VOICES RISING
YEAR III - VOL 3. Nº143
CONTENT
ICAE ACADEMY OF LIFELONG LEARNING ADVOCACY (IALLA)
1.- SOWETO WHITEBAND DAY AND PRESS CONFERENCE
2.- JUBILEE SOUTH RESPONSE TO THE G8 DEBT PROPOSAL: JUSTICE DEMANDS UNCONDITIONAL AND TOTAL DEBT CANCELLATION FOR ALL SOUTH COUNTRIES!
3.- FIRST INTERNATIONAL MEETING: TELEVISION, COMMUNICATION AND THE ENVIRONMENT
4.- ANNOUNCEMENT OF INTERACTIVE WEB SITE.
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ICAE ACADEMY OF LIFELONG LEARNING ADVOCACY (IALLA)
From July 26 to August 11, 2005.
Buskerud Folk Highschool, Norway
www.icae.org.uy
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1.- SOWETO WHITEBAND DAY AND PRESS CONFERENCE
By Ana Agostino
ICAE-GEO South Africa
anajairo@mweb.co.za
Dear friends,
yesterday was an intense day in Soweto. Please find attached the programme. There were many people from Soweto, though there were many activities taking place simultaneously. 16 June in South Africa is a national holiday: Youth Day, in commemoration of the youth who where killed in 1976 in Soweto while they were protesting against Afrikaans as medium of instruction. It is a very special day for the youth of South Africa.
The event at SOMOHO (see programme) was very lively and everybody was wearing a white band. There were hundreds of people wearing white t-shirts. The majority of the participants were very young, but there were also many women, young and old.
In the afternoon the British High Commissioner was there and youth from two different highschools handed him a huge poster to take with him to the G8 summit. They had drawn, and cut and put together images of what they see as a reality that needs to change and talked about how the G8 countries should contribute to that change.
I talked on behalf of Gender and GCAP and announced the launch of this initiative in Africa which will take place on June 22 and 23 in Johannesburg. This event is a follow-up to the meeting in Nairobi. Information on that meeting was also posted on this list and I also included the statements prepared in that occasion. Because they will be part of the documents discussed in Johannesburg next week I am attaching them again for those of you who will come to Johannesburg.
There was also a press conference in the evening, at which the GCAP coalition launched Africa Snaps - a series of TV adverts featuring Africas top celebrities and civil society leaders - and the Say No 2 Poverty SMS mobile campaign in 15 African countries. There were similar press conferences in Nairobi, Kenya and Accra, Ghana.
At the press conference I also presented Gender and GCAP and distributed the document prepared for the launch of GCAP women at Beijing + 10 and the statements prepared in Nairobi.
So South Africa had its first whiteband day and we hope that it will help to put in motion a national GCAP campaign.
Greetings,
Ana Agostino
ERADICATING POVERTY THROUGH FULFILLING COMMITMENTS AND UPHOLDING WOMEN’S RIGHTS
Preamble-
From a women’s human rights perspective, poverty is not merely a state of low income but a human condition characterised by the sustained deprivation of the capabilities, choices and power necessary for the enjoyment of fundamental rights. Poverty is created, sustained and reinforced by systemic imbalances in wealth and power which in turn perpetuate human rights violations, gender inequalities and economic injustice.
Sufficient income is necessary to lowering poverty, but getting communities out of poverty will depend on women’s leadership, access to education, time, land, healthcare and credit, as well as women enjoying their reproductive and sexual rights, freedom from violence, and equal rights in the family and in society.
African women are disproportionately affected by poverty in the most extreme ways. Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest HIV infection rate with women accounting for more than half of the people living with HIV.[1][1] As well as being the majority who are infected by HIV, women also have serious constraints in accessing health care and essential services and at the same time, they have the greatest burden in providing care and support to families and community members.
We are deeply concerned that there does not appear to be concerted effort continue to uphold and fulfil previous international commitments – among them – the Beijing Platform for Action, the International Conference on Population and Development-ICPD/Cairo commitments and other regional agreements. These now appear to have been completely over-taken and over-shadowed by the very narrow agenda set out in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Thus for example the Beijing 12 critical areas of concern have been “reduced” to one MDG (#3).
