2005/05/11
The 2004 Social Watch report will be launched in Cairo
Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND)
The Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND) organised a press conference for the launching of the Arabic edition of the Social Watch 2004 Annual Report at the Flamenco Hotel in Cairo, the 11 of May 2005. Representatives of various Arab Civil Society Organizations, from 14 Arab countries: Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, Jordan, Yemen, Bahrain, Sudan, Morocco, Tunis, Algeria, Syria, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Egypt will attend the press conference.
See below the press release that ANND will distribute to the media during the
conference.
Press Release
The Arab NGO
Network for Development launches from Cairo the annual Social Watch Report
titled “Fear
and Want Obstacles to Human Security”.
The Arab NGO
Network for Development (ANND) organized a press conference for the launching of
the
Social Watch 2004 Annual Report, titled “Fear and Want
Obstacles to Human Security”, at the Flamenco Hotel in Cairo, on
the 11th of May 2005.
In attendance were representatives of various Arab Civil Society Organizations,
from 14 Arab countries: Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, Jordan, Yemen, Bahrain, Sudan,
Morocco, Tunis, Algeria, Syria, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
The Social Watch
is a coalition founded in 1995 in order to remind the world leaders of the
commitments they made at Social Development Summit on Poverty Elevation and the
Fourth Conference on Women for Gender Equity. Social Watch is a coalition of
citizens from more than 50 states from around the world that works on issuing an
annual report on the progress in the implementation of the 10 commitments made
at the summit. The ANND, as a member of the coalition and its coordinator
in the Arab World, issues annually this report in its Arabic version.
The 2003 annual
report talked about the privatization of services and was titled “the Poor and
the Market”, as for the 2004 report, which talks about Human Security, the
titling is “Fear and Want Obstacles to Human Security”. The Social
Watch aimed through this Human Security report, which contained national reports
from more than 40 countries in addition to regional and thematic reports, to
highlight the main obstacles and challenges facing the implementation of Human
Security.
The report tackled
the concept of human security from different perspectives, for it includes: the
liberation from fear and peoples fears of war, terrorism, civil conflicts and
local violence; the liberation from fear of unemployment, sickness, poverty,
marginalization and discrimination; and the fear from the self-same institutions
that gives its self the task of maintaining security, the state, and for the
international institutions that claim its commitment to the implementation of
the Millennium Development Goals but that formulate policies in contradiction
with that claim. Human Security is a concept in constant evolution but
nevertheless means the protection of vital liberties, the protection of people
from dangers and the building of their capacities and ambitions. This concept
requires the creation of political, economic, environmental, military and
cultural systems that gives people the capacity to survive, the maintaining of
their dignity and the guarantee of their livelihood. Human Security rests on
common efforts that respect diversity and cooperation. To guarantee Human
Security it is necessary to specify both natural dangers and non-nature based
dangers, since there is a direct link between human security and human
development, which bases itself on human rights and good governance especially
when concerning education and health care.
The report
contained some figures for a comparison between the military spending and aid
spending: the former reached in 1999 780 billion $, in 2001 840 Billion $ and
the war in Iraq cost more than 200 billion $ while the reconstruction reached 30
Billion $ only. In addition the report reminds us that Europe spends 433 Billion
$ in subsidies of its agriculture to the benefit of only 5% of its inhabitants
and to the detriment of 90% of the Inhabitants of the South, while the USA
subsidies 25 000 of its cotton farmers with 4 billion $ that causes the severe
reduction of cotton prices in international markets.
The subsidization
of one European cow costs 2,50 $ per day and in Japan 7,50 $ while 75% of the
Sub-Saharan African population live with less than one dollar a day; the figures
differ in the Arab world- (reaches 2,4% according to the World Bank and 7,4%
according to the MDGs report).
The offered aid in
1999 by the OECD was evaluated at 56 Billion $ and was lowered to 53 Billion $
in 2000, while the USA only contributes 0, 16 % of its GNP, which amounts to 10
billion $ (the EU contributes 25 Billion $).
Ziad Abdel Samad,
the executive director of ANND, presented the executive summary of the Social
Watch report. The launch also included the presentation of the Egyptian national
report, titled “the time for democracy”, by Amir Salem, from the National
Association for Human Rights and Development in Egypt; and the presentation of
the Palestinian National report, titled “Israel’s Wall; Less Security for all”,
by Nadia Engles from the Bisan Resource Center in Palestine.
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