Sylvia Borren
6 July 2009
opinion
Nairobi — After weeks of negotiations, the conclusion of the United Nations High Level Conference on the Financial and Economic Crisis held on June 24-26 was a huge disappointment.
The summit was our opportunity to continue lobbying our demands after the Doha Conference on International Financing.
The power play of most of the rich countries was painfully clear over the three days.
Shortly after the outcome document was unanimously accepted, the US delegates indicated that the governance structures of the Bretton Woods institutions would not be bound by it (a rejection of democratic scrutiny) and that the World Trade Organisation (WTO) would be left to practise business as usual.
The European Union praised the outcome document as "highly ambitious", which is cynical indeed when most developing nations feel they have been railroaded into accepting a very weak compromise with only an ad-hoc UN working group to continue the process.
Civil society is angry that no concrete bailout measures have been agreed on for the most affected: women and the socially marginalised.
According to the United Nations Millennium Campaign, world leaders spent 10 times more money last year on bailing out the financial world than they spent in 49 years on development aid.
The world's most powerful political leaders are maintaining their disregard for human rights by not taking responsibility for the effects of economic and climate crises that they have caused.
The food crisis affects mostly women. Young people around the world with no education, jobs, or hope will turn to domestic and communal violence as their outlet. Forced migration will increase.
The causes and combined effects of the food, energy, climate, financial, economic, and gender crises are becoming clearer every day.
Economic growth does not trickle down, but economic crisis certainly does. What is needed now is not the repair of old, failed systems but transformation.
The good news of this UN conference is that there are many transformative solutions being brought to the table, all pointing in the same direction, investment in people: in children through quality education; in decent jobs for decent wages for women in the care-industry; in youth employment; in quality public services, health, education, water and sanitation; in sustainable small-scale agriculture to solve the food crisis; in micro-finance as the basis of local economies and enterprise; in green infrastructure to adapt to and combat climate change, and more.
The bad news is the notable lack of urgency and political will to move boldly on the many solutions put forward.
The citizens of the world have seen the leaders of the developed world act with unprecedented speed and courage to bail out the banks and parts of the corporate sector. An estimated $20 trillion has been spent or pledged for those who were most responsible for causing the situation we find ourselves in.
Yet not even a third of the $30 billion requested at the UN high level meeting on the food crisis a year ago has been forthcoming to date.
The Stiglitz Commission recommends that just one per cent of the stimulus packages of developed countries -- about $200 billion -- be spent on the developing world. The conference did not accept this recommendation.
What must we conclude? The voices of women, the poor, and the millions of trade union members and people organising against poverty are apparently not as relevant as the banks and corporate interests.
Our leaders have provided an upside-down bailout package, most of it going to the economic elite and virtually nothing going to the two billion women, children, elderly, and socially excluded at the bottom of the economic pyramid, all of whom are most affected by the crises.
This is the moral leadership crisis we are facing in the world today.
The UN meeting tried, but most rich countries blocked solutions.
Women and men living in poverty, the millions of citizens in trade unions and social movements, and the 116.9 million who stood with the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) last year will now have to put pressure on the G8 leaders, who start their undemocratic meeting on July 8.
Sylvia Borren is co-chair of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty and Worldconnectors
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