We urge the international community to reaffirm the critical importance of gender equality, women’s empowerment and the promotion and protection of human rights of women. African women demand that the old promises as laid out in all the international conferences of the 1990s including: Vienna, Cairo, and Beijing be kept and fulfilled; and that these are included in any frameworks- old or new- addressing development and poverty.
We are therefore, making the following specific demands:
Governments must reaffirm that gender equality, women’s empowerment and the promotion and protection of the full enjoyment by women of all human rights and fundamental freedoms are essential to create a world in which all are free from want, free from fear and free to live in dignity. The international community must re-affirm and include all the 12 critical areas of concern in the Beijing Platform For Action: poverty, education and training, health, violence, armed conflict, economy, decision-making, institutional mechanisms, human rights, media, environment and the girl-child. Governments must fulfil the promises as contained in the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women, (CEDAW), Nairobi Forward Looking Strategies, (‘85), Vienna Declaration on Human Rights (’93), ICPD- Cairo (’94), as well as the 7 strategic priority areas recommended by the Gender Equality and Education Taskforce of the Millennium Project for the realization of MDG #3.
1.1 Reaffirm education as a fundamental right in itself and as an enabling right. In addition we urge governments to:
· Go beyond primary education and provide post-primary opportunities for girls
· Eliminate all user fees
· Provide opportunities for non-formal education for women and girls
· Enhance the quality of education and provide infrastructure such as separate toilets
· Enhance the content of education and eliminate gender biases and stereotypes
· Ensure safe schooling environments and eliminate violence as a structural barrier to access and retention of girls in schools.
1.2 Refine the monitoring frameworks for measuring gender equality
The UN Secretary General must further refine the monitoring framework to accelerate progress toward the implementation of the MDGs, in particular there is need to refine the indicators for measuring Goal number 3.
2. Focus on emerging urgent agendas
In addition to fulfilling the long standing agenda, we urge governments and the United Nations to focus on the emerging and urgent issues currently affecting women on the African continent. These include in order of priority:
2.1 The scourge of HIV & AIDS
African women are disproportionately affected by HIV/ & AIDS. We call upon governments to urgently commit themselves to a radical agenda that will transform power relations as well as all other factors that are driving the epidemic. In particular this must address:
2.2 Promote and protect women’s rights in conflict
African women are disproportionately affected by conflict and are primary targets for violence. Conflict is a key driver of poverty and HIV/AIDS, as women get subjected to displacement, material loss, identity loss and the breakdown of basic social services and networks. We are demanding that this is included as a key concern in addressing development in Africa and new commitments are made to ensure women’s rights are upheld in areas that are affected and prone to conflict, war and violence. Governments must:
2.3 Promote and protect women’s rights from the threat of fundamentalisms
The so-called ‘War on Terror’, has fuelled a rise in fundamentalisms of various kinds. Coupled with the rise in poverty and HIV & AIDS, African women are experiencing increasing persecution, violence and constraints on their basic freedoms. More worrisome is the increase in militarization and a culture of militarization which poses major threats to women’s security. Within this context, women’s bodies, women’s movements, and women’s personal freedoms have become severely circumscribed. We therefore demand that;
2.4 Adopt laws, policies, and promote practices that protect the rights of women and promote gender equality
African women are disadvantaged by laws and policies that either discriminate against them blatantly, or are silent about the particular circumstances of women. Unless African governments repeal these laws, enact new ones or take steps to transform gender relations women and girls will continue to be disproportionately affected by poverty, violence, and HIV & AIDS among other key problems. We therefore call on African governments to prioritize:
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WOMEN’S RIGHTS, AID, TRADE AND DEBT
Preamble:
Africa’s current debt stock stands at more than USD 300 billion and the continent spends more than USD 15 billion every year in debt servicing.[2][2] This translates to about 30-40% of most African governments’ annual budgets, crippling their abilities to provide basic social services such as education, health, water and sanitation. The debt burden coupled with the decreasing and poor quality of aid (with conditionalities) and worsening terms of trade has had adverse effects on the lives of African women.
African women bear the brunt of ensuring food security, producing for international and domestic markets, as well as supplementing health care systems by providing their unpaid and underpaid labour. This has led to the increased feminisation of poverty, thereby compromising all poverty eradication efforts.
Most international policy making processes and agreements on trade, aid, and debt have largely ignored the specific problems, needs and rights of women. This is accentuated by the lack of critical analysis and gender perspectives on each of these issues and their implications on women. It is our view that all issues are “gendered”. It is therefore imperative that gender analysis pervades both discourse and policy.
