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	'World' Bodies under fire for serving the few, not the many by Thalif Deen Inter Press Service Canada   24 June 2005   As UN Assembly meets with public groups Annan hails key role of civil society. (UN News)   United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today urged civil society groups meeting in New York to keep making their voices heard and to hold governments – and the UN – responsible for the obligations and promises that had been made to ensure a safer, prosperous and more equitable world for all.   “You are essential partners and without you as advocates, we would not be where we are on some of the issues on the agenda today,” Mr. Annan said, wrapping up the General Assembly’s historic two-day hearings with non-governmental organizations (NGOs), civil society groups and the private sector.   The 191-member Assembly opened its first-ever interactive sessions with civil society groups yesterday to hear proposals on security, human rights, development and UN renewal, ahead of a landmark summit in September commemorating the world body's 60th anniversary.   The hearings coincided with the ongoing closed-door negotiations among UN Member States preparing for the summit, which will kick off on 14 September with a mid-term review of worldwide efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of ambitious targets, ranging from halving extreme poverty, to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and to providing universal primary education, all by 2015.   World leaders gathering at the UN will also have what Secretary-General Kofi Annan says is "once-in-a generation" opportunity to make the world body more efficient at tackling global problems by adopting the reforms he proposed in his landmark report In Larger Freedom, which he introduced to the Assembly in March.   “As a civil society and as individuals you have quiet a lot of power and you know how to use it. And when you mobilize you usually get results,” Mr. Annan said this afternoon, adding: “Your overall message is loud and clear: to build a more prosperous, just and peaceful world, we need Member States to take bold actions here in September.”   “We need your support. We are counting on you, and many around the world are counting on you particularly the poor the weak the frightened and the intimidated, who have no voice or representation in powerful chambers,” he said.   Assembly President Jean Ping of Gabon said that there was no doubt that the hearings of the past-two days would have an impact on the outcome of the 2005 World Summit. Since the draft outcome for the high-level plenary will be a consensus document, every topic raised during the hearings cannot be reflected exactly as discussed in hearings, he said – but this does not make the contributions of participants less important.   “The time has come, he said, “to collectively grapple with all the threats and challenges that humanity is confronting if we are going to build a more peaceful, a more fair world based on solidarity. We will succeed all the more easily if the Member States and the non-governmental organizations, civil society and the private sector manage to work together with a genuine spirit of partnership.”   June 24, 2005 (IPS)   "NGOs hope first date wasn't just a One-Night Stand", by Mithre J. Sandrasagra.   Security, development and U.N. reform emerged as major themes over two days of civil society and private sector meetings with governments that concluded here Friday.   But the main proposal made by the 200 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and 1,000 observers participating in the unprecedented General Assembly hearings was for similar consultations to be held before all major U.N. summits.   Hopefully, the hearings will not be an isolated event, but will move the relationship between civil society and governments ”from a historic precedent to a more formal institutionalised way of interacting,” said Renate Bloem, president of the Conference of NGOs (CONGO).   ”CONGO has worked intensively for 57 years to enhance civil society's participation at U.N. forums,” Bloem added.   Secretary-General Kofi Annan's report on U.N. reform, titled ”In Larger Freedom”, states that ”the goals of the U.N. can only be achieved if civil society and governments are fully engaged.”   It goes on to propose that ”prior to major events, the Assembly could institute the practice of holding interactive hearings between Member States and civil society representatives that have the necessary expertise on the issues on the agenda.”   Annan's report lays the basis of the agenda to be taken up at the high-level summit of world leaders to be held here in September. The report's proposals for development, security, human rights and U.N. renewal also provided the framework for the civil society hearings this week.   NGO participants came to New York prepared to offer their ideas and recommendations, ”based on firsthand experience of the issues,” Bloem said adding, ”I hope that their voices would not only be listened to, but heard, so that they might have a substantive impact on the document to be issued to the summit.”   Pera Wells, acting secretary general of the World Federation of U.N. Associations, said that, ”So far, there is only one reference to civil society in the draft outcome document being prepared for the high-level summit, and it is very weak.”   ”We would like to see more references to civil society participation in the document to be considered by heads of state,” she continued.   There are over 40 references to negotiations on follow-up to the issues that are addressed in the draft outcome document, according to Wells.   ”There is a strong feeling among civil society and NGOs that we should be included in these negotiations, not just in separate hearings, but through the consultative treaty conference and prepcom processes that have been very successfully used by the U.N. over the years,” she said, adding, ”We do not want decisions taken in small groups behind closed doors, we want to see the U.N. come back to an open inclusive decision-making process.”   Two years ago, Annan said that the U.N. had come to a ”fork in the road.” Recent events had called into question governments' commitments to development, security and human rights embodied in the Millennium Declaration unanimously adopted in 2000, according to Deputy Secretary-General Louise Frechette.   ”We now face a choice, with the upcoming review of the Millennium Declaration in September, of coming together to tackle challenges collectively, or we risk increased tension, disorder and inequality,” Frechette told those gathered at the civil society hearings.   If the September Summit takes decisions that help strengthen collective security, if the world provides the means to reach the eight Millenium Development Goals (MDGs), and if governments recognise the centrality of human rights and U.N. reform, then all the world's people will benefit, Frechette said.   ”In that process the voice of civil society representatives had to be heard,” she stressed.   Ana Nelson of the International Conflict Prevention Analysis Group agreed. ”Civil society involvement is no longer an option, it is a necessity,” she said.   The hearings took place at a critical time, amid ongoing closed-door negotiations among U.N. Member States preparing for the Assembly's 2005 World Summit, with a mid-term review of worldwide efforts to achieve the MDGs. The MDGs are a set of targets designed to halve or eradicate poverty and other socioeconomic ills by 2015.   Gladman Chibememe, of the group Africa 2000, said that he appreciated and recognised the role of the U.N. in human rights, but noted with great concern that, ”there was a lack of connectivity between documents and action on the ground.”   Stressing that indigenous communities should be empowered, Chibememe proposed creating a mechanism for enabling communities to play a leading role in achieving the MDGs.   All the MDGs need to be implemented within the framework of ”environmentally sustainable development on a local level,” Chibememe added.   ”Freeing women from injustice was a prominent goal of the MDGs and the empowerment of women was central to achieving all the others,” said Geeta Rao Gupta, of the International Centre for Research on Women. Gupta expressed disappointment in the draft outcome document's treatment of women's rights and suggested that they be elaborated.   NGOs also emphasised the need for the creation of a trust fund to facilitate the participation of Southern NGOs at future meetings. Canada, Finland and Norway made contributions to a fund that facilitated participation of developing country civil society representatives at this week's meetings.   In short, ”We need to stop speaking and start acting,” Shannon Kowalkski of Family Care International told IPS   Montreal, May 31 (IPS News)   "'World' Bodies under fire for serving the few, not the many", by Thalif Deen.   The world's multilateral institutions -- which preside over the political and economic destinies of more than six billion people -- have come under heavy fire at a meeting of 350-plus representatives of civil society and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) here.   The United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and World Trade Organisation (WTO) were criticised as lacking transparency and accountability and practising political elitism and decision-making dictated by the rich and powerful.   Rajesh Tandon, chair of the board of the Montreal International Forum (also known by its French initials, FIM), singled out the United States, France, and Britain -- three veto-wielding permanent members of the U.N. Security Council -- for what he termed their political double standards.   ''Those who pretend to be champions of democracy at the national level are the practising enemies of democracy at the global level,'' Tandon told IPS.   He urged civil society groups in the three countries to exert pressure on their governments to bring their actions in line with their stated principles.   All three countries have opposed the elimination of the veto power -- currently held by the permanent five in the Security Council, including China and Russia -- which makes them singularly more powerful than the rest of the 186 U.N. member states in an institution advocating multi-party democracy and majority rule.   ''The veto is the most undemocratic weapon at the United Nations,'' said Tandon, who also is executive director of the New Delhi-based Society for Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA).   ''Over the years, we have abolished the veto of the father over decision-making in the family, the veto of the village chief in rural communities, and even the veto of the elites in some point of time in democracy,'' he said.   But the world's three largest practitioners and propagators of democracy, Tandon added, have consistently refused to forego the political anachronism of the veto even in the current proposed restructuring of the 15-member Security Council.   He said the political architecture created 60 years ago during the birth of the United Nations remains unchallenged.   ''The major deficits of global democratic governance are well known, including the inability of the U.N. system to live up to the values of its own charter,'' Tandon said, hinting at the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003, which U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan described as an ''illegal war.''   