A South Asian Regional Forum
Amman, Jordan, November 8-9, 1998

Delegates at the workshop came up with the following recommendations to address constraints and improve implementation of the Copenhagen commitments in priority areas – poverty eradication, employment creation, social integration and enabling environment.

South Asia Civil Society Statement

     As representatives of hundreds of civil society organisations from throughout South Asia, we have met in Kathmandu, Nepal from October 2-4, 1999 under the auspices of the International Council on Social Welfare.
The principal purposes of our meeting were to assess progress and problems with implementation of the commitments made at the World Summit for Social Development in Copenhagen in 1995 and to identify priorities for further implementation.

     We recognise and welcome the commitments which our governments made in Copenhagen to address the grave problems of poverty, unemployment and social exclusion within our countries and our region. For reasons outlined in this statement, however, a review of progress in the four years since the Summit shows that action to implement those commitments has been gravely inadequate and must be substantially strengthened as a matter of the highest priority and urgency.

     We commit ourselves as civil society organisations to continue advocating, promoting and facilitating ways in which governments and other key actors at the international, national and local levels should achieve early realisation of the Copenhagen agreements. We commit ourselves also to monitoring and reporting on the extent to which progress is made.

Main Issues of Concern

     We, as civil society organisations, recognise that in some countries of the region, progress has been made in the development of policies and laws which aim to address some of the commitments made at the Copenhagen Summit. We also welcome the fact that in some countries improvements in relation to aspects of poverty and social exclusion have occurred.

     In general, however, very little progress has been achieved because appropriate measures either have not been devised by governments and other key actors or have not been effectively implemented. Indeed, in many very important respects the situation has deteriorated alarmingly since the Summit. This applies especially to increases in insecurity and hardship as a result of growing nuclearisation and religious fundamentalism within the region and of instability within the international financial system.

     Most countries of the region lack sufficient transparency and accountability within governments and the corporate sector, thereby promoting rampant corruption, harming economic development and damaging social cohesion. These problems are exacerbated by poor management of available resources and a lack of concerted efforts to improve the structures and process of governance at all levels. This includes the failure to develop the role of the South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and its interaction with civil society organisations, especially in relation to social development.

     Political instability, terrorism, violence and fundamentalism are gravely damaging the prospects of meeting the Summit commitments in relation to poverty, employment and social exclusion. In addition, growing consumerism, individual competitiveness and materialistic attitudes have eroded positive effects of traditional social values within the region. The level of respect for human rights has remained seriously inadequate, with key treaties being unratified or disregarded. In addition, State-promoted suppression of advocacy organisations, both through legislative bans and adminis- trative harassment, has severely impeded their ability to contribute to achievement of the Summit goals, especially in relation to social integration.

     While professing to be pro-poor, most South Asian governments have not provided adequate policies, laws and systems to meet the aspirations of poor people and to enable full participation in the development process by women, marginalised groups and civil society organisations. Indeed, there has been a widespread tendency towards further restriction of these opportunities for participation. In particular, patriarchal norms and values have frequently restricted the rights and opportunities available to women. Their position has been harmed especially by the increasing influence of fundamentalism. In many instances, they have suffered or been threatened with violence or other severe abuse in the name of religion or tradition and have been deterred from taking employment opportunities through fear of exploitation and harassment.

     Very little effort has been made by governments to harmonise macro-economic policies and development processes with social problems and priorities. The need for this harmonisation, and the adverse consequences of failing to achieve it, have been aggravated by the rapid spread of economic globalisation. Some countries in the region have sought to resist the more extreme forms of globalisation. However, over-indulgence in liberalisation of trade, investment and finance – together with harsh and ill-directed international intervention such as structural adjustment programmes – has impeded sustainable economic development and eroded social protection and respect for human rights. Few constructive efforts have been made to counter the consequences of market failure on the socio-economically weaker sectors of the community.

     Productive, long-term investment in national and local enterprises, public infrastructure and social programmes has suffered from excessive international financial speculation, ill-designed structural adjustment programmes, bureaucratic complexity and mismanagement, and unfair tax systems. Capital formation has been slow and has been exacerbated by inadequate provision of international development assistance and debt relief. Governments have not sufficiently protected the interests of poor people when negotiating large capital investments from both foreign and national sources.

      There is an absence of any national policy on employment in almost all of the countries in the region and a general lack of effective
programmes for promoting employment and self -employment. Failure to achieve sufficient agrarian reform, including pro-poor land laws, has restricted opportunities to earn livelihoods and resulted in excessive, unplanned migration into urban areas. Inadequate attention has been given to strengthening agri-business and the development of vigorous rural centres. Education has tended to give insufficient emphasis to preparation for appropriate job opportunities, resulting in rapid increases in educated unemployment. Where poor people do receive education, it is often of inadequate quality. In addition, the exploitative use of child and bonded labour has denied developmental opportunities for many people.

     Large proportions of the workforce are unprotected by social security, minimum wage rules and occupational health and safety requirements. As a result, even when unemployed people find work it will often be poorly paid and dangerous. These problems apply especially to self-employment and the informal sector, which should be considered not merely as survival measures but as policy priorities of the same importance as the formal sector.

Recommendations

1. (a) Governments in the region should establish specific action plans with adequate resources for accelerated achievement of the Copenhagen Summit commitments and should report publicly on progress with implementation of the plans.
(b) They should work vigorously to provide political, social, economic and legal space for all disadvantaged and vulnerable people to realise their rights and full human potential.

