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25 February 1997 Doc. 7770
ADOC7770
REPORT1
on the organisation by the Council of Europe of
a second European campaign on North-South
interdependence and solidarity in 1998
(Rapporteur: Mr Terry DAVIS,
United Kingdom, Socialist Group)
_____
Résumé:
The report supports the idea raised in the Assembly to launch a second Council of Europe campaign on North-South interdependence and solidarity, ten years after the first. The world has undergone profound changes in this period, but the plight of the poorest nations still requires Europe's full attention.
The Lisbon 1998 World Expo offers an excellent opportunity for such a campaign, especially given the presence of the Council of Europe's North-South Centre in the city.
I. Draft recommendation
1. In 1998, ten years will have passed since the conclusion of the Council of Europe's public campaign on North-South Interdependence and Solidarity. In the course of this period the world - and the nature of co-operation between rich and poor countries - has had to face a radically new situation as a result of the end of the East-West conflict, rapid economic growth in some developing countries and strained public finances in many donor countries leading to an emphasis on domestic priorities. Meanwhile some poorer developing countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, have experienced economic stagnation or even decline - hurting the already disadvantaged members of their communities. These economic problems have been partly the effect and partly the cause of acute political upheavals and wars.
2. While disillusionment and "aid fatigue" in donor countries may be understandable, it is nevertheless vital for worldwide stability and prosperity that there should not be any slackening in the will of Council of Europe member states to help the poorest developing countries and the people in need in those countries both economically and politically, while aiming for greater aid efficiency and promoting human rights, democracy, social and economic reform and environmental protection.
3. The Assembly, in this context, recalls the pledge made in Vienna in October 1993 by the heads of state and government of Council of Europe member states that the "deepening of co-operation in order to take account of the new European situation should in no way divert us from our responsibilities regarding North-South interdependence and solidarity".
4. In conclusion, the Assembly calls on the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe to launch a second European public campaign on North-South interdependence and solidarity in 1998, making full use of the capacities of its North-South Centre in Lisbon for this purpose, and also calls on the Committee of Ministers to use the opportunities offered by the Lisbon World Expo to draw attention to this campaign.
II. Explanatory Memorandum
by Mr Davis
1. In September 1996, Mr Martínez and 27 other members of the Parliamentary Assembly from five political groups presented a Motion for a Recommendation (Doc. 7666) on the organisation by the Council of Europe of a European Campaign on North-South Interdependence and Solidarity in 1998.
2. The motion, after recalling the Council of Europe's public campaign on North-South Interdependence and Solidarity organised in 1988, recommended that a new campaign should be mounted in 1998, and that this Campaign should take advantage of the World Expo to be held in Lisbon in that year to make the campaign message, the Council of Europe and its North-South Centre better known to the visitors to the World Expo.
3. According to this motion, the purpose of the campaign would be to "raise greater public awareness of the crucial issues of North-South interdependence and solidarity", and the motion also refers to the responsibility of Europe "to create a better climate of understanding in Europe and elsewhere in order to face, in a spirit of cooperation, the major challenges posed by growing globalisation of the world, mobility of people and the social and environment problems affecting many areas in the world". The campaign - to be organised in close cooperation with the European Union, the United Nations Development Programme, the OECD Development Centre, non-governmental organisations, local and regional authorities - would also serve to "make the Council of Europe and its North-South Centre better known to the several millions of expected visitors, with special focus on the Council of Europe's work on democracy and human rights ...". The motion concludes by asking the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe to "make adequate resources available" for the campaign.
4. It is significant that this motion was signed by an unusually large number of Assembly members from so many political groups and countries. It underlines the long-standing commitment of the Assembly to reducing inequalities between what is habitually (although perhaps less and less justifiably) called the North and the South. As evidence of this commitment, we should note both the Recommendation which led to the campaign to establish the North-South Centre and the decision to add Development to the name of the Assembly's committee mainly dealing with North-South cooperation - the Committee on Economic Affairs and Development.
5. Concern about North-South interdependence and solidarity is not restricted to the Assembly. Indeed the role of the Council of Europe as a whole in North-South cooperation was reiterated in the Declaration issued at the end of the Vienna Summit of Council of Europe Heads of State and Government in October 1993. The Declaration committed member States to "the bonds of friendship with non-European member States sharing the same values" and emphasised their "wish to develop with them our common efforts to promote peace and democracy". The Declaration also pledged that the "deepening of cooperation in order to take account of the new European situation should in no way divert us from our responsibilities regarding North-South interdependence and solidarity". In view of this commitment it is natural that the authors of the motion should urge the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers to support materially and politically the 1998 campaign idea.
6. The Vienna Declaration rightly referred to a "new European situation" following the changes in central and eastern Europe. These changes put an end to the east-west ideological conflict and to the competition, through aid, between East and West for the political allegiance of developing countries. Two other factors also contribute to the "new situation" regarding development assistance. The first is the deterioration in the public finances of many member States of the Council of Europe. As governments try to reduce budget deficits and public debt, it has become much more difficult to find the same amount of resources for development assistance as in the past. Second, some development resources have been reoriented to the cause of assisting the transition process in central and eastern Europe, and some countries in these regions have been classified as developing countries.
7. As a result, development aid in many Council of Europe countries has stagnated or even decreased over the last few years. In 1993 the total drop was 5% in real terms compared to 1992. Total official aid by international organisations and the rich countries of the world to sub-Saharan Africa, for example, fell from almost 17 billion dollars in 1990 to 15 billion dollars in 1994.
