ALTERNATIVNA DEKLARACIJA IZ KOPENHAGENA
Izvor:
NGO Forum of the United Nations World Summit for Social Development held in Copenhagen,
Denmark, 6-12 March 1995
THE
COPENHAGEN ALTERNATIVE DECLARATION
Declaration of Civil Society Organizations
Participating in The NGO
Forum of the Social Summit
We, representatives of social
movements, NGOs and citizens' groups participating in the NGO Forum during the World
Summit for Social Development (WSSD), share a common vision of a world which recognizes
its essential oneness and interdependence while wholly embracing human diversity in all
its racial, ethnic, cultural and religious manifestations, where justice, and equity for
all its inhabitants is the first priority in all endeavours and enterprises and in which
the principles of democracy and popular participation are universally upheld, so that the
long-dreamed creation of a peaceful, cooperative and sustainable civilization can at long
be made possible.
In this context, we expected that the
Social Summit would address the structural causes of poverty, unemployment and social
disintegration, as well as environmental degradation, and would place people at the center
of the development process. These include not only economic, political and social causes,
but also the cultural structures of gender inequity.
While some progress was achieved in placing
critical issues on the table during the Summit negotiation process, we believe that the
economic framework adopted in the draft documents is in basic contradiction with the
objectives of equitable and sustainable social development. The over-reliance that the
documents place on unaccountable "open, free market forces" as a basis for
organizing national and international economies aggravates, rather than alleviates, the
current global social crises. This false premise threatens the realization of the stated
goals of the Social Summit.
The dominant neo-liberal system as a
universal model for development has failed. The current debt burden of dozens of countries
is unsustainable, as it is draining them of the resources they need to generate economic
and social development. Structural adjustment programmes imposed by the International
Monetary Fund and the World Bank have consistently undermined economic and social progress
by suppressing wages, undermining the contributions and livelihoods of small producers,
and placing social services, particularly health care and education, out of reach of the
poor. In dismantling basic state services, these programmes have shifted an even greater
burden onto women, who care for the nutrition, health, well-being and harmony of the
family, as well as community relations. In promoting the rapid exportation of natural
resources, deregulating the economy, and pushing increasing numbers of poor people onto
marginal lands, adjustment. has contributed to the process of ecological degradation.
This system has also resulted in an even
greater concentration of economic, political, technological and institutional power and
control over food and other critical resources in the hands of a relatively few
transnational corporations and financial institutions. A system that places growth above
all other goals, including human well-being, wrecks economies rather than regenerating
them, exploiting women's time, labour and sexuality. It creates incentives for capital to
externalize social and environmental costs. It generates jobless growth, derogates the
rights of workers, and undermines the role of trade unions. In the process, the system
places a disproportionate burden on women and jeopardizes their health and well-being and
consequently that of those in their care. Finally, it leads to an unequal distribution in
the use of resources between and within countries and generates social apartheid,
encourages racism, civil strife and war, and undermines the rights of women and indigenous
peoples.
It is for these reasons that we also cannot
accept the official documents' endorsement of the new trade order as defined in the Final
Act of the Uruguay Round and Articles of Agreement on the establishment of the World Trade
Organization (WTO). The documents do not consider that trade liberalization through the
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the WTO creates more losers than winners
and that the negative impacts will be disastrous for poor countries, and poor and working
people within all countries. The interests of local producers, in particular, are
undermined in the areas of foreign investment, biodiversity and intellectual property
rights.
We reject the notion of reducing social
policy in developing countries to a "social safety net", presented as the 'human
face' of structural adjustment policies in the WSSD documents. This proposal is predicated
on the withdrawal of the State from one of its fundamental responsibilities. The slashing
of social expenditures in the North as a means of reducing the budget deficit has also
undermined many of the achievements of the welfare state.
