It is a great pleasure for me to be able to attend this conference, to renew acquaintances with many of you and to meet others, and be able to say a few things about ICSW and what we are trying to do around the world.

As many of you know, ICSW was founded in Paris in 1928 and for most of our history concentrated principally on convening major global and regional conferences to encourage interaction between people with a special interest in social welfare. In recent years, however, our work has become substantially more intensive, especially in relation to developing and advocating policies on a range of issues concerning social welfare, social development and social justice.

As a result of substantial recent growth, ICSW now has the largest number of members in our history. They come from more than eighty countries throughout the world. Most of our members are broadly-based national organisations in the social welfare or social development fields. They, in turn, represent many other organisations - sometimes thousands of them - within their own
country. Some of our members, such as the International Red Cross/Red Crescent, work in a wide range of countries around the world. In addition, a number of the regional and sub-regional groups of non-governmental organisations which are beginning to emerge around the world are already working closely with us and some are likely to become members in the near
future.

Most of ICSW's members focus mainly on preventing or relieving many different forms of hardship or disadvantage in their own communities. They and their members work with people who are homeless or starving, have serious health problems or disabilities, have acute problems within their families, or suffer severe discrimination, oppression or other distress. These direct responses to individual problems are their daily work. They recognise also, however, that it is important to pursue long-term, broad-based policy reforms whichwill help to reduce the frequency with which those problems occur and to strengthen the resources that are made available to grapple with them.

The problem of poverty

At its last two meetings, in 1996 and 1998, ICSW's global governing council decided that our regional levels would focus especially on issues of the kind which are commonly described as social welfare while our global level would give special emphasis to the wider range of issues which are commonly known as social development. In particular, it decided that the global level should concentrate on seeking remedies for the underlying causes of poverty, lack of work, and social exclusion. As our members know, these problems are frequently the cause or result of traditionally-defined welfare problems such as family breakdown, homelessness, ill-health and disability. This is especially true of the fundamental problem of poverty.

The single greatest cause of welfare problems is poverty. There are now almost 1.5 billion people - about one in every four people in the world - who have incomes of less than US$1 per day. In some circumstances, of course, a person may not necessarily experience great hardship on such a low income. But in many others, a substantially higher income would be needed to
escape severe poverty. So the figure of 1.5 billion people is by no means an exaggeration of the problem. Despite some progress in the last 20 years or so, most of these people are in the Asia-Pacific region, especially in South Asia and China. Their number has, of course, risen considerably because of recent economic downturns, especially in Indonesia.

This appalling level of poverty is voluntary - not on the part of most who suffer it but on the part of the world's wealthy who could readily reduce it substantially. The United Nations Development Programme estimates that achieving such basic anti-poverty goals as universal access to safe water, adequate nutrition, primary health care and basic education throughout the world would cost much less than US$100 billion per year. If the richer countries decided to raise that amount of money, each person's contribution would be less than the cost of one cup of coffee per week. Of course, the two richest people in the world could raise the whole amount between them and still have many billions to spare.

It is important to bear in mind that some substantial progress has been made in the fight against poverty and disadvantage. Since 1990, for example, the proportion of people with safe water has almost doubled and the adult literacy rate has increased from about 64% to 76%. On the other hand, over the same period per capita income has fallen in more than eighty countries
and the income gap between the richest and poorest countries has increased by 25%.

But that is enough of such statistics (many of which, incidentally, can be found in UNDP's excellent Human Development Report). Few, if any, who are here today do not realise the gravity of the problem and the need for urgent action. Despite the understandable desire for immediate solutions, however, it is important to recognise that many of the necessary measures must
address deep underlying causes and confront powerful and entrenched interests. They will not be adopted without years of sustained and demanding advocacy, and further years will pass before their full benefits are felt. If a quick or easy fix was possible, it would have been achieved already. But that is all the more reason to redouble our efforts and to sustain them
in the face of setbacks and achingly slow progress.

Directions for action

The problems of poverty, unemployment and social exclusion to which I have referred were the three core issues at the World Summit for Social Development which was held in Copenhagen in 1995 and attended by 117 Presidents and Prime Ministers. ICSW was very closely involved in preparation for the Summit and we have become the main international non-governmental organisation pursuing implementation of the agreements made at it.