African women call upon governments and the international community to commit themselves to the following:
1. Aid
1.1 International community
· Aid should however, prioritize empowering women through achieving gender equality goals as contained in the Beijing platform for Action and the ICPD programme of action.
· Aid should be in the form of grants not loans (as loans increase the debt burden of poor countries).
· Governments should meet their commitments to development assistance – meeting the target of minimum 0.7% of GNP.
·
1.2 National governments
· Gender sensitive analysis and budgeting that prioritises women’s needs
· Prudent use of aid resources to ensure that women benefit
· Ensuring that women access basic social services like health, reproductive health, and education by directing more aid to these sectors.
· Governments must consult all key stakeholders, especially women, prior to contracting new aid (especially loans).
· Actively involve women in all stages of policymaking i.e. conceptualization, planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of development processes.
We are therefore calling on women to continue to put pressure on national governments and donors to demand gender sensitive policies and budgets, as well as holding governments accountable.
2. Debt
Much of the debt of developing countries is being paid for by poor women. Currently women are providing healthcare, education, child and elder care, and other services which support families, societies and economies as part of their unpaid labour. In order to eradicate poverty and advance human rights therefore, debt must be cancelled, resources shared equitably and essential services must be provided by the state.
2.1 International community
· 100% unconditional cancellation of debts of the most highly indebted and poorest countries (HIPC)
· Agree to unconditional debt cancellation of all illegitimate debts, such as those that cannot be serviced without causing significant harm to women, those incurred by corruption and fraud and those with exorbitant interest rates, taking into account that any ‘debt sustainability’ analysis must include an audit of the legitimacy or illegitimacy of all previous debts
· Establish an independent, transparent arbitration process for debt cancellation and an ethical lending and borrowing mechanism to prevent further recurrence of the debt crisis
2.2 National governments
· Ensure prudent use of debt cancellation resources to ensure they benefit women and promote gender equality, as well as provide the necessary essential services.
· Put mechanisms for overseeing gender-sensitive loan contraction mechanisms to ensure that the debt crisis does not recur.
· To practise responsible borrowing and ensuring that civil society, including women’s organizations are consulted in any agreements that national governments take on regarding lending or borrowing.
3. Trade
Trade expansion – both within and across borders – has been dependent on poor women’s labour. Trade justice therefore implies not only more equitable terms of trade and national economic sovereignty, but also guaranteeing women’s rights.
3.1 International community
· UN - ECOSOC must commission a comprehensive social and gender sensitive review of the current process of trade liberalization, trade expansion and intensification and their utility and efficacy for just, equitable and sustainable development, paying particular attention to the concerns of women, and to the impact of the privatization of services under GATS on women
· A stop to trade liberalization, as it leads to undesirable consequences such as dumping of cheap products which adversely affects national food sovereignty, pushing women out of the formal sector and contributing to increased exploitation and loss of livelihoods.
· A stop to export-driven economies, as they put increasing burdens on women who are often the providers of cheap labour without reaping the benefits of profits.
· Trade agreements must stop pushing national governments into a privatisation agenda, which puts basic social services in the hands of the private sector making them inaccessible to poor African women.
· Remove subsidies, tariffs and non tariff barriers in international markets, which negatively impact on women’s earning capacity.
· To find a solution to urgently deal with the continued falling commodity prices as they reduce the women’s incomes.
· Ensure women’s land rights, labour rights and decent jobs, as well as protecting women’s agricultural activities, maintaining food security, livelihoods and traditional knowledge.
· Develop policies so that the benefits of trade will advance development objectives, including international commitments to women’s rights.
3.2 National governments
· Regulate operations of Transnational National Corporations (TNCs) to protect the rights of women.
· Put in place policies that will promote, guarantee and support women‘s entrepreneurship, land rights, labour rights and decent livelihoods.
· Protect women’s agricultural rights.
· Protect women’s traditional/indigenous knowledge from bio-piracy by TNCs.
· Develop policies so that the benefit of trade will advance development objectives and reach the most marginalized especially poor women.
· Conduct public consultations and policy reviews with relevant sectors, including women’s organizations and networks, aimed at anticipating the impact on women of bilateral, regional and international trade agreements, in order to identify potential negative impact on women with respect to earning levels, job security, labor standards, unpaid work burdens and access to productive and natural resources.