Social development can only be achieved if
all human rights--civil, political, social and cultural--of all individuals and peoples
are fulfilled. We believe that the Summit documents fail to recognize adequately the
primacy of human rights as a prerequisite for a participatory and meaningful social
development for all sectors of society, especially for children and such marginalized
groups as people with disabilities, indigenous peoples, people in occupied territories,
refugees and the displaced. It also fails to note how the undemocratic nature of
structural adjustment programmes undermine the rights of citizens and often leads to their
repression. In addition, efforts made at the Social Summit to reverse agreements reached
in Vienna and Cairo in relation to women's rights represent a further undermining of the
possibilities for the kind of fundamental changes required for the creation of just
societies.
Finally, we note that militarization
creates enormous waste of human, natural and financial resources. It causes further
inequality and pauperization, political and social violence, including violations against
women, and violent conflict that adds to the rising global death toll and the growing
number of refugees and displaced people.
In rejecting the prevailing global economic
model, we do not suggest the imposition of another universal model. Rather, it is a
question of innovating and devising local answers to community needs, promoting the skills
and energy of women in full equality with men, and benefitting from valuable traditions,
as well as new technologies-
In the light of the foregoing, we consider
that the following conditions must be fulfilled at the household, community, national and
international levels to realize this alternative vision of development:
AT THE HOUSEHOLD LEVEL:
- The new vision of development requires the transformation of
gender relations, in which women are equal participants in the decision-making process.
- Women and men must share responsibility for the care of
children, the elderly and people with disabilities.
- Domestic violence in all its forms must not be tolerated.
- Women must be guaranteed sexual and reproductive choice and
health.
- Children's rights should be respected and enhanced.
AT THE COMMUNITY LEVEL:
- The keys to effective development are equity, participation,
self-reliance, sustainability and a holistic approach to community life.
- The capacity of communities to protect their own resource
base must be restored.
- Governmental and intergovernmental decisions must be built
upon the full participation of social movements, citizens' organizations and communities
at all stages in the development process, paying special attention to the equal
participation of women.
- Communities must gain control over the activities of all
enterprises that affect their well-being, including transnational corporations.
- The political, social and economical empowerment of youth,
especially young women, should be fostered.
AT THE NATIONAL LEVEL:
- All forms of oppression based on gender, race, ethnicity,
class, age, disability and religion must be eliminated.
- Governments must ensure the full and equal participation of
civil society in the processes of economic policy-making and other development
decision-making, implementation and monitoring.
- Education must be granted as the main instrument to empower
youth to take their rightful place in society, enabling them to take control of their
lives. Non-formal education should be promoted, drawing on the experiences and skills of
non-specialized people.
- Governments must ensure the full and equal participation of
women in power structures and decision-making at all levels.
- National accounting systems should be revised to
incorporate, women's unpaid work.
- Governments must commit themselves to developing national
strategies and implementation plans in order to fulfill their responsibilities under the
Human Rights covenants. They must regularly report on their progress, in particular their
efforts regarding marginalized groups' access to legal procedures. Governments which have
not ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against
Women (CEDAW) should do so. Governments should work for the approval of the Draft
Declaration on the Universal Rights of indigenous Peoples at the United Nations.
- Recognition of and respect for ancestral territorial rights
of indigenous peoples and their right to self-determination is an imperative in order to
ensure their existence as peoples and cultures. Territories that are colonized should
likewise be accorded their right to sovereignty and self-determination.
- Governments must make agrarian reform the basis of
sustainable rural economies and ensure access to affordable credit for the poor without
discriminating on the basis of gender, race and ethnicity so that people can create their
own employment and build their own communities.
- Governments should develop sustainable employment
programmes, in full consultation with trade unions and employers' organizations.
- Governments of industrialized countries should reduce their
countries' disproportionately large claim on available natural resources by implementing
the appropriate mix of incentives, ecological tax reforms, regulations, and environmental
accounting systems to achieve sustainable production and consumption patterns.
- Southern governments have the right to protect their people
from the effects of deregulated and liberalized trade, especially in areas of food
security and domestic production. Moreover, they should be able to regulate the market and
take fiscal or legal measures for the purpose of combating inequalities among their
peoples. Africa should be given preferential treatment in this respect.
- Governments should commit themselves to reducing military
expenditure so that it does not exceed spending on health care and education and increase
the conversion of military resources to peaceful purposes. This "peace dividend"
should be distributed equally between a national and a global demilitarization fund for
social development. There should be a conversion of the military economy to a civilian
economy.
