Social Watch news

Members of civil society organizations that are part of the Social Watch Network were invited to participate at six thematic roundtables that were part of the UN "MDG Summit" that took place 20-22 September 2010 in New York.

The UN High Level Plenary Meeting on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) gathered Presidents and Prime Ministers around the world to review efforts to combat poverty during the past decade and discuss the next steps to follow at a time of an unprecedented combination of global crises (climate change, food, energy, financial and economic).

An event organized by Social Watch, CIDSE, Heinrich Boell Foundation and NGLS entitled "Raiding the public till: The financial crises and the MDGs" will address these challenges and emphasize the imperative of harnessing the aid, finance, debt and trade dimensions of “global partnerships for development” (known as MDG 8) to support national strategies and contribute to achievement of all the other goals.

The reality of poverty and inequities, as perceived from communities and grassroots is different from the top-down views. The contributions of citizen groups from over 60 countries for the Social Watch Report 2010 entitled "After the Fall. Time for a New Deal" shows that we are a long way from attaining the Millennium Development Goals. Further, Social Watch research shows that poverty reduction has globally slowed down since 2000. It concludes that a comprehensive redefinition of our approach to development is needed.

President Armando Guebuza of Mozambique, Helen Clark, Head of the UNDP, René Ramírez, minister of planning of Ecuador, German parlamentarian Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul along with UN officials and over 50 diplomats were present in New York for the launch of the SOCIAL WATCH REPORT 2010 on 17 September 2010. The findings of Social Watch were part of discussions on the new development paradigm hosted by the German mission to the UN on the eve of the MDGs Summit. The event was co-organized by Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Social Watch and Global Policy Forum.

In July 2010 the UNDOC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) launched the report: "The Globalization of Crime: A Transnational Organized Crime Threat Assessment". It is the first ever “threat assessment”, that tries to fill a knowledge gap and pave the way for future world crime reports. It focuses on trafficking flows, connects the dots between regions, and gives a global overview of illicit markets: it reports about the ways and means international mafias have grown into an international problem.