The Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly – the “World Summit for Social Development and Beyond: achieving social development for all in a globalizing world” – was held in Geneva, June 23/30. The Session brought fresh prominence to issues that have always been central to the UN’s mission and mandate, but which have new urgency in this era of globalization, increased interdependence and rapid technological change. Delegates of 177 countries, 19 of whom were Heads of State or Government, were joined by representatives from the United Nations system, from the private sector and from the vast community of non-governmental organizations that make up civil society. They undertook the assessment of achievements and obstacles in the implementation of the Copenhagen Declaration and Programme of Action and reached agreement on a set of further initiatives to promote social development globally. This article outlines the highlights of their work.

The global context

Delegates recognized that globalization has presented new challenges for the fulfilment of the commitments and goals of the Summit, offering opportunities but also involving potential damage and costs. The process has accelerated in the past five years and often strained the capacity of governments and the international community to manage them for the benefit of all. Increased inequality has resulted, both within countries and
among countries. Economic growth has been impressive in some places but disappointing in others. Current patterns of globalization have contributed to a sense of insecurity for many.

     Growing interdependence of nations means economic shocks are transmitted across borders, highlighting weaknesses in international and national institutional arrangements. There is wide recognition of the need for collective action to anticipate and offset the negative social and economic consequences of globalization and to maximize its benefits for all members of society, including those with special needs.

     The Special Session gave renewed impetus for Copenhagen goals but it also agreed on refinements, new initiatives, campaigns and programmes. Their achievement cannot be achieved without widespread participation by all the social actors and strengthened partnerships among governments at all levels, multilateral and bilateral agencies, the private sector and the organizations of civil society.

An enabling environment

     The Social Summit highlighted the need for an “enabling environment” with both social and economic dimensions, for social development at both the national and the international levels. While governments are primarily responsible many will likely face difficulties in the absence of a clear strategy and concerted efforts at the international level to establish a supportive environment.

     The Special Session reiterated the importance of promoting growth through free trade and increased access to markets, increased financial flows and investment, and debt relief. It recognized the social implications of these policies and the need to balance them with strengthened social policies and mechanisms that ensure benefits of growth are equitably distributed and that people have the opportunity to participate in life-affecting decisions.

     The following measures supporting an enabling environment stand out:

• Improving access to the global trading system for developing countries and countries with economies in transition through, inter alia, furthering the process of accession to WTO and providing technical assistance (bilaterally and as well as by WTO, UNCTAD, ITC) to participate in international trade negotiations.
  
  
• Reducing the negative social and economic impacts of international financial turbulence through, inter alia, consideration of a temporary debt standstill to reduce volatility of short-term capital flows, provision of technical assistance to strengthen domestic capital markets, protection of basic social services such as health and education, and strengthening of national consultations with civil society in economic policy formulation.
  
  
• Enhancing participation of developing countries and countries with economies in transition in international economic decision-making processes, including ensuring transparency and accountability of the international financial institutions to promote social development goals in their policies and programmes.
  
  
• Encouraging corporate social responsibility by promoting corporate awareness, providing an enabling and stimulating environment and enhancing national partnerships.

     The Special Session gave a great deal of attention to ensuring adequate financial resources for social development. Inadequate national revenue generation and collection, however, combined with new challenges regarding social services and social protection systems because, for instance, of demographic changes and other factors, jeopardize the financing of social services and social protection systems in many countries. New budgeting and accounting techniques have been adopted in several countries. The involvement and cooperation of local authorities, civil society and beneficiary communities have been found to be valuable in raising efficiency in the delivery of services.

     Among the initiatives adopted are the following:

• Mobilizing new and additional resources for social development at the national level by extending access to microcredit, supporting mechanisms for community contracting of labour-based works, improving national tax regimes and reducing tax evasion, and preventing corruption, bribery, money laundering and illegal transfer of funds.
  
  
• Establishing guidelines for policies aimed at generating domestic revenue for social policies and programmes, including in areas such as the broadening of the tax base, the efficiency of tax administration, new sources of revenue, and public borrowing.
  
  
• Mobilizing new and additional resources for social development at the international level through international cooperation in tax matters, exploring methods for taxation of multi-national corporations, combatting the use of tax shelters and tax havens, developing mechanisms for stabilizing commodity price earnings, preventing tax avoidance, increasing public and private flows to developing countries, undertaking rigorous analysis of new and innovative sources of funding for social development and promoting the micro- and small enterprise sectors.

