2004/02/19

Social Watch El Salvador launches campaign

Edmee Georgina Velásquez
Diario Co Latino

In the struggle to reduce high indicators that prevent social development, Social Watch El Salvador launched the “No excuses 2015” campaign advocating the Millennium Development Goals undertaken by the Salvadoran government in the United Nations in 2000.

To halve hunger and extreme poverty indicators, illiteracy, preventable diseases, infant and maternal mortality, discrimination against women and environmental degradation are just a few of the goals sought which, through the campaign, the population shall get to know in order to carry out a joint task with the central government. Such ills must be approached head-on to mark the way to progress.

Although these commitments were taken on by the El Salvador government with the United Nations, three years after their ratification, no concrete measures have been taken to inform the population of these goals, nor to establish -jointly with diverse sectors of society- a follow-up mechanism enabling the verification of their enforcement within the deadlines agreed.

This is why several institutions belonging to Social Watch in the country request the government to deepen its involvement in raising awareness about these goals, and to make a real and public commitment that includes the Legislative Assembly and municipalities. Such participation is not reflected in the national budget, which should be the first place reflecting such aid.

According to Mario Paniagua, Social Watch coordinator, the campaign amounts to a “social awareness from the central and local governments toward international organizations and citizens in general” which entails surveilling, monitoring and overseeing to keep supervising progress in 5-year periods until 2015.

The task to be carried out by the population is the exercise of every citizen’s right to oversee public power throughout active participation and permanent surveillance of international commitments.

Currently, out of six billion people in the world, 1,3 billion live in extreme poverty.
These are the indicators that this network, established in 1995, wants to make known in 70 countries throughout the world, so that each country may use them within their own context.

See full news in Spanish:

http://www.diariocolatino.com/nacionales/detalles.asp?NewsID=3602

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