The EU Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs adopted in its meeting of 15 October a declaration concerning the Commission's Communication on social protection in development cooperation.

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Who could have imagined ten years ago the paradoxical situation we are living in today! In 2002 the first signs of the multiple crisis the EU is living in today were visible, especially at the social level. But institutionally, there was hope that the new constitutional treaty would bring solutions for old problems. At the economic level, everything was going fine with a new common currency and reasonable growth figures. Socially, the situation was more difficult with some neoliberal reforms, a Lisbon strategy aimed at ‘activating’ unemployed people and liberalizing public services.

Data from the latest FAO report: the world counts 852 million people with hunger, most of them in developing countries. But 16 million people in developed countries are undernourished...

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Social Protection for all

UN Special Rapporteur on food, Olivier De Schutter, and UN Special Rapporteur on poverty Magdalena Sepulveda, just published a report and a proposal to introduce a basic social protection for all.

They launched a joint briefing note, calling for the creation of a Global Fund for Social Protection (GFSP). In the briefing they state that 2 per cent of the global GDP would be enough to provide all the world’s poor with basic social protection against the risk of unemployment, illness, disability, crop failure and soaring food costs.

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Declaration by the ECOFIN Council of 9 October 2012:

The Council was informed of developments regarding the possible introduction of a financial

transaction tax (FTT), via enhanced cooperation, in a limited number of member states.

Human Rights are the best weapon to combat Hunger, according to this report

Read the Call to Action of the People's Health Assembly in Cape Town, July 2012

This month’s annual meetings of the World Bank and the IMF in Tokyo will see renewed lobbying by global unions for decent work and against austerity. So the publication on Monday night of the World Bank’s flagship annual publication, the 2013 World Development Review, was a major event – and one that the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) was able, for once, to welcome.

The World Bank has been accused of facilitating land grabs in some of the world's poorest countries after a raft of formal complaints from communities affected by projects it has financed.

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