     The Social Summit provided high-level political support to the drive for debt relief for developing countries. Since Copenhagen there has been greater agreement on debt as a principle obstacle to people-centred sustainable development and poverty eradication. Debt servicing severely hampers social development and basic service provision not only in many developing countries but in countries in transition.

     The Special Session addressed debt relief in part, by encouraging the speedy implementation of the Cologne debt-relief initiative and the enhanced HIPC initiative and the principle that funds saved should be allocated to social development. It also called on all creditor and debtor countries to utilize to the fullest extent possible all existing mechanisms for debt reduction.

Poverty Eradication

     The Social Summit placed the goal of eradicating poverty at the centre of national and international policy agendas. For the first time there was talk of ridding the world of the injustice of poverty. Both international and national decisions to set targets and timelines have moved forward, but unevenly. Disparities in access to basic social services continue, including a lack of access to quality education. Of particular concern is the increasing feminization of poverty and the uneven access to education for girls.

     The Special Session endorsed:

• A call to reduce the proportion of people living in extreme poverty by half by the year 2015.
  
  
• A commitment to establish a global campaign for poverty eradication. Initiation of such a campaign will undoubtedly require further discussion, cooperation among the myriad actors concerned, and commitment of much greater resources in the years to come.
  
  
• Encouragement to governments to implement pro-poor growth strategies that would seek to develop and utilize the potential of people living in poverty.

     Many people living in poverty may view aspects of poverty such as social exclusion, insecurity or lack of dignity to be just as important as insufficient income and, therefore, policies to fight poverty must also take these views into account. It is important that anti-poverty policies treat people as active participants and seek to empower them.

Full employment

     The Social Summit put the goal of achieving full employment back onto the international agenda. The Special Session took a further step by approving the idea of adopting an international employment strategy.
Despite Copenhagen commitments, many governments find it hard to achieve full employment tripping on a contradiction between inflation control policies and employment creation. Has the time arrived for implementing more expansionary, labour-intensive-growth policies? The Special Session recognized the growing importance of women in the work force. While in most countries the employment of women has increased steadily, gender inequalities – reflected for instance in the wage gap and a disproportionate share of family responsibilities – have remained obstacles to women’s equal access to and participation in the labour market. Lack of jobs and unemployment often disproportionately affect women, forcing them into the low-paid informal sector and out of social safety nets.

     Meanwhile, women’s unpaid work remains unrecognized and unaccounted for in the national accounts.

     Among measures addressing employment, the Special Session agreed on:

• Re-assessing macro-economic policies to balance goals of employment generation and poverty. reduction with low inflation rates.
  
  
• Exchanging best practices in the field of employment policies.
  
  
• Ratifying and fully implementing ILO conventions on basic workers’ rights.
  
  
• Ensuring social dialogue through effective representation of workers’ and employers’ organizations in the development of social policies.
  
  
• Improving collection and analysis of basic employment data, including informal, agricultural and informal sectors, and exploring means of measuring unremunerated work.
  
  
• Improving access to new technologies, vocational training and counselling, implementing programmes for job placement, and facilitating the acquisition of work experience, including on-the-job training, as well as recognizing work experience acquired through voluntary activities and unpaid work.

Social integration

     The Social Summit introduced the far-reaching notion of social integration into international policy discourse. At Copenhagen, social integration was understood as the aim to create “a society for all”, in which every individual, each with rights and responsibilities, has an active role to play.

     The Special Session reiterated the importance of promotion and protection of all human rights and fundamental freedoms, promotion of a culture of peace, tolerance and non-violence, respect for cultural and religious diversity, elimination of all forms of discrimination, assurance of equal opportunities for access to productive resources and participatory governance are important for social integration.

     Greater democratization, public consultation and participation in governance, the strengthening of civil society, the greater engagement of women and other marginalized sectors contribute to more inclusive societies, but much remains to be done.

     Some initiatives to promote social integration agreed by the Special Session include:

• Strengthening organizations and mechanisms working for the prevention and peaceful resolution of conflicts, and strengthening the capability of relevant UN bodies to promote social integration in post-conflict management strategies and activities, including addressing recovery from traumatic stress.
  
  
• Encouraging the media, including the Internet and other forms of information technology, to contribute to the promotion of social integration by adopting inclusive and participatory approaches in the production, dissemination and use of information, including by its accessibility to disadvantaged and marginalized groups; also, identifying and taking measures to counter the increasing dissemination of child pornography and other obscene materials, intolerance, including religious intolerance, hatred, racism, discrimination based on sex and age and the incitement to violence through the media and information technology, including the Internet.
  