· Resist International Financial Institutions’ (IFIs) privatization and liberalization agendas which have adverse effects on women.
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MDG CAMPAIGN FLASH FROM THE MDG YOUTH CAMPAIGN IN GULU
AfricaOnline (U) User
awepon@africaonline.co.ug
A campaign by Youths in Northern Uganda has set off to demand for the achievement of Millennium Development Goals. On 4th June 2005, at a public debate held in Gulu district local government headquarters and organized jointly by AWEPON and the national NGO forum, youth NGOs in the region, students and other civil society launched a massive campaign in Northern Uganda, attracting hundreds of youths in the region. The debate was attended by prominent academics and politicians in the region among them Hon. Zachary Olum and Hon. Jacob Oulanyah of Omoro County in Acholi sub region. The debate on the topical theme The Silent Youth issues in MDGs and national framework for poverty eradication aimed to determine the critical path to address the challenges in the way of poverty eradication among youths in the conflict-afflicted Northern Uganda.
This interface of youths and their leaders provided the opportunity for inspiration of youths to demand the leadership accountability on the MDGs for a region deemed by conflict. Hon. Jacob Oulanyah, a prominent leader in the region and speaker at the public debate stressed the value of the dialogue for youth to reminiscent on their potential and life challenges inspired by the track record of youths as the continent marks the Day of the African Child.
He emphasized the magnitude of poverty among youths in Northern Uganda grappling with an unending 20 years of conflict and sharp increase in poverty manifest in 70% of the entire population, a majority youth becoming poorer! He inspired youth to make a difference and put to positive use their revolutionary minds, untapped potential, energy, and creativity and challenged youth to donate these missed opportunities to the countrys destiny. In his words,
You must as a youth create a situation where you cannot be ignored, where it is costly to ignore you, where it becomes operationally disastrous for some one to ignore you. It is called bargaining power, if you do not have it then go to sleep!!
However, the debate raised further the voice of the youth in Northern Uganda, challenging the leadership to accept the fact that the region is out of the rest of the countrys Development prospects and promises in the MDGs. One Dennis Okema Fred of USAID disturbed by the talk on MDGs said,
Northern Uganda must accept the fact that it is out of the MDGs. We are no longer in that bracket looking at our conditionschools are empty, homes are replaced by animals, people stay on land which does not belong to them, the little forests we used to have are all depleted, and above all a thousand young people have not seen the black board, they have given up and do not ask for any more!
The loud and clear voice of the youths in northern Uganda requires doubling of the political will, determination to achieve the MDGs in northern Uganda so that they are truly a youth agenda. There can never be talk of development in a situation of conflict, the youth demand of government and for northern Uganda, it has got to do with the how of demeaning conflict as a business that should be the essence of the MDGs.
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ROAD TO HONG KONG - WTO issues
Alejandra Scampini
REPEM
Dear all,
Please, see below the Civil Society Registration Procedure for Hong Kong Ministerial meeting. A WTO list serve has been created but it is still empty, as nominated persons will be coming now. I am forwarding a note from Carin Smaller
Project Officer, Trade Information Project, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, Geneva Office and below QUESTIONS OR DISCUSSIONS to open up a little more the debate among us and feed into the GCAP whole group
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Dear all,
The Registration Procedure for NGOs for the Hong Kong Ministerial was confirmed at the May General Council. The registration will take place over the internet at www.wto.org starting TOMORROW WEDNESDAY 1st JUNE.
If you are unable to access the internet you can contact the Secretariat and follow the old procedures.
The online procedure is as follows:
1. 1st JUNE - 29th JULY by Midnight GMT: Accreditation of Organisation - organisations can be accredited if they fit the description in Article 5.2 of the Marrakech Agreement Establishing the WTO: "NGOs concerned with matters related to those of the WTO." If your organisation has
already been accredited for 2 previous Ministerials (does not have to be consecutive Ministerials) you can get fast-track accreditation which means you don't have to provide information proving your organisation is concerned with WTO issues. If not, you have to provide the information
specified to get accreditation.
