DECLARATION to the Heads of States and Governments of the G8/G20 Summit
Outside the G8/G20 Summit, we, civil society and social movements from the North and the South, meeting at the 2nd Development Forum in Paris on October 24th and 25th 2011, have explored, hand in hand, alternative development strategies and discussed urgent and interdependent issues such as unemployment and universal social protection, debt and innovative financing for development, climate change and food and water security.
It has been three years since the world was plunged into a financial and economic crisis in 2008. As the heads of States and Governments of the G8/G20 meet in November, the harmful effects of this crisis continue to cause suffering and insecurity worldwide: massive job losses and increased vulnerability, as well as more hunger and conflict. Countries of the South, where the World Bank and the IMF have forced their neoliberal structural adjustment programs for more than a generation continue to suffer from the privatization and deregulation of basic services essential to life, such as health care, water, electricity and education. Countries are forced to produce for export rather than for domestic consumption. European countries, with their more stable and complete social protection systems, are now starting to feel what the rest of the world has been enduring for years. Their governments have slowly shifted to neoliberal policies and the current austerity programs aim at dismantling the welfare states, labor rights and public services - the results of hard-fought struggles of past centuries.
The persistence of underdevelopment and the recurrent crises (food, health, social, environmental, financial, economical and political) that affect more and more severely humanity, are evidence of the ineffectiveness of economic development policies in recent decades. Both the North and the South need alternative development strategies to overcome the financial and economic crisis and give people the protection they are entitled to.
The world is demanding social justice and respect for all human rights as the major backbone for political democracy. This is what the popular uprisings from Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen to London, Greece, Spain, France, Chile and the USA have shown. Urgent measures are needed to stop the growing inequalities, the concentration of wealth and power for a few while the large majorities live in poverty. Existing poverty reduction policies are largely ineffective because they perpetuate the economic, social and political gap between the powerful and the powerless, the rich and the poor, the haves and the have-nots.
More than simply coordinating the economic policies of major economies, G8/G20 governments must re-think the goals of their development strategies. Beyond reforming the international monetary system or addressing the volatility of commodity prices, they must seriously consider the common good and survival of humanity: regular and decent jobs, social protection, food security, access to water and other essential services, and stopping and reversing the effects of climate change. This requires first and foremost a new financial architecture.
As western countries with well developed welfare states have shown over the past decades, universal social protection are efficient factors for growth and development, both economically and socially. Third world countries which did reduce poverty and succeeded in promoting growth and development are those which did not follow the dominant neoliberal policies and introduced important social innovations. Universal social protection systems are at the core of the developmental State which history has demonstrated as the most successful approximation of social justice. The 2nd Development Forum Meeting therefore demands the introduction of transformative social policies, based on a universal social protection system in order to guarantee for all people the respect for and fulfillment of their fundamental human rights and more particularly article 25 of the UDHR. We consider social protection as a common good of humanity.
Due to the continued crisis and the successive economic shocks caused by unregulated market speculation, most countries are faced with huge debt burdens and public finances are under stress. However, corporate taxes have been lowered in many countries, whereas trade liberalization has cut public revenues in significant ways. G8/G20 countries must embark on a debt audit and the cancellation of illegitimate debts. While most third world countries have a huge potential for raising domestic progressive taxes, it seems obvious that the enormous growth of the global financial sector which now largely escapes all domestic taxes, can also contribute to raising income for economic and social development. The 2nd Development Forum Meeting therefore demands the introduction of a Financial Transaction Tax to be used to fund transformative social policies.
While technological progress has allowed food production to grow – faster than population growth -, famines still occur and kill too many men, women and children. These famines can be a consequence of a distorted distribution system, too high prices due to climate change, land grabbing policies, shifts to agro-fuels and food speculation. Food is a basic human right which should, alongside with water, be guaranteed for all people, all over the world. The 2nd Development Forum Meeting therefore demands urgent measures to treat food and water as basic human rights and a common good through measures influencing the root causes of their scarcity.
In 2012 a World Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio + 20) will be held in Brazil to follow-up on the Conferences of Rio (1992) and Johannesburg (2002). Climate change is part of the systemic crisis we are living today and will not be solved as long as there is no political willingness to seriously tackle the problem and significantly reduce the emission of greenhouse gases. The 2nd Development Forum Meeting therefore demands respect for the political commitments taken in Rio and Johannesburg as well as urgent measures to show the willingness of the international community to save humanity from climate disasters.
The 2nd Development Forum Meeting has worked in the long term perspective of a common political agenda aimed at social and climate justice. We are committed to continue our work and mobilize social movements all over the world to initiate and support measures for a universal social protection, health care, education and other public services, work in dignity, food security, access to water and stopping climate change, irrespective of the existing national development models. These are universal needs in conformity with the universal human rights everyone should be able to enjoy. They can only be delivered through broad structural reforms in order to achieve just, equitable and ecologically sustainable societies.
We seek to build broad strategic alliances and consider these goals as being part of a long term process.
Finally, we call to support a UN Charter for the Common Good of Humanity, which, alongside the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, will offer an ethical basis and legitimacy for policies aimed at common goods and universal social protection.