** Social Watch News **
April 2004
www.socialwatch.org

Social Watch: Breaking promises is not the path towards world security

"Frustrating the hopes of peoples and nations all around the globe will
certainly not help make the world a more secure place for our children"
concludes the Social Watch report 2004, summarizing the findings of citizen
coalitions in 50 countries, poor and rich, about what they see as main
obstacles to human security.

The Social Watch report keeps track every year about progress and
regression in the path towards eradicating poverty and achieving gender
equity, a promise made by governments at the UN in 1995 and reaffirmed in
the year 2000 in the largest gathering ever held of world leaders.

Yet, according to Social Watch, the necessary increase in aid has been too
little and too slow, the international trade system is still biased against the
poor farmers that constitute a majority of the people living in poverty and
the world finances have not been reformed in a way that might help poor
countries overcome chronic indebtedness that sucks away the their scarce
resources. In contrast, military expenditures are on the rise everywhere.

Contributors to the Social Watch report 2004 include organizations from
places as diverse as Iraq and Switzerland, from the richest and the poorest
countries in the world. Armed conflict and high crime rates are perceived as
major threats by citizens in many of them, but poverty and declining
coverage of social services are feared the most by citizens in many others.
Corruption, lack of responsiveness by governments to the concerns of their
subjects, gender or ethnic discrimination. the list goes on and the culprits
identified include local authorities, international institutions and large
corporations.

Social Watch was created around the idea that unless citizens monitor the
commitments made by governments they will not be met. Even international
institutions whose declared task is to fight poverty, like the World Bank, in
practice grade countries against their allegiance to corporate-friendly policies
and not according to their success in helping people make a decent living.

The Social Watch report will be officially launched at the United Nations in
New York next April 26.

It is available on the Internet at:
http://www.socialwatch.org/