If your accreditation is confirmed you will receive a password and ID
2. 31st AUGUST - 30th SEPTEMBER by Midnight GMT: Accreditation of Individuals - if your organisation is successfully accredited you will be able to register individuals. As yet there are no limits but the Secretariat will review the number of individuals registered and will decide how many they will allow for each organisation. You only need to register those individuals who plan to work inside the conference centre where the Ministerial will take place.
3. 31st October - you will receive confirmation of the number of individuals that will be allowed to be registered plus information about the Ministerial
The Secretariat will also prepare a list of all accredited NGOs and provide to all WTO Members.
Hope that helps. All instructions will be available on the WTO website from tomorrow.
Good luck
Carin
Carin Smaller
Project Officer, Trade Information Project
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, Geneva Office
15 rue des Savoises
Geneva 1205
ph: +41 22 789 0734
fax: +41 22 789 0733
csmaller@iatp.org
www.iatp.org
www.tradeobservatory.org
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSIONS
1) Who are the key role players in the trade policy arena that we can engage and work with?
2) How do we work on a pro equity and equality approach and brief women in the task force on the current views of multi-lateral reform of the WTO, World Bank and IMF -
3) What are the issues at stake in WTO and what are the messages in terms of International trade we need to be looking at so as to engage more actively and rpoactively and so as to deliver our own messages into GCAP group.
4) we may need expertise on textiles, health, GATS, TRIPS, TRIMS Agricultural related matters
5) do you need of any events in which some of our memebers of feminist task force are participating in this lines?
I know IGTN is having a meeting in south east Asia and the Africa Trade Network (ATN) Meeting in Cairo in August or September. Dot Keet will be there.
6) what about the Road to Hong Kong . WE ALSO NEED TO START LOOKING AT THIS
OF THE 6th WTO Ministerial in Hong Kong. Consideration needs to be given to including Parliamentarians from all regions and other sectors on the Civil Society delegation.
7) does anyone know of fact sheets, essays that we could start sharing among us and with the rest of gcap?.
8) last but not least, WHO WILL LIKE TO BE PART OF THE WTO GCAP WORKING GROUP??
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2.- JUBILEE SOUTH RESPONSE TO THE G8 DEBT PROPOSAL: JUSTICE DEMANDS UNCONDITIONAL AND TOTAL DEBT CANCELLATION FOR ALL SOUTH COUNTRIES!
JUBILEO SUR/Americas
jubileosur@wamani.apc.org
Jubilee South, a network of debt campaigns, movements and peoples organization from Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean and Asia and the Pacific, stands firm in its position that no less than the unconditional cancellation of all debts claimed from all South countries will liberate the peoples of the South from debt domination.
The financial burden of debt servicing is staggering. It results in the violation of our peoples basic rights and impoverishes our countries. The injustice is magnified even further when we examine the onerous and often odious nature, terms and purposes of many of these debts and the negative consequences of numerous debt-financed projects, for which northern lenders and authoritarian and corrupt South governments are responsible.
Even more fundamental is how the debt is used as an instrument to perpetuate the powerful hold that rich nations, international financial institutions, and global corporations have over our peoples lives. They use this power to continue the long history of exploitation and plunder that is one of the central causes of the problem of the debt in the first place.
Ever since the explosion of the global debt crisis in the 1980s, we have been witness to a series of debt relief programs by G8 governments and international financial institutions. Time and time again, these schemes succeeded not in releasing our people from debt bondage, but in keeping our countries on the debt treadmill, and creating even more favorable conditions for wealth concentration and extraction by foreign investors. In many instances they were poorly disguised initiatives to bail out international banks and financial institutions.
Since last year, G8 governments, led by the US and the UK, started discussing proposals for 100% multilateral debt cancellation. Debt campaigns took this as a challenge and an opportunity to fight for what may be partial but nevertheless important gains, and outlined the terms in which a 100% multilateral debt cancellation would truly represent a significant step forward in the struggle against debt domination.
On June 11, the G8 Finance Ministers released a statement on Development and Debt which includes a proposal for multilateral debt cancellation that would be put to the Annual Meetings of the IMF, World Bank, and African Development Bank by September 2005.
We cannot join our voices to those publicly hailing the G8 debt agreement as a historic victory for the following reasons:
1. The multilateral debt cancellation being proposed is still clearly tied to compliance with conditionalities which exacerbate poverty, open our countries further for exploitation and plunder, and perpetuate the domination of the South.
