Belles familles

Report of the Preparatory Meeting to the Social Forum

July 22, 2004
Authors: Renate Bloem, Isolda Agazzi Ben Attia

On 21st July, the Conference of NGOs in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations (CONGO), together with its Special NGO Committee on Human Rights, organised a preparatory meeting to the Social Forum in order to raise the awareness of NGOs about the importance of the event and brief them on the issues at stake during this year’s session. The meeting was attended by some 65 participants and the panel benefited from the valuable input of high-level experts and from the touching testimonies of those who are directly affected by poverty.

21 July 2004
Palais Wilson, Geneva

In her introductory remarks Renate Bloem, President of CONGO, reminded the audience that CONGO has been an interface between the United Nations and civil society organizations for over 50 years and that it usually organizes NGOs briefings before major UN events. CONGO had felt the need to make the Social Forum better known to the wider NGO community, some representatives of which tend to confound it with the better known World Social Forum in Porto Alegre. Even though the concept of the UN Social Forum predates the Porto Alegre one, its mandate is in line with the latter, as it strives to promote and protect economic and social rights in the time of globalization. This year’s theme is "Poverty, extreme poverty and rural development" and Renate Bloem reminded that poverty reduction is the first Millennium Development Goal (MDG) and that poverty reduction in the rural areas was the theme of last year’s ECOSOC High-Level Segment . In light of the above, the Social Forum 2004 strives to analyse the link between poverty reduction and human rights and it benefits from the release, on the same morning, of a study by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on "Human Rights and Poverty Reduction: A Conceptual Framework". The three authors of this study were precisely among the panellists of the Preparatory Meeting and Renate Bloem warmly welcomed them all.

The floor was then given to Paul Hunt, Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health and consultant for the above mentioned publication, who started by framing out the contextual issues:

The holding of the Social Forum and the release of the above mentioned study would not have been possible some years ago. The cold war was paralysing the discussion, the Western block rhetorically championing the respect of civil and political rights and the Eastern one the respect of economic, social and cultural rights.  After the fall of the Berlin wall, the World Conference on Human Rights that took place in Vienna in 1993 was the first occasion to solemnly reaffirm the indivisibility of all human rights. In 1997, the release of the report on UN reforms by the UN Secretary General went on by stating that human rights had to become a cross-cutting issue in all UN activities. Meanwhile, poverty reduction had become an overarching issue, best exemplified by the adoption of the MDGs in 2000.  The human rights community was hence faced with the challenge of integrating human rights into poverty reduction strategies. A human rights approach to poverty reduction then started to be conceptualized which can provide an important value-added, even though it is still a "work in progress".

Turning then to the main contributions of the above mentioned approach, Paul Hunt enumerated the following seven points:

1. Poverty reduction strategies should be framed by State national and international human rights obligations: the International covenant on civil and political rights (ICCPR) and the Intenational Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) are binding obligations under international law;
2. The approach insists on the importance of tackling discrimination, inequality and exclusion. The principle of non-discrimination being one of the main principles of international human rights law, adopting this approach entails the need of disaggregating data by sex, race, ethnicity, etc;
3. Another essential feature is the centrality of the participation of those living in poverty: this sets the need for a bottom-up approach in the formulation and implementation of poverty reduction strategies;
4. The approach entails the acceptance of the progressive realization of human rights, particularly of economic, social and cultural ones. The consequence is the need to formulate indicators and benchmarks to monitor the progress towards the realization of these rights;
5. Some human rights obligations, however, are of immediate effect and the best example of them is the principle of non-discrimination;
6. The approach puts an emphasis on international assistance and cooperation: developed countries have the duty to assist developing ones;
7. One of the most salient features of the human rights approach to poverty reduction is that it requests the accountability of duty-bearers, namely the states.

He summed up by saying that the value added of this approach can be considered to be the empowerment of the poor.

Prof. Siddiq Osmani, co-author of the study, started by questioning the relation between poverty reduction and human rights. For him the answer is evident: they are the same thing! Poverty can be defined as the non fulfilment of human rights and the lack of freedom: not having the freedom from hunger is a denial of the right to food.  Adding on Paul Hunt’s intervention, he asserted that the most important gain of the human rights approach is accountability: it is the very right of the poor to be freed from poverty and the state has legal obligations to fulfil its duties in this respect. This discards the paternalistic, "good-will" approach that sometimes prevails and Prof. Osmani stressed the importance of developing institutions for accountability.

