2007/01/21

Social Watch at the World Social Forum. Nairobi, Kenya

Social Watch

Our network had a major presence at the WSF in Nairobi, Kenya, with a series of workshops and activities addressing the different areas that our work has emphasized in the past years. In addition to organizing a number of capacity-building workshops (the Use of Social Indicators, Poverty and ESC Rights, Budget Monitoring), round tables and Watchers coordinating meetings during the Forum itself, we subsequently held another meeting of our Coordinating Committee to decide upon the guidelines for our work in the future.

Workshop “The use of Indicators in assessing social development: the Social Watch experience”

Social indicators: What are they and what are they for? Technical criteria for construction of indicators. Types of indicators. Good and bad use of indicators. Theory and indicator systems. Summary of the information in the indices. The Social Watch experience: Monitoring of international commitments. Social development dimensions. SW indicator system. Basic Capabilities Index. Gender Equity Index.

Coordinated by Mariana Cabrera/ SW Research Team (marianac@item.org.uy)

Workshop on alternative budget and budget monitoring

Several Social Watch national coalitions shared their experiences on budget monitoring and alternative budgets with other movements. This showed that the same thing can be done in different ways and in different regions picking up what things might better fit their organizations, networks and countries.

Coordinated by Tommaso Rondinella/Social Watch Italy (rondinella@sbilanciamoci.org)

Human Rights and Poverty: the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights perspective

This workshop was aimed at exploring in a participatory way poverty as a complex, multi-dimensional phenomenon and its relationship with the economic social and cultural rights. A debate was held on poverty from the human rights perspective and their justiciability beyond the political will of the governments. One of the goals of this workshop was to analyse the relevance of the ESC Rights approach in the implementation of public policies and its linkage with social development.

Coordinated by Graciela Dede/ SW Research Team (gdede@item.org.uy).

UN Reform and advocacy strategies of the international networks and NGOs

Coorganized with ICAE, REPEM and the Tax Justice Network (tbc by Bruno Gutner/Social Watch Switzerland). If you have contacted other nets interested please let us have their feedback.

Panel: “How to redesign the international financial architecture”

This panel discussed several related issues like: aid, trade, debt, capital flight, tax evasion, fraudulent intra-firm trading and the governance of the international financial institutions. These topics have yet to filter down from the debate of experts to the awareness of the citizens in the streets. But they all form part of a package, an architecture, that badly needs to be redesigned. The Social Watch 2006 report looks at the means for putting development policies into action and it is focused on the international financial architecture.

Coordinated by Cecilia Alemany/ SW Networking Team (calemany@socialwatch.org)

The African Social Watch coalitions will meet to strategize together.

Watchers meeting

Taking advantage of the presence of several Watchers in the Forum, we held a meeting to assess the work done since our last assembly and provided inputs for the discussions in the agenda of the CC meeting.