Presentation by Leslie Wright, First Vice President, Conference of NGOs
High Level Segment, ECOSOC
United Nations, New York
1 July 2002

Mr. President, Honorable Ministers, Excellencies, Distinguished Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen. Thank you for inviting me to share with you the recommendations from the NGO Forum, held by the Conference of NGOs (CONGO) on 14 June 2002 at UN Headquarters here in New York. I bring greetings to all from CONGO's President, Ms Renate Bloem of Geneva, who will be present during the Coordination Segment next week. I would also at this time like to take a moment to thank President Simonovic, Director Sarbuland Khan and Chief of the NGO Section Hanifa Mezoui for their leadership, support and assistance in coordinating the NGO Forum this year.

As you know, CONGO is an association of organizations in consultative relationship with the UN. We have been providing information, training and coordination for NGOs for more than 50 years, often running NGO forums in conjunction with UN Conferences and Meetings This Forum provided an opportunity for more than 75 NGO representatives to come together to share their expertise about the issues that will be addressed during your deliberations during this High Level Segment.

My statement today addresses a number of recommendations arising from the presentations, interventions and deliberations at this meeting. They were proposed by NGOs attending the NGO Forum and are not agreed conclusions, nor do they represent an official position. This compilation is presented with the expectation that these recommendations can be considered during your deliberations in the days ahead.

Gender Equality
Many NGOs commented about the need of a higher status for women worldwide. NGOs felt that this recommendation, if implemented, could have a radical impact on poverty, development and society.

Many of the organizations present felt that the draft Declaration did not state forcefully or specifically enough the need to invest in the education of girls and women. Research shows that educating girls results in higher per capita income and improved health for their families when they marry: family size decreases; families receive better and more consistent health care; families are better nourished and discretionary income increases. Women who are literate and involved in their communities can contribute to development. Countries cannot afford to use less than half the available human resources.

Women need to play a vital and central role in the social, economic and political development of countries. Girls need access to education - basic and higher education. Women need literacy training if they missed being educated when they were young, and both women and girls need to be integrated into education programs that can allow them to take positions alongside their male counterparts. They need access to information and services to safeguard their health, and this includes information and services related to sanitation, nutrition, disease prevention and treatment - and reproductive health care.

Because it is precisely the low status of girls and women that results in poverty, only with fundamental transformation of gender relations can this situation be altered. When women are left out, the world suffers.

Issues regarding the role of education in human resources development

Education is primarily the responsibility of the state. However, education consists of formal, informal and nonformal structures and each is delivered differently. NGOs called for new partnerships with governments, the private sector and the NGO community to work together to provide relevant, high quality education for all, with gender sensitive programs that encourage learning for girls.

NGOs called attention to the fact that girls are often prohibited from attending school inter alia because of inadequate facilities, safety, transportation, proper clothing or expense to families. Though the complexity of the issues that bar girls from attending school need to be assessed and addressed at the local level, some conclusions can be drawn. First, there needs to be strong political will to bring girls to school and to educate them. Problems need to be fixed. Second, there needs to be a shift in the way girls are treated by society and their families. When girls are educated, boys gain as well, so the decision to adapt programs to include girls benefits all. Finally, the education of girls needs to be sustainable. It cannot be addressed for a few years only to be dropped when international attention shifts. Girls education must become part of the fabric of society.

Young people called for education to be relevant to employment, noting that more than 50% of the population was under 25 years and over a billion in the 15-24 age cohort. 85% of these young people live in developing countries. They will enter the workforce with few skills and even fewer opportunities for productive work. Youth need a bold approach from the Ministerial Declaration to address this recipe for potential disaster.

NGOs called on governments to recognize that the population throughout the world is ageing. They called on governments to use older people as a resource for younger generations, cultivating them as mentors, mediators and advisors, thus effectively assuring them a positive role in human resource development.

Issues regarding the role of health in human resources development

A healthy workforce is necessary for human resources development. If workers are not healthy, productivity will suffer. It is the role of the state to provide safeguards to protect the health of the workforce, including regulation to assure clean water and sanitation standards, environmental quality, good working conditions and programs to address the worker health and safety, including information about hazardous practices and the spread of disease.