  
• Promoting the involvement of volunteers in social development, inter alia, by encouraging Governments, taking into account the views of all actors, to develop comprehensive strategies and programmes, by raising public awareness about the value and opportunities of voluntarism and by facilitating an enabling environment for individuals and other actors of civil society to engage in, and the private sector to support, voluntary activities.
  
  
• Supporting research on the actual and projected situation of older persons to contribute to the Second World Assembly on Ageing, and exchanging national experience and best practice in policies and programmes on ageing.
  
  
• Promoting the implementation of the United Nations Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities in order to empower persons with disabilities to play their full role in society; special attention should be given to women and children with disabilities and to persons with developmental, mental and psychiatric disabilities.
  
  
• Ensuring access to employment for persons with disabilities through the organization and design of the workplace environment and improving their employability through measures which enhance education and acquisition of skills; through rehabilitation within the community wherever possible; and other direct measures, which may include incentives to enterprises to employ people with disabilities.
  
  
• Ensuring gender mainstreaming in the implementation of the outcome of the Summit and the further initiatives adopted at the special session, including through the use of positive or affirmative action.
  
  
• Recognizing the contribution of indigenous people to society, and promoting ways of giving them greater responsibility for their own affairs through, inter alia: seeking means of giving them effective voice in decisions directly affecting them; and encouraging United Nations agencies within their respective mandates to take effective programmatic measures for engaging indigenous people in matters relevant to their interests and concerns.

Other significant new initiatives
Social assessment

• Instituting systems for assessing and monitoring the social impact of macro-economic policies, particularly in response to financial crises and in the design of reform programmes.
  
  
• Developing national and regional guidelines for assessing the social and economic cost of unemployment and poverty, based on broad definitions of efficiency and productivity.

Education and health care services

• Reaffirming the Framework for Action for education for all, adopted at the World Education Forum in Dakar and recognize that the achievement of this goal requires additional financial support, ODA and debt relief in the order of $8 billion a year.
  
  
• Enhancing national measures to prevent and protect against HIV/AIDS infection and address the consequences of HIV/AIDS transmission, including: strengthening of health care services, improving information and education, training health care providers, addressing mother-to-child transmission, analyzing the political, social and economic aspects of HIV/AIDS, and providing social and educational support to affected groups.
  
  
• Encouraging the 25 African countries most affected by HIV/AIDS to adopt time-bound targets for reducing infection levels, such as a 25% reduction among young people by the year 2005.
  
  
• Mobilizing commercial enterprises to invest in research aimed providing affordable remedies for diseases that particularly afflict people in developing countries.
  
  
• Recognizing the critical importance of access to essential medicines at affordable prices, and acknowledging the contribution of intellectual property rights to promote research, development and distribution of drugs, analyzing the consequences of agreements on trade in health services and monitoring and analyzing the pharmaceutical and health implications of relevant international agreements, including trade agreements.

Follow-up to the special session

• Strengthening ECOSOC in its coordination of follow-up to the UN conferences and summits by fostering a closer working relationship with the funds and programmes and specialized agencies and cooperation with the Bretton Woods institutions.
  
  
• Adopting legislative measures and expand awareness by parliamentarians to implement the outcome of the Summit and the further initiatives adopted at the special session.
  
  
• Requesting ECOSOC, through the Commission for Social Development, to regularly assess the implementation of the outcome of the Summit and the special session.

     Many of the initiatives decided in Geneva fall to the Commission on Social Development, which at its 39th session in February, 2001, will be deciding upon its programme of work and priority themes for the next five years. Among the initiatives likely to be addressed are:

• ways and means for integrating social and economic policies
  the further development of pro-poor growth strategies
  
• innovative ideas for the generation of additional financial resources for social development
  
• suggestions for strengthening of the stability of the international financial system.

     The challenge is to maintain the momentum and to ensure further determined sustained action to implement the commitments of the Copenhagen Declaration and Programme of Action and the results of the Geneva Special Session.

Bob Huber is Technical Adviser, Division for Social Policy and Development, UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs. The full text of the final results of the Geneva Special Session can be found on the ICSW website.

An ICSW commentary on the results is found in Julian Disney’s “Copenhagen, Geneva and Beyond” in our June issue.