Dear readers of the JCTR Bulletin,

We are exhausted with our role as the scribes situation of the poor. Every meeting is just another forum for the recital of the litany of our problems and for the sharing of more negative statistics and insights about suffering.  This business of only speaking of human suffering through statistics must come to an end!  In how many different ways can we describe the reality of poverty!  When are we going to see change?  Real change for that matter!   Presently, we have a broad understanding of the many causes and faces of poverty.  It is time to stop talking.  It is time to take action!

The above sentiments capture the mood of many African civil society members who represented their organizations and countries at the Africa Regional Social Watch meeting held from 22 to 24 September 2004 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.  The meeting was held to discuss, among other topics, security and development in Africa, gender and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

As a little background, Social Watch is a monitoring network that was formed by civil society organizations in 1995 following two monumental conferences, the World Summit for Social Development held in Copenhagen, Denmark and the Beijing Conference (World Conference on Women).  Its major areas of concern include social development and gender discrimination.  The thrust of Social Watch is to monitor the implementation of the agreements made at these two meetings.

These commitments agreed upon in Copenhagen include a promise to promote full respect for human dignity, to achieve equality and equity between women and men and to enhance the participation and leadership of  women in political, civil, economic, social and cultural life and in development; to create an economic, political, social, cultural and legal environment that will enable people to achieve social development; to eradicate poverty in the world, through decisive national actions and international cooperation, as an ethical, social, political and economic imperative of humankind, etc.

As I reflect back upon the excitement of this monumental meeting, I cannot help but recall the powerful words spoken by Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, Prime Minister of Denmark and President of the World Summit for Social Development, in his closing remarks of the 1995 summit:

The Declaration we have just adopted states that the General Assembly should hold a special session in the year 2000 to appraise how far we will have gone by then in implementing the results of this meeting.  I would like, when we meet five years hence, to look back to this summit of hope, as many have called it, as a summit of fulfilled expectations.

Almost ten years hence, I find myself feeling extremely unfulfilled and even betrayed.  What happened to the international commitment to eradicate poverty, promote gender equity, universalize human dignity?  For Zambia, Malawi and many Southern African countries, the hopes of the Copenhagen meeting of 1995 failed to translate into meaningful change in the lives of most citizens!  Unemployment has soared, the problem of HIV/AIDS has heightened, the education and health sectors are suffering from lack of resources, households continue to face a myriad of difficulties, the list stretches on and on.  And again I find myself sharing more words about the situation of the poor!

As we approach the year 2005, we look back over ten years of failure to meet the development goals agreed upon at the 1995 World Summit for Social Development.  Yet, at the same time, we peer ten years into the future towards the latest internationally agreed upon deadline for achieving a set of development goals, the MDGs.  And after only a few years of poorly implemented poverty reduction programmes, there is in some cases talk about pushing back the MDG milestone or choosing more realistic development targets to reach by 2015.  Have we again been betrayed by empty promises of commitment from the world community?  It is time for all “developing” countries to band together and declare, “Enough is Enough!”  It is time to hold all countries accountable to the agreed-upon goals for development, the MDGs!

The struggle against poverty must be taken to such levels as for example, the fight against colonialism in Africa and other parts of the world and civil rights in the USA.  Martin Luther King, Jr., was truthful in his observation that when attempts to rid society of a moral evil through talk have been exhausted, there arises a moral case for the use of non-violent civic disobedience or action to demonstrate the need for reform.  Poverty is the moral evil of the present day.  Decades of international discourse about poverty eradication have failed to achieve any real changes on the ground.  With the 2005 Copenhagen deadline next year and the 2015 MDG deadline visible on the horizon, maybe it is time for more radical action to ensure that another internationally recognized goal does not slip by.  The poor cannot wait and should not wait for improvement of their lives.

Muweme Muweme
Editor