wfn.org | Five years after Copenhagen - A change of heart

["Frank Imhoff" <franki@elca.org>]

FEATURE

GENEVA, 26 June 2000 (LWI) - Members of an ecumenical international team
who are here to monitor critically the Special Session of the United
Nations General Assembly on the Implementation of the Outcome of the
World Summit for Social Development and Further Initiatives have summed
up the general consensus of many individuals, non-governmental
organizations (NGOs), governments, organized groups and agencies
thus--five years after the Summit in Copenhagen, the socio-economic
livelihood of the world's population has not improved, instead it has
worsened.

The ecumenical team, which is supported and coordinated by the World
Council of Churches (WCC) in cooperation with the Lutheran World
Federation (LWF), represents global networks of the WCC, member
churches, faith-based groups and partner organizations. In an animated
presentation which included a five-stanza song titled "Change of Heart"
at the Ecumenical Center in Geneva, the team observed that today, five
years after the world's governments and states meeting in Copenhagen
agreed to improve socio-economic livelihood, impoverishment has tripled
under the yoke of the market ideology while globalization and the merger
of trans-nationals exploit and cheat the poor.

The team, which will be focusing on many issues and aspects of the
social development agenda during the 26-30 June Special Session of the
UN General Assembly and civil society meetings, is calling for a change
of heart towards the poor and indebted and towards those who have been
treated as commodities. Further the representatives of the team are
urging a test of the commitments in the plan of action adopted at
Copenhagen to ensure transparency and accountability as well as
re-distribution of all the wealth and power; a stop to structural
adjustments programs (SAPs); safety nets for economies in transition;
debt cancellation and the freeing of indigenous people among other
demands.

In his welcoming remarks to the Ecumenical team, the LWF General
Secretary Dr. Ishmael Noko re-affirmed the Federation's continuing
commitment to the goals enshrined in the Copenhagen Declaration and
Program of Action, saying those goals are increasingly being reflected
in many LWF-supported projects and programs. He noted that although the
key commitments made by so many heads of state and government five years
ago remain largely unimplemented, it was his conviction that the
Copenhagen commitments provide an indispensable basis and standard by
which governments and the international community must be held
accountable.

As he highlighted key concerns that the ecumenical team will be focusing
its advocacy on, Noko underlined that the churches, communities of faith
and civil society as a whole will continue to claim and seek to
implement social development, even though governments may not live up to
their commitments.

The LWF general secretary recalled a sermon he delivered in the
Cathedral of Copenhagen at the commencement of the World Summit for
Social Development: "As a Christian community, our concern for social
justice and the social conditions of humanity is not based on political
considerations or on the interests of the nations from which we come. It
is based on the compassion of God manifest in Jesus."

Prior to their arrival in Geneva, members of the ecumenical team have
engaged in a series of meetings in preparation for the UN Special
Session Social Development commonly referred to as "Geneva 2000. The
team to will bring expert local voices to the UN discussion.

Below is the full text of the Oral Statement presented on 26 June 2000
in Geneva to the Committee of the Whole of the Special Session of the
General Assembly on the on the Implementation of the Outcome of the
World Summit for Social Development and Further Initiatives:

ORAL INTERVENTION BY THE ECUMENICAL TEAM TO THE
PREPCOM FOR THE REVIEW OF THE IMPLEMENTATION
OF THE WORLD SUMMIT FOR SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
26-30 June 2000

I (Judy Williams, Grenada) speak to you on behalf of the Ecumenical
Team, which is co-ordinated by the World Council of Churches. In
partnership with many others, we have made the journey from Copenhagen
in 1995 to Geneva 2000. We have arrived at a critical moment in the
process of implementing the commitments made by the world's governments
at Copenhagen.  From our faith-based perspective, poverty eradication,
full employment and social integration are fundamental.  Our Jubilee
vision includes sustainable, just and participatory communities and an
interdependent world in which we share responsibility for one another.

We come to Geneva 2000 with a sense of profound disappointment.  Efforts
to implement the Copenhagen Declaration and Programme of Action have
neither reversed nor significantly improved the situation for millions
of the world's people.  In fact, the reality for many has dramatically
worsened in spite of huge increases in wealth world wide. In the past
five years the few have continued to accumulate excessive wealth, while
many still lack basic necessities and are constantly struggling to
survive with human dignity and hope.

At this Special Session, we find the absence of a significant number of
heads of states disturbing.  Is this a sign that governments have
abandoned their responsibilities?  Does this reveal the extent to which
the power of governments to act in the interests of their citizens has
been usurped by the forces of globalization? Have governments been held
hostage to market forces, and coerced into excluding social development
from their central policy agendas?

People around the world are calling upon their governments and political
leaders to stand up and to say "No!" -- no to the imposition of
globalization that allows markets to determine life and death for many;
no to the privatization of goods and services necessary to sustain life;
no to the illusion of "free" markets that lead to wealth concentration,
weaken public accountability, and diminish social responsibility.  Some
significant voices in the global community are questioning a market
system that widens the gap between rich and poor, disables democracy,
undermines cultural diversity, and threatens biodiversity and the
natural resources upon which life as we know and love it depends. 
People know the vital distinction between growth that nurtures just and
sustainable communities, and growth that aggravates social inequity and
environmental destruction.

Now is the time for people, their governments and the United Nations to
claim a clear Jubilee vision and move boldly toward it, a vision of a
global community whose interdependence is not reduced to trade and
markets.  This requires a change of heart, which recognizes that real
value cannot be expressed in monetary terms, and that life in its many
forms cannot be commodified. The economy should serve the well-being of
people, rather than people being servants of the economy.  This moral
vision upholds the right of all people -- particularly those excluded --
to participate in the economic realities that impact their lives. The
ultimate aim of economic life is to nurture sustainable and just
communities.  Building such communities requires nothing less than
profound moral courage and political action.

The urgency of the situation, and the Jubilee vision for sustainable and
just communities leads us to call yet again for fundamental changes.  We
call for new financial institutions and systems that include the
concerns and participation of developing countries in determining the
direction of international financial institutions and trade regimes.  We
call for a stronger United Nations governance role through the Economic
and Social Council (ECOSOC) in establishing policy and accountability of
international monetary, financial, and trade institutions and monitoring
their practices.  We support the implementation of currency transaction
taxes.  We reiterate the need for binding codes of conduct for
transnational corporations, and financial and investment institutions to
insure they are held accountable and responsible for the social and
ecological consequences of their operations.  Governments need to fully
support the legitimate role of non-governmental organizations and
people's movements in planning, fostering, and monitoring social
development. Finally, we repeat our fundamental opposition to proposals
for an Enhanced HIPC initiative.  Debt cancellation is a Jubilee
imperative. The governments of the world must take political action to
cancel the debt ... and do it now!

Now is the time for governments to recognize their fundamental
responsibility for social development, and to take political action to
honour the promises made at Copenhagen.  Now is the time for the
governments represented at Geneva 2000 to have a change of heart, commit
themselves to true global solidarity, and dare to address the pressing
social concerns of our time with courage and determination.  Now is the
time for the United Nations to be accorded -- and to claim -- its
legitimate role in building a world in which social justice and the
social development of all people is secured.  Now is the time for an
economics of life and a politics of hope.  Those who depend on you to
act can wait no longer!

The Ecumenical Team
Geneva

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Lutheran World Information
Assistant Editor, English: Pauline Mumia
E-mail: pmu@lutheranworld.org
http://www.lutheranworld.org/