wfn.org | BWNS -- Baha'is play big role at UN conference

[Bahá'í World News Service <bwns@bwc.org>]

Baha'i World News Service
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Baha'is play big role at UN conference
UNITED NATIONS, 3 March 2005 (BWNS) -- Baha'is played prominent roles
last month at the 10-year review of the ground-breaking World Summit for
Social Development.

Baha'i International Community representative Bahiyyih Chaffers chaired
one of the main panel discussions at the one-day Civil Society Forum
held 8 February 2005 in association with the review, which ran from 9-18
February.

On 10 February, Haleh Arbab Correa, representing a Baha'i-inspired
development organization, participated in a high-level panel on
"Promoting Full Employment," sitting side by side with ministers and
ambassadors from more than 20 countries. Dr. Arbab Correa was one of
five civil society representatives invited to participate on the panel.

In 1995 more than 250 Baha'is from some 40 countries joined 5,500
delegates of non-governmental organizations at the World Summit for
Social Development, reflecting the worldwide Baha'i community's concern
about the global social issues addressed by the Summit, which was held
in Copenhagen in 1995.

Known sometimes simply as the Social Summit, it was one of a series of
ground-breaking United Nations global conferences in the 1990s that set
an international consensus on post-Cold War issues concerning
sustainable development, human rights, and the advancement of women. The
Summit called for a more compassionate and people-centered approach to
development.

The 10-year review was conducted under the auspices of the UN Commission
on Social Development. Government delegates to the meeting focused on
discussing whether the goals of the 1995 meeting had been met -- or
whether they had been displaced by other concerns, such as terrorism and
global security issues.

The two Baha'i delegates were among more than 150 NGO representatives
gathered at the Civil Society Forum. Ms. Chaffers chaired a morning
discussion on "Why Copenhagen Matters for the Millennium Development
Goals." Those goals commit the international community to an expanded
vision of development, one that vigorously promotes human development as
the key to sustaining social and economic progress in all countries, and
recognizes the importance of creating a global partnership for
development.

A member of the executive committee of the NGO Committee on Social
Development, Ms. Chaffers set the tone for the discussion by stressing
that the "age-old dream of global peace" cannot be established without
"a galvanizing vision of global prosperity" marked by the "material and
spiritual well-being" of all the world's inhabitants.

Dr. Arbab Correa also brought up the importance of taking into
consideration humanity's spiritual reality in her comments at the
high-level panel on employment.

Dr. Arbab Correa represented FUNDEAC, a Baha'i-inspired, nonprofit,
non-governmental organization with 30 years of experience in rural
Colombia. (Its name is a Spanish acronym for "The Foundation for the
Application and Teaching of the Sciences.")

Saying that education was the key to promoting full employment, she
emphasized the importance of training young people with the skills and
capabilities they will need to create a better world.

"As a Baha'i-inspired institution, we emphasize the importance of
spiritual and moral values," said Dr. Arbab Correa. "Our program focuses
on the spiritual, intellectual, and social aspects of the human being."

She said also that a key motivating factor in such training is to focus
on the importance of service to humanity, more than merely
self-enrichment.

"If we want to train human beings to participate in the construction of
a better world, it is important to emphasize the service aspect," she
said.

Dr. Arbab Correa also participated in a side event about international
success stories in the fight against poverty where she presented the
experience of FUNDAEC.

"People should not be looked at as problems," said Dr. Arbab Correa, who
is rector at FUNDEAC's University Center for Rural Well-being.

"People are resources. Development requires participation. People can
take charge of their own development with proper education."

Too often, added Dr. Arbab Correa, people are viewed as consumers,
simply part of the market. But society is not a jungle, and development
programs should aim at cooperation instead of competition.

"Human beings have a noble, spiritual aspect," she said. "The role of
education and development is to bring out those potentialities."