By Gustavo Capdevila / IPS
GENEVA, Jun 30 (IPS) - A week of negotiations by the special session of the United Nations general assembly on the question of fighting poverty led to a few significant results, like the idea of studying new formulas for financing development or for freezing the foreign debt at current levels.
The outcome of this week's discussions in Geneva, which failed to satisfy most non-governmental organisations (NGOs), included a decision to launch new anti-poverty and job creation campaigns worldwide.
Nitin Desai, UN Under Secretary General for Economic and Social Devleopment, praised the resolutions focusing on specific targets against poverty.
From Monday through Friday, the special session of the general assembly -- Copenhagen Plus Five -- examined measures aimed at guaranteeing compliance with the commitments assumed by the international community at the 1995 World Summit for Social Development in Denmark, with the aim of putting an end to poverty.
One of the resolutions adopted in Geneva sets a 2015 deadline for significantly reducing the proportion of people living in extreme poverty.
Desai said that target was one of the main achievements chalked up by the gathering.
He added that the tenor of the resolutions approved in Geneva this week showed that the 1995 conference in Copenhagen failed to incorporate the question of poverty into global development programmes.
Other commitments assumed this week in Geneva are aimed at increasing aid to the developing world in order to strengthen its bargaining position in international fora on trade and the economy.
The idea is to ensure effective participation by countries of the developing South in international economic deliberations, including financial institutions, which should be governed by principles of transparency that could modify current voting systems, criticised as favouring rich nations.
Another resolution encourages the study of innovative measures for financing development. The initial draft of the resolution, submitted by Canada and the coalition of countries of the South known as the Group of 77 (G-77), recommended that taxes on global capital flows, which would go towards development aid, be studied.
But one NGO representative complained of the "weakening and erosion" of some commitments assumed five years ago, which were conceived of with the idea of redistributing wealth.
Roberto Bissio, head of Social Watch -- a network of NGOs that monitors compliance with the commitments assumed in Copenhagen -- also bashed the final declaration.
But he praised the idea discussed by the general assembly of agreeing on a standstill or "status quo" of the foreign debt.
With a resolution of that kind, the UN general assembly would be recognising the legitimacy of declaring, under certain conditions, a moratorium on the foreign debt, he added.
The general assembly also decided to eliminate a clause recognising UN secretary-general Kofi Annan's "global compact," which would entail non-binding social standards for corporations and voluntary compliance with UN provisions.
Participants decided to eliminate the clause after the G-77 complained that its members had not been given enough time to study the "global compact."
NGO sources said the G-77 decision came in response to Annan's participation in a controversial poverty reduction report, "A Better World for All".
The report presented Monday was drawn up by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, multilateral lending institutions controlled by industrialised countries, as well as the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), known as the "rich nations' club." (END/IPS/tra-so/pc/ff/sw/00):
