The organisers of this conference have explicitly urged that we should consider how civil society organisations should assess and promote implementation of the global United Nations conferences of the 1990s. I am very glad that they have done so, and I shall try to comply with their request in relation to one of those conferences, namely the World Summit for Social Development in Copenhagen in 1995.

As you know, the Copenhagen Summit focussed on three core problems, namely poverty, unemployment and social exclusion. It agreed on a Declaration which included ten key commitments and on a Programme of Action which is somewhat more comprehensive and detailed. Since 1995, some progress with implementation has been made on some issues in some areas. In many cases, however, there has been no substantial progress and sometimes a deterioration.

The UN General Assembly will be meeting in a Special Session in Geneva next June in order to review implementation of the Summit agreements and to facilitate further progress. A Preparatory Committee has begun to gather information and to prepare a draft agreement on further implementation for consideration at the Special Session. I want to make three preliminary
suggestions today about ways in which civil society organisations might concentrate their energies in order to increase the chances of achieving useful outcomes from the Special Session process.

First, it may be appropriate to focus especially on poverty. It is the most pervasive form of severe hardship around the world and is often the most severe consequence of other hardships such as unemployment or social exclusion. Moreover, it is often the principal cause of such other forms of hardship.

Second, it may be appropriate to focus especially on the Summit agreements relating to development of enabling environments for reducing poverty, especially through international action. These agreements sought to identify and proactively address major underlying causes of poverty, rather than focusing mainly on reactive amelioration of its consequences in individual cases.

Third, it may be useful to focus on advocating up to, say, ten specific actions for agreement by the Special Session. These should be ones which are especially suitable for pursuit by this particular Summit process rather than by other global or national processes.

In accordance with these suggestions, I would like now to suggest six areas from within which specific priorities for action could be selected. They consist of two areas from each of three types of enabling environment identified by the Copenhagen Summit, namely the economic, political and legal environments.

The economic environment

The first issue relating to the economic environment concerns the excessive volume and volatility of speculative transactions in international financial markets. At the urging of ICSW and one or two other civil society organisations, the Copenhagen Summit did identify this problem, albeit briefly. Unfortunately, however, no effective action was agreed and it was not until the entirely predictable financial crisis broke in 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 civil society 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 on 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, partly becasuse of its refusal to acvnowledge specific Asian circumstances. It vigorously opposed effective measures proposed by Asian countries such as Malaysia and Japan which did not suit the ideologies and closely related self-interests of the IMF, United States and European Union. 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. Yet much more needs to be done to prohibit or discourage massive short-term speculative investment and market manipulation, especially in
relation to vulnerable economies.

The second, and related, economic issue relates to international cooperation to strengthen the fairness and effectiveness of taxation systems. Growing internationalisation of capital and competition has made it increasingly difficult for individual countries to obtain fair tax contributions from their richest citizens and corporations. 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 productive longer-term investment which creates work opportunities rather than continuing to favour speculative manipulation which destroys them. Stronger tax systems are also needed to obtain sufficient resources for government investment in basic infrastructure to provide water, sanitation, health care, education 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 issue to which many civil society organisations could usefully give more emphasis.

The political environment

The Copenhagen Summit expressed concerns about 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 closely to the knowledge and opinions of civil society rather than mainly to 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 demand "structural adjustment" in international governance to remedy the systemic weaknesses which led to the error.

One priority for action here 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 adequately fulfilled this responsibility.
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.

A second, and related, aspect of the international political environment concerns what I call "constructive regionalism". I use the word "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.

Regions should not necessarily be defined in this context as being whole continents rather than as smaller neighbourly groupings which more adequately reflect similarities in circumstances, cultures and interests. In every continent, regional bodies such as the European Union (EU), Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) should be urged to give greater attention to social issues, to cooperation with other such regional groupings, and to close interaction with civil society organisations. It is important also that these groupings are more closely engaged with the UN structure at both regional and global levels.

The legal environment

I shall move on now to some brief comments about the international legal environment. One of the main priorities in this context could be 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. Amongst other things, the World Bank, IMF and other donors should place greater emphasis on helping poorer countries to provide these rights to their citizens. There should also be closer linkage between the legally binding rights in the Covenant and other less proscriptive but more detailed international agreements such as the Alma Ata agreements on health and the Jomtien agreements on education.

Another priority could be 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 marketplaces of the richer countries in which the corporations are headquartered and most of their shareholders reside. It is important that the current emphasis in some quarters on social responsibility of business is not confined to mere matters of philanthropy or pious rhetoric. It is also important to recognise that collusion in corrupt practices is not the only way in which corporate misconduct can gravely damage the quality and integrity of national and international governance.

Two key initiatives

I shall conclude by outlining two over-arching proposals which ICSW is now seeking to promote, especially in the lead up to the Special Session in Geneva next June.

The first proposal is to enter the new millennium with a global 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, as well as some intergovernmental organisations, to join with us in
promoting a Countdown Campaign to monitor, demand and facilitate achievement of the targets by the agreed date. The campaign could include a much higher profile for International Poverty Day each October 17.

The second proposal is to promote development of a framework of International Standards for Social Development (ISSD), building upon a related suggestion made last year by the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown. The aim of this proposal is to establish minimum enforceable rules, or in some instances advisory codes, about appropriate standards for countries in different stages of development. ECOSOC would be the appropriate body to initiate and coordinate development of this framework, especially as the Brown proposal has already been referred to it, but detailed development of particular standards would usually be delegated to other bodies in the UN system.

The proposed 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. Other particular standards 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.

Conclusion

These suggested priorities 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. ICSW looks forward to working with you and your organisations in pursuing that fight throughout the world.