Tandon said the very survival of the human race was at stake because a four-week-long meeting of 188 countries to review the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) last week ''ended in disarray.''   At the same time, he said, the U.N.'s social and economic agenda of the 1990s, including poverty eradication, remains ''unimplemented.''   Even so, he said he feels that in the next five years ''something will give way. And I think there will be some significant changes in the mechanism that currently operates in the United Nations. If this happens, it will only be under sustained pressure both from within and from the outside.''   Bill Pace, of the World Federalist Movement and the Coalition for the International Criminal Court, told NGO delegates at the talks ending here Wednesday that the United Nations is going to enact more major changes in the next four months than it has over the last 60 years.   The changes include restructuring the Security Council, creating a Peace Commission, revamping the U.N. Human Rights Commission, and revitalising the U.N. Economic and Social Council.   A U.N. summit of world leaders scheduled for September is expected to approve all or most of these proposals.   But Pace said he held out very little hope of any accomplishments, primarily because of the unilateralist policies of the United States.   ''There is too much focus on national security at the expense of human security, and too much concentration on unilateral action as against multilateral action,'' Pace told IPS.   Kumi Naidoo of South Africa-based Civicus told NGO delegates that one of the first political exercises is to educate world leaders who extol the virtues of democracy in their own countries.   ''But they advocate the worst policy of global governance in multilateral institutions outside their home countries,'' he added.   Kristin Dawkins of the U.S.-based Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy said a hierarchy of treaties which, in practice, favour economic and trade agreements over international human rights law or environmental agreements dramatically illustrates the democratic deficit in the global governance system.   ''Some treaties are enforced, while others are not,'' Dawkins said.   Activists also have highlighted the World Bank's appointment of former U.S. deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz as the global lending agency's president as ''a glaring example of undemocratic governance.'' Wolfowitz takes up his new duties Wednesday.   ''These recruitment procedures are neither democratic nor transparent,'' says a recent report from a coalition of advocacy groups including the World Development Movement. ''Citizens, their representatives and most governments (bar a few exceptions in Europe and the United States) have no say about who takes on this key job.''   The Montreal-based FIM, which organised the four-day NGO seminar here, is a global alliance of individuals and organisations sharing the goal of improving the influence of international civil society on the multilateral system.   Organisers described the seminar, titled 'Global Democracy: Civil Society Visions and Strategies', as a major world conference of civil society in the run up to the U.N. summit in September.   In a report to the seminar, FIM says ''we are living in the midst of a worldwide crisis in democracy. There is an increasing concentration of power amongst an elite. As a result, there is a growing gap between the rich and the poor. The economy is being militarised and legitimate public debate is either discouraged, personalised, sensationalised, or trivialized, leading to a dangerous level of political polarisation.''   A growing number of young people, discouraged with seemingly rampant corruption and a growing elitism of the political class, are opting out of the formal political process altogether, it adds.   FIM also criticises the mainstream media, once the vital fourth estate, which it says ''has largely been absorbed by the corporate community.'' As a result, freedom of the press has become subservient to the bottom line, and, by extension, accountable to shareholders, FIM says.   ''The response to current crises such as (war against) Iraq, (genocide in) Darfur, the spread of AIDS and the future of our environment, is a sad reflection of weak and misguided governance,'' the group says.   ''If these and other challenges continue to be exacerbated by the politics of greed and power, then new democratic measures must be invented, and by and for the people,'' it adds. Visit the related web page
	Can a City Be Progressive? by Peter Dreier The Nation USA   Posted June 15, 2005   "I'm an unabashed progressive," Los Angeles Mayor-elect Antonio Villaraigosa told an enthusiastic standing-room-only crowd at the Take Back America conference in Washington, DC, in June, "but I'm not a knee-jerk."   Villaraigosa's landslide victory (59 percent to 41 percent) on May 17 over incumbent Mayor James Hahn, a moderate Democrat, has raised hopes among progressives about moving the city in a new direction. But what does it mean to be a progressive at the municipal level when so many powerful forces--a city whose financial needs far exceed its revenue-raising capacity, a President and governor hostile to the plight of cities and the poor, a business and development community dominated by shortsighted executives resistant to taxes, living wages and regulation, and the ever-present threat of capital mobility--are arrayed against reform?   