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| MORE ABOUT HUNGER NOTES |
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The World Summit on Sustainable Development: Poor People are Losing the Struggle over Money and Power to Developed Country Governments
The
divisions and struggles over economic policy and development
at the turn of the century were reflected in the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in
Johannesburg, South Africa, in late August and early
September, 2002. The world community is caught up in an
historical struggle over money and power in the new global
reality, and as usual, those in poverty are suffering the
most.
Like
so many serious concerns at the domestic level, the
Summit’s issues were driven from public attention almost
immediately by the concerted U.S. campaign for war against
Iraq. I do not believe this was accidental. Strategies for
domination of the global economy have a better chance for
success when the peoples of the world are distracted. In
fact, the economic policies quietly but relentlessly pursued
by the Administration reflect little interest in sustainable
development, but rather demand secure access to and control
of Iraqi oil and promise a future legacy of social unrest
and violence by generating deepening poverty.
So
what happened at the WSSD? Much that left advocates
of global justice disappointed. Long hours of hard work
seem to have gone largely into damage control– preventing
backsliding, struggling to regain access to documents and
negotiators, pressing to keep the specific goals and
time-bound targets from being removed from the text, keeping
the wealthy nations from removing all reference to the
negative impacts of globalization, fighting against efforts
to subordinate ecological and social goals to trade policy
and macroeconomic considerations, rescuing key principles
accepted 10 years ago in Rio, reaffirming the millennium
goals on poverty, getting some small commitment to the
development of renewable energy sources, and so on.
PLAN
OF IMPLEMENTATION
The principal document approved by the governments at the Summit (available online at www.un.org/esa/sustdev/ acknowledges that there are serious problems for some nations and peoples in the contemporary processes of the global economy and urges the full and effective participation of developing countries in formulating the economic policies that affect them.
But the document then proceeds to promote the privatization and trade liberalization agenda, calling for technical assistance to developing countries to help them enter more deeply and efficiently into the regional and global trading systems.
There
is no acknowledgment of or response to the strong NGO
critique that the structures of the trading systems
themselves are biased in favor of the rich, that they are
actually causes for the severe problems plaguing the poor
nations and peoples of the world. The Plan of Implementation
does contain a breakthrough call for corporate
accountability by implementing current intergovernmental
agreements, developing international initiatives, forming
public/private partnerships, applying “appropriate”
national regulations and supporting best practices. It is a
breakthrough because corporate accountability is now a high
profile issue on the global agenda. This particular text,
however, is a weak and fundamentally voluntary approach to
corporate accountability, which deliberately ignores the
fact that current intergovernmental agreements and national
regulations have proven themselves inadequate for protecting
vulnerable populations and ecosystems and achieving
corporate accountability in this global economy.
THE
MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS (MDGs)
The MDGs, including “to eliminate poverty, improve social conditions and raise living standards, and protect our environment” are emerging as extremely important internationally. As specific time-bound targets with a deadline of 2015, they allow the calculation of benchmarks essential to their realization, such as relative amounts of debt relief, aid, investment, etc. needed per year. They deserve to receive much more attention from those committed to greater socioeconomic justice as instruments for calling governments to accountability. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan recently launched a campaign to achieve the goals by developing yearly progress reports and keeping the needs and issues in front of the global community.
On the critical
issue of energy, commitment was made to work together at all
levels to improve access to energy for those in poverty–
as
an important element in working to meet the MDG of halving
the proportion of people living in poverty by 2015. The
statement on alternative/renewable energy expresses
TRADE
Trade
policy and the role of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in global governance
dominated the most difficult negotiations in Johannesburg. A
commitment was made, again, to address the concerns of
developing nations about implementing past agreements
relating to
The United States and the European Union (EU), however, fought against any progress in addressing agricultural subsidies and export credits– which are among the developing nations’ most important demands. The $1 billion a day that rich countries provide– principally to ecologically inefficient corporate agribusiness– in agricultural subsidies and credits not only deny developing nations access to the market in agriculture– their primary export– but undercut local agricultural producers’ access to their own markets and hence weaken food security in the South.
There is an immense
and glaring contradiction in principle here. The wealthy
industrial countries, while protecting their own subsidies
legally (since they defined what was legal and what was not
in the WTO), have used International Monetary Fund (IMF) Structural Adjustment Programs
and a variety of trade agreements to prevent poor nations
from providing similar subsidies for their farmers. The
rhetoric about free trade and “level playing fields” is
a smoke screen obscuring the immense advantages structured
into place by and for the wealthy nations. There is an
immense challenge involved in trying to get U.S. and EU
citizens to look beyond what they see as benefits of these
subsidies and to recognize their devastating impact on people
in poverty and the ecology worldwide.
CHANGES
NEEDED
The
Plan of Implementation also calls for “fundamental changes
in the way societies produce and consume.” Developed
countries, whose consumption and production are
unsustainable, must take the lead. The plan envisions “a
10-year framework of programmes in support of regional and
national initiatives to accelerate the shift towards
sustainable consumption and production to promote social and
economic development within
the carrying capacity of ecosystems . . .” (#14). The
“polluter-pays” principle is reaffirmed (#14b,#18b), as
well as the monitoring of environmental impacts; and
companies are called upon to internalize the full costs of
production.
The
proposals will almost surely be ignored unless civil society
organizations review and follow up on them with our
governments.
The
United States and Australia were isolated and rebuffed by a stronger
than ever global consensus in support of the Kyoto Protocol
on Climate Change. Secretary of State Colin Powell’s
insistence that President Bush was deeply concerned about
global warming drew unprecedented jeers and laughter from
the governmental delegates gathered for his speech. The WSSD
was an important event that occasioned valuable civil
society networking, as well as attention to a set of issues
not often discussed by leaders in global policy and
practice. It was one more encounter in an ongoing global
effort to discover the means of governance and processes of
development that can carry us forward into greater peace and
solidarity.
However,
the United States is not playing a constructive role in this process.
In the name of national interest, it is working to undermine
all efforts to establish systems that can serve the global
common good and the development of all peoples. The
challenges are urgent and of very high stakes for those
committed to justice in global solidarity.
There are many ways to follow up on the WSSD to contribute to its longer-term success. We can educate ourselves on the governmental commitments made in Johannesburg and request reports from the U.S. government on its efforts to implement them. We can keep raising the issue of global warming and press the Administration to show its concern in effective action. We can challenge the easy and usually hypocritical use of “free trade” rhetoric in order to bring the real concerns of people in poverty around the world before the U.S. public. We can learn more about the role of corporate agribusiness in the global food system and spread the information. We can review the more that 220 private partnership proposals agreed to at the Summit http://www.johannesburgsummit.org/html/sustainable_dev/type2_part.html
to see which ones we can monitor and hold accountable. We
can look seriously at changing our patterns of consumption
to make them more economically, socially, and environmentally
sustainable. At present the world community lacks effective
leaders capable of envisioning the global common good beyond
competing national interests and pursuing it. Our leaders
are too small-minded and our political systems too
corrupted. Just and sustainable global development for all
on the planet will only come from educating and organizing
to generate the vision and the political will locally,
connecting with other communities nationally, and networking
globally. Future hope is in our hands– which is not such a
bad place. We must embrace it with energy and hope.
Jim
Hug, SJ, is the President of the Center of Concern.
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