Others from Wednesday Afternoon's Session

Lester Salamon, the Director of the Centre for Civil Society Studies at the Johns Hopkins Institute for Policy Studies talked a lot about the economic impact NGOs have on the GDPs of their countries. Some mind-boggling figures on Civil Society’s impact include:

They employ 48.4 million workers in 40 countries

They constitute 5% of the work force in the US and 8% of the workforce in Canada (more than the construction industry, more than the extractive industries)

In 2004 the represented $1.9 Trillion in expenditures.

Unfortunately, this economic impact often goes unnoticed. Mr. Salamon reminds us that "what isn't counted doesn't count" and urges us to work to make it count in accounting schemes and media portraits of the NGO sector.


One of the craziest jobs I've ever heard of was represented on the panel by Mal Nuhu Ribadu who is the executive chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in Nigeria. Mr. Ribadu contended that good governace was largely dependent on the NGO community, especially in countries which do not have the standard of government that most modern democracies are used to. He stressed that struggling countries should not look to outsiders to fix their woes but rather they must, it is imperitve, that they look within and build their capacity to govern. Some astounding facts: before Mr. Ribadu became the executive secretary in 2003, there were NO, zilch, zero, corruption convictions in Nigeria, since 2003 there have been 80 such convictions.

Grace Nshemeire and William Foote

I believe Grace served as the "youth" on the panel and unfortunately her presentation did not serve as a tour de force for the youth voice around the world. Grace spent most of her time on the panel attempting to explain that farmers sell their goods at markets and that this is how they make their money... It has been a while since my econ 101 class but one thing I do remember is that in our modern economy you do indeed have to "sell" a "good or service" to someone in order to earn money as a laborer.

Grace was, despite her presentation, right on par when it came understanding the jist of the problem of development from my perspective. Small to medium scale agricultural operations whose value adding mechanisms exist within self contained community supported, and perhaps community owned, cooperatives are key to keeping money in the community. As it is, outsiders with capital come into a community and exploit their labor and land, after which they process the food and add value to these raw resources and sell them into wealthy global markets. If the communities were to add value themselves it would obviously eliminate the middle man and allow them to keep a bigger chunk of their labor. How can this happen? William Foote nailed it in the Thursday afternoon session.

Mr. Foote spoke of his company Ecologic Finance which provides SMEs (small to medium enterprises) with mid-range capital. We're not talking about a few hundred bucks to start a small baking operation in a rural village (though that can have a huge impact also), but rather dropping 25k to 500k buckaroos for a collective in West Africa to purchase a grain processing plant or the like. Fantastic work! This leveraging of capital is so necessary and finally it seems that there is a market for development! Foote says people are all of a sudden interested in paying more for socially conscious products and because of this there are new systems for trader/broker/importers who interact directly with suppliers and are able to guarantee a profit margin and because of THIS rural SMEs are able to export highly labor intensive crops and handicrafts at a profit! It works. Mr. Foote has gathered 15mill from foundations and corporations involved in socially responsible investing (think Starbucks, green mountain coffee, skoal foundation etc.) and distributed it in the form of 250 loans in 19 countries to 100 SMEs impacting 100k people and all at a 99% repayment rate.

Seriously, the transformative power of operations like these can not be overestimated. Leveraging capital to support development is clutch but, it seems only in the hands of good people... I have lots of difficulty trusting the World Bank to do such socially savvy projects.

Hans Blix!!

No doubt, the man with the biggest "Can't say I didn't tell ya so" in recent history.

Mr. Blix had a presence on the dias that was calming and professorial as he logically and with humor described the way forward on the subject of non-proliferation. Aside from siting the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission's newest report with 60 action items, he focused on two points that he felt could not be ignored.

