Social Summit Follow-up Process Aims for Accelerated Progress Towards Meeting Copenhagen Goals
Addis Ababa, 10 March 1999 (ECA) -- At the World Summit on Social Development in
Copenhagen in March 1995, African countries joined the rest of the world in proclaiming
that they would afford social development the highest priority among their national
policies and programmes.
They endorsed a far-reaching, time-bound compact for reducing and ultimately eradicating
poverty in their countries. They pledged to raise life
expectancy, reduce infant and maternal mortality, eliminate malnutrition among
under-fives, provide universal access to healthcare and basic
education, and reduce adult and especially female illiteracy.
Four years on, and as the challenges of a new millenium loom large, the focus is now on
the extent to which the goals laid out in the Copenhagen Declaration and Programme of
Action for Social Development have been achieved.
Working with UN and other partners, the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and United
Nations Development Programme (UNDP) are involved in a regional effort to take stock of
progress since Copenhagen, as well as to crystallize efforts towards meeting the
established targets.
As part of this stock-taking, and towards advancing the commonly-agreed social development
goals, ECA and UNDP are organizing two subregional follow-up conferences, to take place as
follows :
· For Eastern and Southern Africa: Nairobi, Kenya 15-17 March 1999
· For North Africa: Marrakech, Morocco 23-25 March 1999
The backdrop to the follow-up process is that all but three of 53 African countries
monitored by ECA registered positive economic growth in 1997, as compared to 1995, the
year of the Social Summit, when 6 countries had negative growth rates, and 1994, when 12
countries did not grow at all. Also in 1997, 31 out of the 53 countries grew at rates
faster than their populations, leading to increased per capita incomes. Thirteen of these
31 countries achieved GDP growth of at least 5 per cent, which is considered the required
threshold for sustained poverty reduction in Africa.
Yet studies show that poverty -- manifested and exacerbated by unemployment, social
disintegration, conflict, environmental degradation, marginalization and isolation -- is
on the increase. The gap between rich and poor continues to grow, with Africa accounting
for a large percentage of the more than one billion people in the world living in abject
poverty.
"Poverty, lack of productive employment and social disintegration are an offence to
human dignity", states the Aide-memoire to the subregional follow-up conferences.
"Our challenge", it adds, "is to establish a people-centred framework for
social to guide us now and in the future, to build a culture of co-operation and
partnership, and to respond to the immediate needs of those who are most affected by human
distress".
The subregional conferences will bring together
policy makers, civil society leaders and representatives from bilateral, multilateral and
inter-governmental development partners, to take stock of what progress African countries
have made in delivering on their agreements in Copenhagen.
Progress will be examined in the context of four clusters: Poverty Reduction; Employment
Creation; Achieving the Objectives of the Social
Sectors; and Governance.
It should be recalled that the Copenhagen Summit agreed to:
· eradicate absolute poverty by a target date to be set by each country and support full
employment as a basic goal ;
· promote social integration based on the enhancement and protection of all human rights
and achieve equality between women and men ;
· strengthen co-operation for social development through the United Nations to accelerate
the development of Africa and the least develped countries ; and
· create "an economic, political, social culture and legal environment that will
enable people to achieve social development" to increase resources allocated to
social development to attain universal and equitable access to education and primary
health care, and ensure that structural adjustment programmes include social development
goals.
Monitoring indicators identified by the UN, which emanate from the decade of world
development conferences, include:
· Life expectancy at birth in all countries of not less than 60 years by 2000. Life
expectancy greater than 70 years by 2005, and greater than 75
years by 2015.
· A one-third reduction in under-fives mortality from the 1990 level, or to 70 per 1,000
live births, whichever is less, by 2000; and by another half by 2015.
· A 50 % reduction in maternal mortality from the 1990 level by 2000, and by another half
by 2015.
· A 50 % reduction in severe and moderate malnutrition among children under five from the
1990 level, addressing especially the gender gap in nutrition.
· Universal access to high-quality and affordable primary health care by 2000, and the
removal of all programme-related barriers to use of family
planning by 2005. Eradication of polio, guinea worm disease, iodine deficiency disorders
and vitamin A deficiency.
· Universal access to basic education and the completion of primary education by at least
80% of primary school-age children by 2000. Full
universal primary education by 2015.
· Reduction of adult illiteracy by at least half from the 1990 level by 2000. Closure of
the gender gap in primary and secondary school education by 2005. Reduction of female
illiteracy by at least half from its 1990 level by 2020.
END)
For English and French language documents relating to the subregional conferences, please
visit our Website at : http://www.un.org/depts/eca
For further information, please contact:
Peter K.A. da Costa
Senior Communication Adviser
Office of the Executive Secretary
Economic Commission for Africa
United Nations
P.O. Box 3001 (official) or 3005 (private)
Addis Ababa
Ethiopia