Villaraigosa understands that to be an effective mayor of America's second-largest city, he needs not only to help progressive forces expand and mobilize their base but also to strengthen his support among a significant segment of the city's suburban moderates and the enlightened wing of the business community. He needs to be a new kind of probusiness mayor--by redefining a "healthy business climate" to mean prosperity that is shared by working people, one that lifts the working poor into the middle class.   Villaraigosa's wide victory margin was spread across all key electoral demographics. He won majorities among all income groups, from 54 percent among those earning more than $100,000 to 67 percent among voters below $20,000. He won 84 percent of the Latino vote, 60 percent of all union members and more than half of black and Jewish voters. He also expanded his support among white voters in the suburban middle-class San Fernando Valley, garnering 48 percent of their votes compared with 34 percent in 2001, when he lost to Hahn.   The election outcome was not only a personal victory for the 52-year-old Villaraigosa but also a triumph for LA's progressive movement. Nationwide, labor union membership is shrinking, but in Los Angeles it is growing, particularly in sectors dominated by immigrants who work as janitors, security guards, garment workers, healthcare aides, maids and cooks in the tourism industry, and laundry workers. Unions have forged alliances with community groups, faith-based organizations and immigrants' rights activists. As a result, the number of progressive and labor-friendly politicians in City Hall (as well as in the state legislature) has increased. Last week, Martin Ludlow, one of Villaraigosa's key allies and former political director of the LA County Federation of Labor, left his City Council seat after two years to head the powerful labor group, left vacant by the untimely death of Miguel Contreras in May.   Labor's clout has translated into progressive municipal policy. The city adopted a strong living wage law in 1997. In 2002 it enacted a $100 million annual municipal housing trust fund (although Mayor Hahn failed to fully fund it), and last year, the city passed an anti-"big box" ordinance and an antisweatshop policy.   How can Villaraigosa, who takes office on July 1, possibly live up to such high expectations? He will be judged by his ability to take care of municipal housekeeping chores like fixing potholes and reducing traffic congestion. But he will also be judged on whether he can address the plight of the poor and the struggling lower-middle class--to promote what activists call a "growth with justice" agenda. The city's economy is booming, but the divide between the rich and everyone else is widening. LA has more millionaires than any other city, but it is also the nation's capital of the working poor. Almost 40 percent of Angelenos lack health insurance. Rents now average more than $1,200 per month, and the median sales price exceeds $350,000. Traffic congestion and inadequate public transit make LA the most polluted (and unhealthy) metro area in the country. Overcrowded and underfunded schools threaten the city's economic future. Despite a decline in crime, LA is still one of the nation's most dangerous cities.   Even before taking office, Villaraigosa, a former union organizer, demonstrated his political skills and pro-labor sympathies. Last week, Villaraigosa and Ludlow engaged in shuttle diplomacy to settle a threatened strike by hotel workers, resulting in important gains, including anew contract that expires at the same time next year as contracts in other major cities, giving the union key leverage with national hotel chains.   Tourism is a key part of LA's economy, which is dominated by industries that are not highly mobile, including the port, hospitals and universities, retail stores, commercial offices and hotels. This makes threats to pull up stakes less compelling and gives the city (and progressives) more negotiating power. But LA is also a major manufacturing center, now dominated by low-wage nonunion firms, including food processing and garments, which are perpetually threatening to flee.   To leverage the city's strong economy, Villaraigosa can promote a more enlightened view of business's responsibility to the broader community. He can encourage employers to support workers' rights to unionize. He can support ordinances that require developers to share in the city's strong housing market by setting aside, say, 15 percent of units for low-income and moderate-income families. He can champion a linked-deposit policy that uses the city's deposits to encourage banks to end redlining and predatory practices. Building on the living wage model, he can focus municipal subsidies on industries and firms that provide decent pay, benefits and upward mobility.   The new mayor will need to reach out to the suburbs within the region (LA County alone has eighty-eight separate municipalities) to forge a sense of common purpose--for example, to avoid bidding wars for jobs and investment--to improve the region's business climate. Villaraigosa has already announced that he intends to chair the regional Metropolitan Transit Authority and to use his influence on the board to improve bus and rail service, used primarily by the working poor.   