The G8 agreement includes the cancellation of US$ 40 billion multilateral debt claimed from 18 HIPC Completion Point countries. The cancellation of US$ 40 billion, if it were to push through, will mean a significant change from the current situation of many of these countries. But we should not forget that these 18 countries paid and will continue to pay a terrible cost for this US $ 40 billion --compliance with HIPC conditionalities required to reach Completion Point, the impact of which will be felt for many years to come.
The proposal also mentions that 100% stock cancellation will be delivered to those on track with their programmes of repayment obligations implying that countries currently in arrears will have to catch up on their payments before they are eligible for the cancellation.
It remains unclear as to whether new conditionalities will be imposed on these countries in the guise of ensuring good governance, accountability and transparency.
The proposal is also understood to include US$ 11 billion claimed from 9 HIPC Decision Point countries, and US$ 4 billion claimed from 11 HIPC countries that have not yet reached decision point. This US $ 15 billion comes with the same price -- the 20 other countries will only become eligible for cancellation after they implement HIPC conditionalities.
The total US $ 55 billion in multilateral debt cancellation will definitely not be enough to compensate for the devastating effects of these policies, which include privatization of services and utilities, indiscriminate trade and market liberalization, the further opening up of economies to foreign investments (especially targeting extractive industries in Africa), export-oriented policies at the expense of domestic needs. The impact of these policies includes the undermining of sovereignty and democracy, the intensification of repression and militarization, and war.
The cancellation of multilateral debts will not automatically mean these countries would finally be free from the hold that the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the African Development Bank have over their economies. These international financial institutions are not only lenders -- their assessment and ratings of country performances heavily influence the behavior of international investors and other lenders. These countries will continue to be vulnerable to these institutions as long as the governments of these countries insist on chasing after foreign investments, aid and loans.
2. Even if the debt cancellation were without conditionalities, the proposal falls far too short in terms of coverage and amounts to demonstrate a bold step towards justice by any standard:
o It does not cover the debts claimed by the Inter-American Bank and the Asian Development Bank from at least 6 of the 38 countries considered for multilateral debt cancellation. No logical explanation is evident and none offered by the G8 statement.
o It covers only 38 out of more than 160 South countries burdened by debts claimed by international financiers. By being silent on the rest of the South, the G8 continues to perpetuate their self-serving myth that debt is a problem only for the most impoverished countries.
o Even granting that the G8 aims to start with the most urgent of situations, the proposal does not even attempt to respond to the critical conditions of tsunami-hit countries in Asia and other countries experiencing severe crisis, such as Haiti.
o The amount of US$ 40 billion is shameful compared to what G8 governments are willing to spend on their annual military budgets -- for the year 2004: US$ 400 billion for the US and a US$ 191.4 billion for 6 other G8 countries combined (excluding Russia).
o These comparisons becomes even starker considering that as per the proposal, the contributions of donor countries to the US$ 55 billion debt cancellation will be spread over many years (i.e. the duration of repayment of the cancelled loans).
o Their annual contribution to the debt cancellation is estimated to be only at about US$ 1 billion per year. This is a pittance compared to what the G8 governments and the international financial institutions collect annually in principal and interest payments from South countries. In 2003, more than US$ 23 billion dollars were collected for interest payments alone on multilateral and bilateral debts claimed from the South.
3. Like its predecessors, the proposal does not address the issue of odious and onerous debts.
Even by the narrowest legal, political and ethical parameters, most if not all debts claimed from the South are patently illegitimate. Indeed many of them have been shown to be outrightly illegal. Northern governments and international financial institutions have refused and continue to refuse to address this issue squarely.
Most historical precedents of restructuring, cancellation or repudiation of odious debts were opportunistic maneuvers by colonizing powers and occupying forces to free up resources in the South for their own interests, the most recent example being the Iraqi debt restructuring.
4. The G8 statement does not express any measure of acknowledgment of the historical and structural causes of debt and poverty and their own culpability. Without this recognition, the G8 governments cannot make poverty history. Instead, the G8 statement is a re-affirmation of their collective commitment to push poverty-inducing and debt-creating policies in the South.