1) The whole truth must be laid on the table. He reminded the audience that NGOs play a large role in looking for, exposing and ensuring media coverage of the truth, especially when it comes to WMDs. He said that while there could be peace through truth, what we have now is war through untruth due to "fake-based" rather than the "faith-based" intellegence supposibly relied upon by those countries that initially invaded Iraq.

2) Arms control and disarmament has stagnated and must return to the front-burner. NGOs can play a big role in this by continuing to campaign against indescriminent weapons like cluster-bombs, small calliber arms, landmines etc. and nuclear weapons. To drive the point home he delivered the stats that there are 8 or 9 nations with nuclear capabilities and stockpiles totaling 27,000.

He continued with a discussion of the role the US weapon-sheild program has had in upping the ante in this global poker game and urged the US to leave outerspace peaceful by abandoning any starwars program that maybe in the works. You can't preach arms control while stepping up production.

Meanwhile, the US has left the Comprehensive Nuclear Testban Treaty in the dust... Long live multilateralism.

Moving Development Forward: Accountablility, Transparency and Equitable Trade Policies

The speeches and presentations, Which you can find here., were fantastic.

Afternoon Panel Session:
3 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.
Conference Room 4

Moving Development Forward:
Accountability, Transparency, Equitable Trade Policies

Governments, corporations, NGO’s and other civil society actors are forming global partnerships for development. In order for these partnerships to be effective – as called for by the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) #8 – all stakeholders must exercise commitment to accountability, transparency and good governance. For development to go forward on a truly global level, least developed, landlocked and small island developing countries’ special needs must be addressed. These include tariff- and quota-free access for their exports, enhanced debt relief for heavily indebted poor countries, cancellation of official bilateral debt, and more generous official development assistance for countries committed to poverty reduction.

This panel will provide examples of how accountability, transparency, good governance and equitable trade policies are helping to raise resources for and successfully complete projects. Panelists will examine existing debt and trade policies that have a negative impact on the ability of less developed nations to develop and to protect jobs, thereby alleviating poverty and raising the standard of living on an ongoing basis.

Moderator:

Katherine Marshall, Senior Advisor, Development Dialogue on Values and Ethics, World Bank
Speakers:

Hans Blix, Chairman, Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission
Grace Nshemeire, Low Unit Pack Champion, Unilever
Mal Nuhu Ribadu, Executive Chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Government of Nigeria
Lester Salamon, Director of the Centre for Civil Society Studies at the John Hopkins Institute for Policy Studies
Christopher Sinckler, Executive Coordinator, Caribbean Policy Development Centre

Michaela Walsh, Chair of the 59th DPI/NGO Conference

SustainUSers - we need to seek this woman out! She was fantastic! Her support of youth and youth based initiatives was clear from the word go. She said involving the youth voice was her #1 priority and what a job she has done with the conference so far. There is a youth rep on each of the panels and round tables (although the rep in Wednesday's afternoon session fell WAY short of properly representing our age group), youth involved in the planning of the conference and in every way she possibly could. At the end of her talk she called on all the participants under the age of 30 to stand asking the other participants to seek out at least one of these individuals to share ideas. Bravo! It is very clear that Ms. Walsh understands the importance, and paucity of intergenerational mixing at these sort of events. It is easy for those with tons of experience to shrug off the tenderfeet of the bunch, but passing along the institutional knowledge associated with years of service in the UN system is priceless not only for the newbies but for the continuity and efficacy of civil society at the UN.

Interesting thoughts from her presentation:

She emphasised that this was not a conference for political statements or academic theories. She stated in plain english that the younger generation should know that she (and I'd assume the rest of civil society) encourages them to take hold of their future.

Katsutoshi Kaneda, Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs, Japan

Its amazing how easily distinguishable the government reps are in comparison to the NGO or academics. Platitudes. That's nearly all you get, platitudes and diplomat-speak. While this sort of rhetoric may make it easier to get through a negotiation session at the CSD, it does not help identify solutions to problems of partnerships or problems of global consequence. Perhaps, I am being unfair...