2. The South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) should play a substantial role in promoting achievement of the Copenhagen Summit commitments, including through convening appropriate inter- governmental meetings and task forces and engaging closely with relevant civil society organisations.

3. (a) Governments in the region should strengthen participatory institutions by involving women and other marginalised groups of the society and promote democratic principles of governance, including through decentralisation.
(b) They should vigorously implement systems to combat corruption. They should ensure that their judicial systems are independent, adequately resourced, and available to all people, including the poor.
(c) They should ensure that NGOs and Civil Society Organisations can effectively mobilize, conscientize and empower the poor and marginalized sections of society especially disadvantaged women against all forms of injustice, poverty and discrimination.

4. (a) Governments in the region should ensure that civil society organisations, particularly those working for women should have reasonable entitlements and opportunities to participate in public discussions, and in implementing programmes, aimed at helping to achieve the Summit commitments.
(b) They should cooperate with civil society organisations in further strengthening social mobilisation as an essential method for effective achievement of the Summit commitments and remove legislations or policies restricting/limiting civil society roles on advocacy.

5. Civil society organisations working on social development issues should seek to cooperate more closely with each other at both the regional and global levels, including through closer engagement in SAARC processes. They should also seek constructive dialogue with the business sector about pro-poor investment and with religious organisations.

6. (a) Governments, civil society organisations and the business sector in the region should cooperate in using media, education and other strategies to promote and facilitate peace, conflict resolution mechanisms, and racial and religious harmony. Constitutional measures should be used to prevent politicisation of religion.
(b) SAARC should become more closely involved in efforts to combat terrorism, fundamentalism, trafficking of women and girls and all forms of discrimination in the region and each SAARC Summit meeting should explicitly review progress in these respects, including compliance with relevant international agreements.

7. (a) All governments in the region should ratify and observe the major international human rights treaties and should promote development of regional human rights systems to supplement and reinforce those treaties.
(b) Governments should implement the commitments they made at the Summit with regard to housing rights of the urban poor as well as other Summit declarations and international agreements.

8. (a) Governments and international institutions throughout the world should ensure that, especially in the face of rapid trends towards globalisation, macro-economic policies and pressures at national and international levels do not impede improvements in social protection and integration.
(b) They should commit themselves to
achieving by 2015 the international development targets for reducing income poverty and infant and maternal mortality, increasing life expectancy, and achieving universal access to basic education and health care. They also should cooperate with civil society organisations in identifying additional criteria which are of special local relevance for selecting priorities, and assessing progress, in the fight against poverty and the provision of development opportunities for the poor.

9. To achieve the goal of equality for women in all spheres of life, governments and civil society organisations in the region should recognise the need for creating special provisions for increased participation of women in the decision making process in the economic, political and social sectors, facilitating shared domestic responsibility, and reducing their vulnerability to violence, abuse and intimidation.

10. The availability of finance for achieving the Summit commitments should be improved substantially by reducing defence expenditure, strengthening government involvement in capital formation and shareholding, obtaining fair tax contributions from wealthy people and enterprises, increasing official development assistance, and achieving relief from international debts on condition that the benefits are devoted entirely to social development, especially elimination of poverty and the empowerment of women.

11. (a) Governments in the region should cooperate through SAARC and other ways in promoting national and international economic environments which encourage long- term investment in productive, job-creating and locally-owned enterprises, especially for the benefit of poor people, rather than unduly favouring large transnational enterprises and speculative forms of short-term capital flows.
(b) This should include vigorously seeking effective regulation and monitoring of international financial markets, development of standards to prevent excessive international tax competition and avoidance, and greater involvement of developing countries and civil society in the governance of the IMF and other multilateral financial institutions.

12. Governments should promote development of an international code for fair trade and ethical business conduct, and should not enter into any international trade agreements which dilute their existing commitments to human rights and social protection.

13. (a) Governments in the region should review existing land laws, implement appropriate agrarian reform and actively promote agri-business initiatives in order to improve equity and opportunities in rural areas, thereby also combating excessive growth of major cities.
(b) Governments should take urgent measures to recognise the importance of the informal sector for economic growth, employment generation, poverty reduction and social
integration. This should include requiring provision of adequate wages and safe working conditions in the same way as applies to the formal sector.
(c) Governments should give a high priority to expansion of secure work opportunities, especially for people who are poor, when negotiating foreign investment proposals,
assessing whether to pursue privatisation options, and considering development of micro-credit programmes.
(d) Governments should take necessary
measures to review discriminative laws particularly within family law and introduce secular universal family codes which include equal inheritance laws.

14. Governments and civil society organisations should emphasise the importance of secular and scientific orientations in education to combat forces of division and extremism, and of providing education which will substantially improve students’ future employment prospects.

15. (a) Governments should effectively prohibit exploitative child labour and bonded labour and should ensure adequate recognition of the rights of children. Governments should urgently translate into action the SAARC Resolution on Abolition of Child Labour through constructive work plans that involve the civil society and corporate sector participation.
(b) They also should place high priority on meeting the needs of victims of armed conflict (particularly children) and should avoid action which generates displacement and forced evictions of people within and across national borders. Urgent attention is needed on ending the large-scale intra and inter country trafficking of women and girl children from the region for abuse and exploitation.