Environmental quality affects the ability to be healthy, which affects the ability to work. Global warming, pesticides and other modern factors have created an environment of climate change, increased disease and even new strains of disease that could devastate populations. Attention to policies that can stop this trend are urgent, and need to be communicated..

The new Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria should be applauded in the Declaration, and more funds should be identified to support this work. There appears to be an imbalance of funds allocated to date, which may mean that more needs to be done in countries with high rates of these diseases to give them expertise to apply for and administer these funds.

The health infrastructure in many developing countries needs further investment, especially in rural areas of LDCs. It is important not to alter those systems of health care delivery that are working in those areas.

Family structures need to be recognized, understood and included in providing adequate health care. Families themselves need to be consulted. For example, when families were interviewed by health workers in Madagascar, the health care environment was changed to make it more comfortable, resulting in more compliance with treatment and better health for the individuals affected.

Attention must be paid to the infrastructure of water supply, sanitation and waste disposal in order to prevent unnecessary health problems. Failure to address these needs leads to unsustainable urban communities. It is also important to assess the need for adequate, sustainable human settlements as part of the health equation necessary to support human resource development.

Older women and their role in the care and treatment of family members and the education and nutrition of children needs to be considered. Many older women are not equipped to deal with the situations they are faced with and need assistance.

NGOs recommended aligning stakeholder discussions with the 9 major groups identified in Agenda 21. They also stressed the desire to be incorporated specifically in the monitoring and evaluation of progress, and desired improving their capacity to support the MDGs

Financial implications for human resources development

Peace and security are necessary to provide human resources development. It is impossible to create jobs and to sustain business investment in countries where there is armed conflict. Environmental quality suffers, educational programs and institutions are interrupted, and infrastructure is destroyed, including water quality, sanitation, and communication systems and health care facilities. NGOs called for reduced military and arms spending to create sustainable environments and to provide additional resources for health and education programs. They also called on countries to halt internal armed conflicts and to become productively involved in supporting and developing people instead.

NGOs addressed the need for increased resources for LDCs and developing countries to improve health and education to reach human resource goals. This includes increased ODA for some countries, and better coordination between ECOSOC and financial institutions such as the World Bank, WTO, IMF and others.

NGOs encouraged the Bretton Woods Institutions to give priority to capacity building, education and job opportunities while giving financial assistance to governments of the developing world to work genuinely towards the objective of educating all peoples, with special attention to the poor and to the girl child.

Sustainable livelihoods need to be developed for people so that they can move out of poverty into productive employment. Relevant jobs need to be created that can be filled by people willing to work.

Investment in ICT should not be seen as a panacea for success, though it is an important way through which people can address job and skill development. But those who are successful with ICT tend to be better educated and wealthier, with more access to hardware/software, literate and can communicate in a language used on the internet. However, more than 6000 documented languages exist throughout the world, most of which cannot be converted into symbolic text. This effectively leaves out much of the world's peoples, many of whom are indigenous.

Indigenous peoples need to have more investment in their issues. NGOs recommended that there be attention to establishing a secretariat for the new Permanent Forum to facilitate its work.

In conclusion, NGOs complimented ECOSOC on the development of its website and called on it to publicize its accomplishments, which they viewed significant but relatively unknown throughout the world. They recommended that a summary newsletter be produced during the ECOSOC segments that could communicate "the flavor" of the meetings, not just the results. NGOs expressed their interest in being true partners with governments in discussing not only what needs to be done, but in working with governments to implement decisions reached.

Finally, NGOs wished to compliment ECOSOC on the way in which it sought input directly from NGOs, beginning with the roundtables early in the year, and wished to express their sincere thanks for specific inclusion. They expressed their willingness to contribute expertise to the other segments of these ECOSOC deliberations and pledged their assistance through positive structures throughout the year.

I would like to thank President Simonovic, the Bureau and members of ECOSOC for the opportunity to present this information for consideration of the High Level Segment and to add that CONGO stands willing to work with you during your deliberations.

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