Mr. Kaneda delivered a talk on human security and sought to convey the need to "redefine human security from a citizen's perspective." He mentioned the Trustfund for Human Security which is either operated by the Japanese government or is a UN project that was championed by the Japanese government and has supported over 150 security improving projects around the world. More research should be done on just what kind of projects can be considered security improving.

His overall tone was good. He feels, as do I, that an empowered community is a safer community. I guess his tool to forge an empowered community is this trustfund. Which should probably be commended.

Evo Morales, President of Bolivia

Unfortunately, he was not able to give his presentation because of an unforeseen trip to Cuba? Really? Makes you wonder how old Fidel is faring these days.

President Morales', who comes from an indigenous background, presentation was given by a surrogate, who may have been the VP. Honestly it wasn't very clear. What was clear was the powerful case made for the blazing of a new trail to development. Over and over again the speaker denounced the "linear, exploitive, extortionist, subordinating and singular" path to what is commonly accepted as western development. He makes the very salient point that the natural world cannot support this sort of development for the whole world so we must be creative in our thinking about new ways to eliminate the scourge of extreme poverty.

He calls for a "post-modern" approach to development. What that actually is never became clear but, boy, it sure sounds great. Of course we need to rethink the predominant approach to development but the president's speech falls too far short of a real answer. It sounded too much like political rhetoric to make any sort of difference.

What would a post-modern development paradigm look like? I'm sure there is a ton of literature out there that discusses this point but I don't think that I've come across it. I think, and I'll probably bring it up again and again over the next few days, it begins with creating local food economies. I think this would begin to disarm the "unfair mechanisms of new colonialism" that Morales wanted to bring to light.

Jan Eliasson (Sweeden) President of the General Assembly

Mr. Elliasson's comments this morning set the tone of these three days of meetings with his opening speech on the continuing value of multilateralism. At a time when the worlds hegemonic powers seem to be retreating from their treaty obliged duties to facilitate an air of cooperation and cohabitation on non-proliferation, environmental sustainability and poverty eradication they are retreating from their duties.

His great thoughts include "without passion nothing happens in life, without compassion nothing good happens in life." He calls on the NGO community to harness the passion that is intrinsic within its role in the United Nations and in national governments to make great inroads and establish partnerships with national delegations.

My personal experience with diplomats from LDCs is that the NGOs, especially ones from countries with means, should actively seek out LDC delegations and create relationships that will over time lead to trust and concrete collaboration. The diplomats from many LDCs lack the resources they need to participate, they lack information, they lack, in some ways, global perspective because they have not had the capacity to experience many of the alternatives that those who are more priviledged are able to leverage in the international decision-making stage.

Mr. Elliasson quoted his favorite author in saying that there were three passions that have ruled his life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and the unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.

Well done.

What in the world is going on at University of Cincinnati?

Early this year we became aware of an opportunity to tie into the annual UN NGO Conference taking place in New York City September 6 through 8, 2006. A committee was put together to discuss what potential a collaborative effort between the UN Department of Public Information, the University of Cincinnati's School of Planning, and a fledgling SustainUS geocluster in Southwest Ohio could have. The rigors of graduate curriculum caused the initial effort to fall short of implementing any sort of program.

Just three weeks prior to the opening session a core group calling themselves the Ad Hoc Committee on International Affairs in the School of Planning came together and were able to get the logistics together for a web-based interactive experience linking this NGO/Academic community in Cincinnati, Ohio to the proceedings of the 2500 NGOs gathered in New York. The following posts are summaries, reactions, provocations, thoughts and goals stimulated by the 59th UN NGO Conference. They are for the most part being written on site by attendees in an attempt to harness the proactive energy and ideas of the event before it dissipates as time brings other priorities into our lives.

Thanks for checking in and checking out our interpretation of this important gathering!

~The Ad Hoc Committee on International Affairs.
G.M, J.K., J.D.