SOCIAL WATCH E-NEWSLETTER - Issue 126 - April 12, 2013

As a whirlpool, the crisis that has been lasting for the past 5 years has hit Italy hard in 2012. 
The country was put under the "technical” government of Mario Monti, who acted as a commissioner and subjected Italy to a shock therapy of austerity policies, similar to the structural adjustment programs imposed by the IMF. While intended to reanimate the economy, it plunged the country into a real recession under the blackmail of two parameters: the "spread" between Italy and Germany, and the Public Debt, which has grown another 10%, reaching 127,3% of the GNP. It is not by chance that the Prime Minister Mario Monti has been International Advisor to Goldman Sachs.

The deterioration of the living conditions of a large part of the Italian population concerned especially the "working poor": in Italy, there are three million, about 15% of the total employed. Eight million Italians live with less than one thousand euro per month. The crisis has seriously damaged the middle class.

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Armenia adopted the “UN Millennium Declaration” in 2000. It was obvious that the goals cannot be comprehensive, and each country should determine its current problems, especially if the solution is defined by the Constitution and other laws and international obligations. As a result of MDG local adaptation the following goals: “Achieve universal primary education”, “Contribute to gender equality and empowerment of women” were not recognized as the first order priority since the Constitution obliges the state to ensure that all citizens work, have a decent standard of living, access to all levels of education, professional training, health care and healthy living conditions, etc.

However despite these two goals were not emphasized as priority ones some achievements were observed with respect to these spheres. The programs initiated for eradicating poverty and achieving equality were sentenced to fail, since they are not focused on human being, that is the program results are not tied to improvement of real life of people.

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Over sixty national Social Watch coalitions around the world are contributing their assessments and reports to the global Social Watch report 2013, under the overall theme of "Ends and Means." The Social Watch network thus joins the current global discussions around a set of Sustainable Development Goals and on a new development framework to be put in place when the MDGs expire in 2015.

The Social Watch national platforms are independent coalitions of civil society organizations struggling for social and gender justice in their own countries. The Social Watch network has been publishing since 1996 yearly reports on how governments implement their international commitments to eradicate poverty and achieve equality between women and men.