AT THE INTERNATIONAL LEVEL:
- A new partnership in South-North relations requires placing
the cultures, development options and long-term strategies of developing countries and not
those of the North.
- It must be recognized that cultural diversity is the
principal source of new strength, new actors new social systems and sustainable
development, creating an alternative globalization from below.
- There should be an immediate cancellation of bilateral,
multilateral and commercial debts of developing countries without the imposition of
structural adjustment conditionality. In the longer term, the international community
should institutionalize equitable terms of trade.
- Policy-based-lending and the interference of the World Bank
and IMF in the internal affairs of sovereign states should be discontinued.
- The Bretton Woods institutions must be made transparent and
accountable to civil society in both the South and North; their policies and programmes
should be made people-centered; and participation of social movements and citizens'
organizations at all stages in the negotiation of agreements, project implementation and
monitoring should be ensured.
- Global macro-economic policy should address the structure of
poverty and stimulate the levels of real purchasing power. An alternative macroeconomic
policy will have to meaningfully address the distribution of income and wealth, both
between and within countries, leading to a democratization of consumption. This policy
would require curbing lavish luxury-goods economies and redirecting resources towards the
production of essential consumer goods and social services.
- Global production and consumption must stay within the
limits of the carrying capacity of the earth. Political regulation is mandatory in order
to prevent the global market system from continuing to reward irresponsible behaviour that
cares nothing for the household, community, nation and humankind.
- Regulatory institutions and instruments of governance and
law that are truly democratic and enforceable must be established to prohibit monopolistic
structures and behaviour and to ensure that transnational corporations and financial
institutions respect the fundamental rights of all peoples. In order to make this
possible, TNCs must be reduced in size. Work to complete the Code of Conduct for TNCs
should be urgently resumed.
- An international independent body and accountability
mechanisms should be set up to monitor, evaluate and effectively regulate the behaviour of
transnational corporations and their impact on individual nations, communities, peoples
and the environment.
- The international community should enforce the application
of a tax on all speculative foreign exchange transactions (Tobin tax) of about 0.5 %, the
revenue of which should go into a global social development fund with adequate control
mechanisms.
- Effective international machinery to promote renewable
energy should be installed in the UN system.
- Regional and international organizations should encourage
diplomacy, peaceful negotiations and mediation and promote institutions for research and
training in non-violent conflict resolution.
- In the 180 days between the Copenhagen Summit and Beijing
Conference, we demand an independent investigation and audit of World Band and IMF
performance. In the aftermath of the financial collapse in Mexico, it is essential that
the international community prevent future disasters that result from the refusal of the
Bretton Woods institutions to depart from the agenda set by the financial and corporate
communities, the U.S. government, and Northern financial ministries.
Existing power relations do not permit the
realization of these goals. We, representatives of civil society, call upon governments
and political leaders to recognize that the existing system has opened the most dangerous
chasm in human history between an affluent, overconsuming minority and an impoverished
majority of humankind in the South and also, increasingly, in the North. No nation so
dramatically divided has ever remained stable; no frontier or force can withstand the
despair and resentment that a failed system is now actively generating.
We do not have much time. We are at the
point of leaving to our children a world in which we ourselves would not wish to live. But
we do find a tremendous inspiration and hope in the fact that the global NGO community
taking part in the Social Summit in such a massive way can forge a common understanding of
and strategy for the lasting improvement of humankind and nature. With shared
responsibility, we can draw from the present crisis the creativity needed to make a world
community truly works. This is our common commitment as we leave the Copenhagen Summit.
This declaration was prepared by
participants in NGO Forum of the United Nations World Summit for Social Development held
in Copenhagen, Denmark, 6-12 March 1995 to reject the neoliberal economic model of
economic growth, unregulated markets, and free trade embraced by the official declaration.
By the end of the conference more than 620 civil society organizations had signed it. For
further information or to sign on contact Cheryl Brown, DGap, 927 Fifteenth Street, NW,
4th Floor, Washington, D.C. 20005, Fax (202) 898-1566 or Internet: dgap@igc.apc.org
