The Copenhagen agreements include a wide range of measures, in addition to creation of enabling environments, for addressing the core problems of poverty, unemployment and social exclusion. Although many of these measures are expressed in very vague terms, they provide a useful compendium of options and also some support for people wishing to advocate them to governments or other actors.
In order to give focus and impetus to advocacy and action aimed at implementation of the Summit, it is essential to identify a limited number of priorities from within this array of options. It seems appropriate to concentrate principally on the needs of people who are suffering the greatest hardship or vulnerability.
One of the most debated elements of the Copenhagen agreements involved fixing deadlines for reducing and eradicating poverty. It was finally agreed that, as a matter of urgency, each country should set a target date for eradication of absolute poverty and adopt a comprehensive strategy for substantially reducing poverty. Difficulties arise, however, in relation to defining and measuring poverty for these purposes. It may be useful to focus special attention on setting and achieving targets relating to specific needs which are closely associated with poverty. Wherever possible, this should be done by selecting priorities from amongst the many relevant standards and targets which have already been identified by international agreements or other processes.
The Copenhagen commitments included and endorsed a list of more than a dozen targets which had already been agreed at the international level. The ESCAP Regional Agenda provides a helpful summary of possible targets, and the 1997 ESCAP Ministerial Meeting gave special attention to five targets relating to aspects of poverty, health and education. A United Nations Task Force on Basic Social Services has also compiled a useful, slightly larger, list of priority targets.
Some possible standards and targets which could be identified and pursued as priorities are outlined below. They relate to five key matters related to poverty namely income, health, education, employment and participation.
Income
A few countries have complied with their
Copenhagen commitment to define and set a target date for eradication
of absolute poverty but the great majority have not done so. It would
be highly desirable for all countries to do so by the time of the UN Special
Session in 2000. Some developing countries have been understandably reluctant
to adopt targets without promises of greater international assistance
to achieve them. The OECD, however, has now adopted the goal of halving
global poverty by the year 2015. The leading developed countries which
comprise the OECD, and dominate relevant international agencies such as
the World Bank and IMF, should be held accountable if they fail to ensure
provision of reasonable assistance to enable individual countries to achieve
that target.
It would also be desirable to develop a
set of advisory international standards for basic income support systems
to provide protection during periods of special hardship or vulnerability.
It is important to establish standards which focus on providing basic
income for those people in greatest need, including those who are unemployed,
rather
than, for example, on highly subsidizing privileged lifestyles for retired
public sector workers. International standards would help governments
and international donors to avoid settling for income support systems
which are grossly inadequate, wasteful or both.
Health
The Copenhagen agreements acknowledge that
availability of family planning and other reproductive health services
is of crucial importance to
the reduction of poverty, social exclusion and other forms of hardship.
Despite considerable progress in some parts of the world, there are many
countries in which the level of population growth is much higher than
their economy can support without widespread poverty.
On the other hand, levels of infant and
maternal mortality, and of early adult deaths through the AIDS virus and
other causes, remain appallingly high in many countries. In some African
countries, the AIDS virus is dramatically reducing the levels of life
expectancy by more than ten years. Infant mortality and life expectancy
are especially useful as indicators of general levels of poverty and hardship.
The Copenhagen commitments endorsed specific
targets to be achieved by 2000 and/or 2015
in relation to infant mortality, life expectancy
and availability of reproductive health services. Effective monitoring
and pursuit of progress towards these targets would be highly appropriate
priorities for Summit implementation.
Education
The Copenhagen Summit endorsed a number
of previously agreed targets in relation to education. These included
achieving by 2000 universal access to basic education and 80 per cent
completion rates for primary education, and by 2005 closing the gender
gap in school education rates. It also endorsed a target of 50 per cent
reduction in levels of adult illiteracy between 1990 and 2000. It is clear
that in many countries these targets will not be achieved by the due dates.
The 1997 ESCAP Ministerial Meeting accordingly adopted somewhat less ambitious,
but perhaps more realistic, schedules.
The highest priorities in this area should
perhaps be targets for achieving universal access to basic education and
achieving gender parity in completion of primary education. There is no
doubt that achievement of these goals would both reflect and promote very
substantial reductions in poverty and hardship, and would greatly improve
opportunities for people to improve their own circumstances on a continuing
basis.
Employment
The world leaders at the Copenhagen Summit
committed themselves to promoting the goal of full employment as a basic
priority of their economic and social policies. They appear to have intended
the term “employment” to include self-employment and other forms
of achieving a sustainable livelihood.
The goal of full employment is a meritorious
one but its credibility suffers from the extreme difficulty of achieving
it in many countries and from uncertainty about its meaning especially
where there is a large rural or informal sector and/or a high level of
under-employment. A useful priority for international action would be
to develop detailed standards and measures by which the goal of full employment
could be defined and progress towards it could be measured with reasonable
accuracy.
Priority could also be given to abolition
of child and forced labour and to prevention of unfair exploitation of
migrant workers. The core standards of the International Labour Organization
provide generally appropriate benchmarks for action on these issues, and
it is important that they be fully ratified and implemented.
Participation
It is a fundamental human right to join
with other people in forming peaceful organizations for social, political,
cultural or other purposes. Yet in many parts of the world, all or some
sectors of the community are subject to extensive prohibitions or restrictions
on participation in community activities and expression. This not only
aggravates social exclusion but also reduces opportunities for people
to improve their own material circumstances.
One important response to this problem which
was identified in the Copenhagen agreements is to pursue better monitoring
and enforcement of relevant human rights treaties, such as the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Another is to develop and promote
adoption of international standards for national laws and bureaucratic
practices relating to the establishment and operations of civil society
organizations. The standards could be developed at a global or regional
level, but the main principle should be that such organizations have a
basic right to exist irrespective of whether their goals and members are
favourable to current governments, ideologies and cultures.
It is also important that, in many countries
and at the international level, much greater opportunities are provided
for detailed and timely consultation between governments and civil society
organizations. Even where there is a theoretical commitment to that goal,
effective input from civil society is often severely limited in practice.
Some of the problems stem from governments but others are the result of
lack of rigour and discipline on the part of civil society organizations.