The Summit's most important contribution was to recognise the importance of creating and maintaining international environments which assist social welfare and social development rather than retard them. It was not referring to the natural environment, although that is also important. Instead, it was referring to economic, political, legal and cultural environments. ICSW's work since the Summit has focused especially on ways in which these environments could be improved, and I would like to mention briefly some of our main areas of interest.

The economic environment

First, in relation to the economic environment, ICSW has long been concerned about the excessive volume and volatility of the international financial markets. With the help of the then Australian Government, we were able to get the Copenhagen Summit to identify this problem, albeit briefly. Unfortunately, however, no effective action was agreed and it was not until the entirely predictable financial crisis broke in South East Asia in 1997 that the opinion leaders in international economic policy began to
acknowledge some substantial problems. It was also not until then that many welfare organisations began to recognise the crucial impact of these macro-economic problems on the scale of human difficulties with which they had to grapple and of the resources with which they could address them.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) responded to the crisis by prescribing ill-informed and ill-directed actions which were rooted in its ignorance of Asian circumstances. It vigorously opposed effective measures proposed by countries such as Malaysia and Japan which did not suit the ideologies and closely related self-interests of the IMF and the United States. Now that stop-gap measures have achieved sufficient market stability to protect the wealthiest countries and markets, there seems to be little stomach amongst the dominant economic powers for effectively addressing fundamental weaknesses in the international financial system which will continue to damage the least powerful countries in particular. Much more needs to be done to prohibit or discourage massive short-term speculative investment and market manipulation, especially in relation to vulnerable economies.

Another high priority for improving the economic environment is international cooperation to reduce the loopholes by which speculative financial transactions obtain huge tax advantages by comparison with investments in genuinely productive activities. A variant of the so-called Tobin tax on financial transactions, which first attracted widespread attention at the Copenhagen Summit, could help to address some of these problems. But there is also a need for broader tax reform to encourage investment which creates work opportunities rather than destroys them. It is also needed to obtain sufficient resources for government investment in
schools, hospitals, welfare services and so on without relying increasingly on taxing the less affluent sections of the community through goods and services taxes and the like. Tax reform is a crucial welfare issue to which very few welfare organisations give sufficient attention.

It is also important to improve the economic environment for poorer countries by boosting aid from rich governments (ODA) and by providing greater relief from debts which many of them cannot hope to repay. The current level of ODA represents about half that weekly cup of coffee which I mentioned earlier. As for debt relief, the governments of many poor countries, and their citizens, are dealt with far more harshly than the directors and shareholders of wealthy multinationals which make bigger mistakes under much less difficult circumstances.

The political environment

The second type of international environment which was emphasised at the Copenhagen Summit was the political environment. Concerns related especially to the lack of international structures which adequately represent the interests of the less economically powerful countries, give sufficient weight to so-called social issues and perspectives rather than only to narrowly economic concerns, and listen sufficiently to the knowledge and opinions of civil society as well as those of governments and large businesses. Unless these structural weaknesses are remedied, key international decisions about economic and social policy will not sufficiently address poverty and other causes of social welfare problems. It is not sufficient to lobby against a particular bad policy, we must also remedy the systemic weaknesses which led to it.

One key aim should be to strengthen the role of the United Nations in international discussion and decision-making about economic and social issues. Fifty years ago, the United Nations Charter established an Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) to play in these areas a similarly powerful role to the one played by the Security Council in relation to matters of peace and security. For a variety of reasons, some self-inflicted, ECOSOC has never played such a role. Instead, dominance has increasingly been achieved by a handful of the wealthiest countries, especially the United States, through bodies such as the IMF, World Trade Organisation and the Group of 7. Some minor strengthening of ECOSOC's position and performance has occurred since the financial crisis of 1997. But much more progress must be made if the interests of genuine, long-term economic development, as well as of fairness between countries and between people, are to be adequately promoted.

Another, and related, issue relates to what I call "constructive regionalism". I mean constructive in the sense that closer regional
interaction between countries should be positive in its engagement with other parts of the world rather than merely defensive and exclusive. I also mean constructive in the sense that the development of strong regional structures would help to construct a global framework which more adequately reflects the interests of all countries and people, rather than mainly the richest, and which helps to strike an appropriate balance between global uniformity and localised autonomy.

I should mention in this context that ICSW is giving an increasingly high priority to regionalising its own activities within an overall global framework. In implementing this approach, we believe that regions should not necessarily be defined as whole continents rather than as smaller neighbourly groupings which more adequately reflect similarities in circumstances, cultures and interests. In every continent we are urging regional bodies, such as the European Union (EU), Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), to give greater attention to social issues, cooperation with other such regional groupings, and close interaction with civil society organisations such as ICSW and our members.