We recognize that the G8 agreement on cancellation of multilateral debt stock claimed by these Institutions from 18 to 38 countries is some progress from previous schemes and proposals for limited relief from debt payments. It is also notable that debts claimed by the IMF are included, an official recognition that IMF debts can be cancelled after years of rejecting this notion. The fact that the G8 governments have been forced to address the sham and inadequacy of their various debt relief schemes would not have been possible if it were not for the unceasing and tireless efforts of debt campaigns and social movements across the world.
But we must not lose sight of the over-all nature and impact of these agreements. The G8 debt agreement is a clever effort to use positive elements to project an image of generosity, but embeds these elements in a package that is firmly consistent with and in furtherance of their economic agenda and control over the South.
We reject this renewed attempt to manipulate the hopes and demands of millions of people around the world.
We urge all debt campaigns, social movements and peoples organizations to step up the pressure and demand that leaders of the worlds richest and most powerful nations take immediate and decisive steps towards:
o The unconditional cancellation of all debts claimed from all South countries;
o The end to the imposition of policies on the South using loans, aid, debt relief and debt cancellation programs, other economic leverages, political pressure, military aggression
o Restitution and reparations for slavery and colonization, the plunder of our wealth and natural resources, exploitation of our labor, the human, social and ecological destruction in the South caused by their economic activities, military operations and wars.
We remind the leaders of the worlds richest and most powerful nations that in truth, the North owes the South. The accumulation and concentration of wealth in the North has been largely at the expense of the South our land, our minerals, our forests and waters, our labor, our communities, our economies, our cultures, our governments, our lives.
We challenge South Governments to exercise the political will to repudiate all debts claimed from the South by the North and chart an independent path towards genuine development and self-determination.
Jubilee South - June 14, 2005
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3.- FIRST INTERNATIONAL MEETING: TELEVISION, COMMUNICATION AND THE ENVIRONMENT
A seminar on the role of the mass media
3rd World Environmental Education Congress
Educational Paths towards Sustainability,
Torino, Italy
The permanent forum Forum permanente del Terzo Settore (110 institutes representing more than fourteen million associates) and the Social Secretary of the RAI (the Italian state radio and television broadcasting company) present an international seminar on the topic Television, communication and the environment.
The seminar will be held in Torino, on October 4th 2005 during the 3rd World Environmental Education Congress Educational Paths towards Sustainability
The seminar will consider the relationship between television and environmental education through some examples of television programmes presented by the authors and by television presenters.
The seminar will be organised with the cooperation of the Italian scientific news programmes Leonardo and Ambiente Italia.
The mass media, and television companies in particular, play an important role in raising public awareness and changing attitudes, not only through news broadcasts and documentaries, current affairs and educational programmes, but also thanks to fiction and entertainment programmes: what is and what could be their contribution to education in sustainable development?
This important appointment will be an occasion to meet experts from throughout the world, involved in cultural activities to protect the environment, to encounter interesting educational experiences and to discuss the role of communication in a sustainable future on both a practical and a theoretical plane.
The inclusion of the seminar, as an independent event, in the 3rd WEEC is an interesting opportunity for exchange of ideas and debate with scientific institutions and cultural, educational and social organizations.
For information and registrations: www.3weec.org - info@3weec.org
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4.- ANNOUNCEMENT OF INTERACTIVE WEB SITE.
Dear Colleagues,
On 16 June 2005 the NGO Section of the Department of Public Information launched the Conference interactive web site for the 58th Annual DPI/NGO Conference entitled Our Challenge: Voices for Peace, Partnerships and Renewal to be held on 7 – 9 September 2005. Links to
pertinent background information and documents that will be considered at the Conference will be featured on the web site. The web site will also enable members of civil society to provide feedback on the work of the Conference. The report of the M+5 NGO Network, which is expected to be presented at the General Assembly Hearings with civil society in June as well as webcasts of the Conference, will be available on the Conference interactive web site. Resources including speaker biographies, travel information, and information on networking sessions and Midday Interactive NGO Workshops will also be accessible on the web site.
To access the Conference interactive web site, go to: www.unngodpiconference.org
Sincerely,
Paul Hoeffel
Chief, NGO Section
Department of Public Information
United Nations
1 212 963 8070
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The International Gender and Education Office (GEO) of ICAE creates
VOICES RISING
Email: voicesrising@icae.org.uy
Web: www.icae.org.uy
Tel/fax: 00 5982 401 00 06
Address: Acevedo Diaz 1600 / 1002.
11200