Turning then to what needs to be concretely done to implement the approach, he added that the process of policy formulation must be truly participatory, because it is the right of people to participate; as for the contents of policies, they must respect the principles of non-discrimination and equality and core human rights obligations must be implemented immediately. In the allocation of governmental expenditures, the prioritization of resources allocation must be guided by a human rights perspective.

Iulia Motoc, expert of the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, reminded the audience that the reflection on the relationship between human rights and extreme poverty had started in 1996 with the release of the report by Leandro Despouy; then the Sub-Commission issued a report on globalization and human rights - considered as "a nightmare" by the World Trade Organization  - and in 1998 the Commission on Human Rights invited the Sub-Commission to elaborate a declaration in this respect. The last step in this process of awareness taking is the establishment of the Social Forum in 2002 that has just been officially endorsed by the Economic and Social Council and will officially become an annual event. She added that the question of poverty and extreme poverty is very complex and that the Working Group of the Sub-Commission hasn’t still come up with a clear conceptual definition. Instead of trying to formulate a declaration, it is now concentrating on the elaboration of guiding principles which should be terminated next year.

The floor was then given to Patricia Achille, a representative of ATD Quart-Monde from Mauritius, who brought some personal experiences of poverty into this normative discussion.  In a very moving way, Ms. Achille told the audience that in the ‘70s she used to live in extreme poverty, but she wanted her children, as well as all the children of her neighbourhood, to be able to succeed in school because "whether rich or poor, kids have all the same rights".  She decided to undergo a vocational training and to build a school in her neighbourhood, because "this pain, this injustice just pushes you to commit yourself". She was able to build the school thanks to the trust and the support of the bishop and in 1990 she met the Mouvement ATD Quart-Monde. She said that at the meetings of the Movement people express themselves, usually during very long meetings, as people have a lot to say on the non fulfilment of their basic rights, namely education, health, shelter, etc. The association is essential to support those who want to engage themselves for the respect of human rights.

The floor was then given to Xavier Verzat, representative of ATD Quart-Monde to the UN in Geneva, who reminded that poverty and extreme poverty exist everywhere in the world, even in the Northern emisphere. He stressed that in situations of extreme poverty, all rights are violated. He reminded that in 1987 Father Josef Wresinski, the founder of ATD Quart-Monde - who was himself a poor - took the floor at the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) and that since then the CHR and the Sub-Commission have allied with the poor, from the Vienna Declaration of 1993 to the Despoui study in 1997. He stressed that the Social Forum is a chance for the ones who cannot usually be heard.

His words were echoed by Carlos Lopez, organizer of the Social Forum at the OHCHR, who reminded that the event had been established in order to give voice to grass-roots organizations that usually don’t have the chance to speak at the United Nations, because they don’t have ECOSOC consultative status. During the two days of the Forum a large space will be given to interventions from the floor, and he exhorted participants to speak freely and to actively contribute to the discussion.

When the floor was open for discussion, one participant asked the panellists why, in the human rights approach, they had left out the essential questions of the right to development and the right to self-determination.

Manfred Novaq, the third co-author of the study, replied that the human rights approach is a normative framework that singles out rights for the poor and obligations for the states. The experts had to decide what human rights they found more operational and they agreed to stick to the ones that are legally binding. The right to development is not binding at the universal level - it is expressed in the 1986 Declaration, but not in a convention - , contrary to what happens at the regional level in Africa. As for the right to self-determination, it is binding – articles 1 of the ICCPR and of the ICESR – but it is a collective right and is still very controversial.

All these issues will be discussed more in-depth during the Social Forum, to be held at the Palais des Nations (room XVIII) on 22 and 23 July 2004 . The human rights approach to poverty reduction strategies is a new one, which is still under reflection and formulation. Suggestions and contributions from the participants to the Forum are more than welcome.

Isolda Agazzi Ben Attia
Programme Office
CONGO
22.07.04