8. This is also a "new situation" in the sense that although neither the developed "North" nor the developing "South" were ever homogeneous, the differences have become even more marked in recent years. Since the early 1970s there has been unprecedented progress in developing countries as a group (manifesting itself, for instance, in a near halving of infant mortality, an increase of about ten years in life expectancy and a near doubling of per capita incomes), but the progress has been highly uneven among these developing countries. Some countries in East Asia and South-East Asia have seen their incomes doubled and then doubled again in the last 25 years, but many other countries are actually poorer today than they were 15 years ago. As noted in a report on development cooperation policies prepared within the Committee on Economic Affairs and Development in 1995 (Rapporteur: Mr Townend; Resolution 1060; Doc. 7274), 36 countries experienced a reduction of GNP per capita in the period 1980-1991: 2 in Asia, 3 in the Middle East, 10 in Latin America and 21 of these countries are in Africa.
9. It must also be noted that poverty within developing nations has not been overcome. In most cases, income differences between the rich and the poor and between urban areas and rural areas have actually widened.
10. The situation in sub-Saharan Africa is particularly worrying. About 40% of Africa's people live on less than one dollar a day. From 1989 to 1992, nearly half the African countries suffered negative economic growth. Per capita income has increased by 900 dollars per annum in East Asia over the last twenty years, but it has risen by only 70 dollars per annum in Africa. In addition, international direct investment - which is an increasingly important supplement to official aid in developing countries and which has put more than 400 billion dollars into developing countries since 1988 - has largely shunned the continent. Africa receives only 3% of foreign direct investment in developing countries.
11. There is another factor which has become increasingly important. A feeling that development assistance may not have always produced the desired results in terms of economic, social and democratic development in some developing nations is responsible for a degree of "aid fatigue". In addition, although some opinion polls suggest that public support has remained high in many European countries in theory, this support is often perceived as soft in practice. When a choice must be made between two desirable ends, development assistance is frequently given a lower priority than some pressing domestic concern. Charity, it is often said, begins at home.
12. Donations by the general public to NGOs have also changed. First, there is the impact of recession, leading to less generosity (though not necessarily to a less positive attitude to NGOs). Second, many NGOs faced with reduced budgets have begun to concentrate on assistance at home. Third, the number of NGOs has grown - from 1600 in OECD member countries in 1980, to 2500 in 1990 and to well over 5000 in 1995. Before this bewildering array of NGOs, donations are concentrating on the more well-known NGOs, such as Save the Children, Médecins Sans Frontičres and Oxfam. Simultaneously, donors are drawn toward emergencies, to the detriment of less dramatic and long-term development work.
13. Against this background, the opportunity offered by the Lisbon World Exhibition in 1998 (Expo 98) should not be lost. Expo 98 will open on 22 May 1998 and last for six months. The Expo site will stretch for 5 kilometres along the banks of the Tage and occupy an area of 310 hectares. More than 110 countries are expected to take part, and some 20 million visitors are expected. The theme will be "The Oceans - a Heritage for the Future", and this theme can be easily integrated with a Second European Campaign on North-South Interdependence and Solidarity because the oceans can be seen as linking as well as separating the continents. The message to the world coming out of Lisbon as home to the Council of Europe's North-South Centre should be one of continued and increased public support for international solidarity.
14. In conclusion, the Rapporteur believes that the motion on the organisation by the Council of Europe of a European Campaign on North-South Interdependence and Solidarity in 1998 should be supported by the Parliamentary Assembly. Such a campaign is needed to counteract the lethargy, some would say indifference, to the plight of so many people whom economic and social progress seems to be passing by.
Reporting committee: Committee on Economic Affairs and Development
Budgetary implications for the Assembly: None
Reference to committee: Doc. 7666 and Reference No. 2124 of 7 November 1996
Draft recommendation adopted by the committee on 17 February 1997.
Members of the committee: MM. Davis (Chairman), Mrs Degn (Vice-Chairperson), MM. Bloetzer, Valleix (Vice-Chairmen), Andreoli, Behrendt, Bilinski (Alternate: Wielowieyski), Billing, Mrs Blattmann, MM. Bogár, Mrs Bribosia-Picard, Mr Brunetti, Mrs Calner, MM. Cerqueda Gispert, Cusimano (Alternate: Turini), Mr Dumitrescu, Mrs Durrieu, MM. Elo, Eyskens, Dame Peggy Fenner, MM. Figel, Frey, Mrs Frimannsdottir, MM Galanos, Galváo Lucas, Gonzalez Laxe, Goop, Gusenbauer, Gylys, Jelenkovic, Kamhi, Kiratlioglu, Kirilov, Kiršteins, Kopliku, Koucky, Kuznetsov (Alternate: Masliukov), Leers, Le Grand (Alternate: Mignon), Liapis, Malinowski, Mautner-Markhof, Merkushov, Minkov, Muravschi, Pereira Coelho, Poppe, Puche, Rigo, Rippinger, Rutskoi, Sceberras Trigona, Siebert, Mrs Stepova, MM Szalay, Telgmaa, Thaler, Townend, Tribunovski, Vasile, Verivakis (Alternate: Koulouris), Mrs Verspaget (Alternate: Blaauw), MM. Wallace, Yavorivsky.
N.B. The names of those members present at the meeting are printed in italics.
Secretaries to the committee: MM. Torbiörn and Bertozzi.
1 1by the Committee on Economic Affairs and Development