on 26 June, Secretary-General Kofi Annan launched a landmark report that finds that world poverty could be significantly decreased by 2015 if developing and industrialized countries implement their commitments to attack the root causes of poverty.

A collaborative effort of the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, "A Better World for All" report urges countries to work for sustainable growth that favours the poor and to provide more resources for health, education, gender equality, and environmentally sustainable development worldwide. "If we are to succeed", Mr. Annan stresses, "developed and developing countries must work together--in ways that, up to now, they have not been willing to do."

One of the most striking agreements to come out of Geneva 2000 was to set for the first time an internationally negotiated target to halve the number of people living in extreme poverty by 2015. Countries said they would also work toward adopting a global campaign against poverty. Agreement, too, was reached on a series of measures to empower people living in poverty through macro-economic policies, integrating employment growth and poverty reduction goals, skills training and micro-credit programmes. The importance of having universal and primary education by 2015 was acknowledged as well.

Since the Social Summit, there has also been increasing concern about globalization. Though liberalization may level playing fields, it is the already powerful who are most able to benefit. There is a growing reaction to the terrible, increasing inequities in the distribution of income and opportunity both within and between countries. The Special Session has been held at a time when there is a crisis of legitimacy about globalization, because insufficient attention has been given to the social dimensions and their implications. The central issue is how to manage the process so that everyone benefits, rather than further entrenching the divisions between beneficiaries and losers.

In the words of the Secretary-General: "If globalization is to succeed, It must succeed for poor and rich alike. It must deliver rights no less than riches. It must provide social justice and equity no less than economic prosperity and enhanced communication. It must be harnessed to the cause not of capital alone, but of development and prosperity for the poorest of the world."

One way to balance the effects of globalization would be to rebuild public institutions as a complement to the private sector. A strong public sector is needed to fulfil Commitment 1 of the Copenhagen Agenda: to create an economic, political, social, cultural and legal environment that will enable people to achieve social development, in other words, to ensure equitable privatization and to oversee economic reform. In the process of globalization, the private sector has grown and the importance of the public sector has decreased, especially in countries in transition.

The financial crisis in Asia has demonstrated the need for having a regulatory framework instead of uninhibited liberalization. Mr. Annan has sought to gain support for consolidating the role of the United Nations in setting standards and guidelines to achieve social development. Addressing this year's Special Session, General Assembly President Theo-Ben Gurirab of Namibia summarized this concern by saying that "what the world actually needs is globalization with a head, a heart and a human face".

Realizing these tendencies, Geneva 2000 focused on social justice and made an effort to generate the political will to help those who are not automatically profiting from the progress that has been made. Progress that is only measured in output, stock prices, trade flow, investment and economic expansion ignores the human and environmental dimensions on which the quality of life depends. The ultimate goals of development are to improve living conditions for people and to empower them to participate fully in the economic, political and social areas. The main goal of everyone working together at the Social Summit was to emphasize the exigency of placing people at the centre of development efforts.

The outcome of Geneva 2000 was a strong political statement that provided standards for implementing a people centred social development agenda. The resulting agreement recorded the main objectives of reducing poverty, promoting job growth and ensuring the participation of all people, women and men, in the decision-making process. To achieve these goals, countries endorsed actions to ensure improved education and health, indulging in times of financial crisis. They took on the HIV/AIDs pandemic issue and adopted a global employment strategy and a global campaign against poverty.

These are important goals and, similar to the Copenhagen Conference, this year's follow-up session has long-term, rather than immediate, implications on the overall approach to social development issues. What is needed at this stage is political will, resources and sustained efforts to shift economic globalization on to a new course that focuses on poverty eradication, full employment and shared prosperity for all peoples.

In Five Short Years

The Social Summit recognized that social development was primarily a national responsibility, but also required the collective efforts of the international community, including the United Nations system. By elevating the importance of the basic concerns and needs of people to the global level, the Summit marked a major turning point and profoundly affected the policies and operations of the United Nations system, other international organizations, regional groups and States.

Since Copenhagen, more than 75 countries have adopted plans for reducing poverty; 38 have set specific targets and 40 are in the process of developing antipoverty strategies. There has also been continued progress in global literacy and life expectancy, increased school enrolment and access to basic social services, despite wide national variations and set-backs in some countries. The United Nations system has made poverty reduction its principal goal. The World Bank has taken further measures to address the adverse social impact of its structural adjustment programmes and now favours reallocation of more public expenditures towards such priority sectors as education and health.