Around the country, progressives have become more sophisticated at municipal policy as well as politics. This is a tribute to the alliances between unions, community organizations and faith-based groups that have emerged in the past decade. There is growing momentum at the local level for progressive urban policies, such as the rising number of cities (now more than 120) that have adopted living wage laws, and a handful (including Santa Fe and San Francisco) that have passed citywide minimum wage laws. The Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (www.laane.org), an organization initially created in the mid-1990s to fight for the living wage law, has become a powerful research, policy and organizing center, expanding its vision to promote "accountable development." LAANE's success has encouraged progressive activists and local labor councils in about fifteen other cities (including Atlanta, San Jose, Boston, New York, Denver, San Diego, Milwaukee and Miami) to create parallel organizations that--along with progressive policy think tanks like Good Jobs First (www.goodjobsfirst.org), ALICE (www.highroadnow.org) and PolicyLink (www.policylink.org)--now form the intellectual foundation for a "high road" economic strategy at the municipal, regional and state levels.   Five years ago, grassroots activists, policy practitioners and academic allies created the Progressive Los Angeles Network (PLAN) (www.progressivela.org), which developed a twenty-one-point policy agenda before the 2001 municipal elections, a process that helped guide the progressive bloc on the City Council and contributed to Villaraigosa's mayoral campaigns. (The agenda is included in my new co-authored book, The Next Los Angeles: The Struggle for a Livable City.)   Progressive municipal reform--to improve housing conditions, unionize low-wage workers in the service and light manufacturing sectors, resist bank redlining and predatory lending, improve public schools, fight against environmental hazards, expand public transit--can win real improvements in people's lives. But as President Bush has demonstrated, one stroke of the pen in Washington--such as deep cuts in Section 8 housing subsidies--can wipe out years of policy success at the local level.   Villaraigosa knows there are many problems that cannot be solved at the local level alone. Indeed, in some ways, this is a terrible time to be mayor of a major American city. As mayor of the nation's second-largest city, Villaraigosa will have a forum to challenge the misguided priorities of the Bush Administration and the GOP-controlled Congress, who have turned their backs on cities and inner-ring suburbs. Federal funds for affordable housing, schools, public transit, public safety and healthcare are woefully inadequate. City officials, reeling from the loss of federal and state aid, had no choice but to cut essential services, including public safety, libraries, road repair and public schools. Bush's priorities--cutting taxes for the rich, weakening regulations on business that protect consumers, workers and the environment, and reducing spending for domestic social programs--come at the expense of cities and inner-ring suburbs. Bush has imposed many new mandates on cities--such as increased homeland security and No Child Left Behind requirements for schools--without providing the funds necessary for the cities to comply. Let's call it fend-for-yourself federalism.   The result is that most big-city mayors are trapped in a fiscal straitjacket, and Congress, now dominated by suburban districts because of both changing demographics and gerrymandering, often overlooks this situation. We cannot significantly solve our nation's urban problems without federal reforms. As a result, progressives have increasingly recognized that an effective urban progressive movement must start in cities and move outward to working-class suburbs and some liberal middle-class suburbs, to create the political momentum for a renewed federal commitment to urban America.   To level the playing field for union organizing campaigns, we need to reform the nation's unfair labor laws. To improve conditions for the growing army of the working poor, we need to raise the federal minimum wage and expand participation in the Earned Income Tax Credit. To house our families and our workforce, we need to expand federal subsidies. To address the nation's healthcare crisis, we need some form of universal national health insurance. To improve our public schools, especially those that serve the nation's poorest children, we need to increase federal funding for smaller classrooms, adequate teacher training and sufficient books and equipment. To redirect private investment into cities and older suburbs, we need to provide sufficient funds to clean up toxic urban brownfields. To address the problems of growing traffic congestion, we need federal funds to improve public transit of all kinds as well as federal laws to limit tax breaks and other incentives that promote suburban sprawl and "leapfrog" development on the fringes of metropolitan areas.   In the early 1900s, New York City was a caldron of seething problems--poverty, slums, child labor, epidemics, sweatshops and ethnic conflict. Out of that turmoil, activists created a "progressive" movement, forging a coalition of immigrants, unionists, muckraking journalists, settlement house workers, middle-class suffragists and upper-class philanthropists. Tenement and public health reformers worked alongside radical socialists. While they spoke many languages, the movement found its voice through organizers, clergy and sympathetic politicians. Their victories provided the intellectual and policy foundations of the New Deal three decades later.   The growing efforts of today's municipal progressive movements and activist officials like Antonio Villaraigosa are critical. If they can demonstrate that cities can be well managed as well as laboratories of progressive policy reform, they will lay the political groundwork for the next New Deal.
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