Miren Gutierrez interviews SYLVIA BORREN, Co-Chair of the GCAP
ROME, Dec 4 (IPS) – The Doha Financing for Development Conference is over and many are now wondering how it went and what really happened. Sylvia Borren, co-chair of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP), was there.
In an email interview with IPS, Borren evaluates the outcomes of the conference from the perspective of civil society.
IPS: What was civil society’s role in this process?
SB: Well, the two day pre-conference of the civil society was rather good. We had enough expertise in our networks and 250 people attending to have well-researched argumentation in the room. And we put together a solid civil society paper of improvements and additions on all issues for our governmental delegations.
The official U.N. meeting opened against the horrific backdrop of the Mumbai attacks with blood and violence on our TV screens. It proved that no ‘war on terrorism’, masculine competition and a ‘winner takes all’ mentality can stop terrorist or violence.
A press conference gave us the opportunity to hand over our input to the president of the General Assembly (Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann), who gave an impassioned speech about the urgency of putting need above greed, and changing paradigms in our world. He spoke of our input in his opening speech to the General Assembly the next day where Gemma Adaba from ITUC (International Trade Union Confederation) was our strong civil society voice, high on the five-minute speakers list.
IPS: What were the governments’ contributions?
SB: French President (Nicolas) Sarkozy, holding the EU presidency, made a strong plea for urgent solutions, especially for Africa. But for me he was too ‘pro’ his own G20 initiatives and rather ‘divide and rule’ towards the G77 as well as the EU, in stressing the French bond with Africa. His proud claims about 60 percent of official development aid coming from Europe and the extra 1 billion euro for the food crises made me snort cynically…
Yes, 60 percent of about 100 billion euro. And the French are still not near reaching their promised 0.7 percent of GNI (Gross National Income) for aid or supporting unfair trade practices. He didn’t mention the 260 billion euro which the EU just approved for stimulating the economies of Europe itself: encouraging consumerism in order to keep production going. Save the car industry, who cares about climate change.
The U.S. delegation was the same, they kept boasting about being the biggest bilateral aid donor, and having doubled that in the last eight years. As it was only 0.16 percent of their GNI in 2007, and they have never committed to the 0.7 percent — they too were walking on thin ice. After all twice (nearly) zero remains (nearly) zero.