The legal environment

I shall move on now to some brief comments about the international legal environment. One of ICSW's main priorities in this context is to strengthen monitoring and enforcement of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights which establishes legal rights to sufficient food, shelter, education, housing and other basic needs. Our proposals here include requiring the World Bank, IMF and other donors to place greater emphasis on helping poorer countries to provide these rights to their citizens.

Another priority is to establish a legally enforceable code of international business conduct in order, for example, to restrict unfair trade and competition, unethical and corrupt practices, and abuse of market dominance. These forms of misconduct, especially by transnational corporations, already contribute substantially to widespread poverty and hardship in developing countries. Yet they would often be illegal if committed in the domestic marketplace of the richer countries in which the corporations are headquartered and most of their shareholders reside.

Policy development and advocacy

ICSW's policy development and advocacy is being pursued in a number of different ways in many different parts of the world. Our efforts have been helped greatly by grants for our work on implementation of the Copenhagen Summit. This has included substantial grants from the Canadian, Danish, Dutch and UK governments, as well as from sources such as the United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP). As a result, our overall budget has increased by more than 100% in the last twelve months. This special funding will continue for at least the next two years and has enabled us to supplement our existing office in Montreal with new, albeit small, offices in Kampala, Kuala Lumpur and London. Our staff numbers have leapt from four to eight, although we still have fewer staff than most of our members.

During the last few years, ICSW has convened more than 20 global and regional social development forums throughout the world. Many more will be convened in the near future. For example, the Pacific Islands forum which we convened two weeks ago, our Asia-Pacific regional conference last week, and this European conference will be followed within the next three months by a
South Asian forum in Nepal, an Eastern European forum in Hungary, a Central Asian forum in Azerbaijan, a West African forum in Senegal, an Andean forum in Bolivia, and a Commonwealth forum in South Africa. Several of these regions are ones in which ICSW is especially keen to increase its engagement and contribution.

These forums have been attended by many thousands of people from around the world and their outcomes are now being published in our new series entitled Copenhagen Papers. We also publish a quarterly magazine Social Development Review and the main global newsletter for civil society on follow-up to the Copenhagen agreements. Most importantly, however, information and policies emerging from these forums and our other activities are promoted by the advocacy teams which we are now sending to major global and regional meetings of the UN and other key bodies. During the last year or so, we have funded ICSW members and other non-governmental representatives from more than 50 countries to participate in these teams or in other international
activities.

Two key initiatives

I shall conclude by outlining two over-arching initiatives which we are now seeking to promote, especially in the lead up to the UN General Assembly's Special Session on Copenhagen implementation which will be held in Geneva next June.

The first initiative is to enter the new millennium with an International Anti-Poverty Alliance aimed at halving the proportion of people in abject poverty, providing universal basic education, reducing child mortality rates by two-thirds and reaching several other such targets which the world's governments have agreed should be achieved by the year 2015. We are approaching leading global organisations in several key sectors of civil society - such as labour, human rights, consumers and religious movements -
to join with us in the Alliance to monitor, demand and facilitate achievement of the targets through a Poverty Countdown campaign to 2015.

The second initiative is to develop a framework of International Standards for Social Development (ISSD), building upon a proposal made last year by the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown. The aim is to establish minimum rules, or in some instances non-binding guidance, about appropriate standards for countries in different stages of development. The framework
would include some sets of international standards which already exist, such as the International Labour Organisation standards, standards relating to services for people with disabilities, and some of the UN human rights treaties such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Others would be developed over time, including some which especially address matters such as taxation and business conduct that are often thought of as the province of economic policy makers but directly and crucially affect poverty, hardship and social welfare. Amongst other things, the standards would provide civil society activists with established benchmarks on which to base demands for action by governments, businesses, communities, and international organisations such as the IMF and World Bank.

These goals are as ambitious as they are important. The difficulty of achieving them makes prompt and vigorous campaigning even more important. I hope that this conference will inspire all of us to fight against the underlying causes of hardship, as well as to help meet the immediate needs of individual people. This applies especially to the fight against poverty. I look forward to working with you and your organisations in pursuit of social welfare, social development and social justice throughout the region
and the world.