Ms. Elizabeth Cabot

International Council on Social Welfare (ICSW)

Objectives of the Conference

    Elizabeth Cabot welcomed the participants, and thanked those who had made this conference possible, including the Government of Azerbaijan, UNDP Azerbaijan, and NRTC (of Azerbaijan).

     The purpose of this three-day meeting was to convene civil society in Central Asia and the Trans-Caucasus to discuss social development in the region, to observe where social development goals had not been met – or had, and to put forward recommendations to improve the conditions in each country as well as for the region as a whole. An overview of the presentations was given, beginning with the contributions of the United Nations family to social development through the Copenhagen summit and follow-up mechanisms. Presentations by the national delegations would follow in which the social development conditions of individual countries were discussed in greater detail.

     Next, the conference would address four main areas of social development which fell within the ten main commitments of the Copenhagen consensus, namely “The Enabling Environment,” “Unemployment,” “Poverty Alleviation,” and, “Social Exclusion.” While the latter three areas were reasonably clear, a word was added about “The Enabling Environment.” This phrase intended to capture the idea that certain conditions must be in place for social development to be possible at all. They might be conditions reflecting the resolution of conflict, or political, legal and economic reforms. “The Enabling Environment,” in short, was the ground in which the seeds of social development programmes could grow and prosper.

     Concluding these four areas then would be a period for discussing and drawing up recommendations for the region. These recommendations, as had been noted by Mr. Murat previously, would be presented at the ministerial-level meeting in Ashgabat the following month, and again next June in the UN’s review to take place in Geneva. The significance of this meeting was no doubt underscored by the fact that it was the only one in which the perspectives and requirements of the Central Asian and Trans-Caucasus region would be specifically included in the UN global review of social development five years after Copenhagen. Finally, Ms. Cabot expressed the hope that these recommendations would also form part of the national discourse on social development for each country in the region, and would thereby contribute to strengthening civil society as well.

Ms. Elizabeth Cabot is a Project Advisor for ICSW, based in New York