Summit’s goal is achievable By MAR-VIC CAGURANGAN For Saipan Tribune

MANILA—The World Summit for Social Development’s goal of reducing the incidence of poverty in half by year 2015 may not be an easy endeavor. Nevertheless, if every poor country takes the right approach and pursues it with vigor, the goal is achievable.

Officials of government and nongovernment groups made this forecast at Tuesday’s press briefing on the outcome of the WSSD+5, a followup conference that tackled the Political Declaration made by 117 countries at the Copenhagen Summit in 1995.

Philippine Vice President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who headed, the Philippine delegation to the WSSD+ 5 held in Geneva from June 26 to July 1, said the country’s strong commitment to social development “is seen and further enforced in the goals, strategies and targets embodied in the Angat Pinoy 2004 or the Philippine Medium-Term Development Plan of 1999-2004, the National AntiPoverty Action Agenda, and the Comprehensive Employment Plan.

“The Philippines government will continue to strengthen its strategic partnership with the civil society and international community so that a more meaningful achievement can be realized in social development beyond the Geneva Conference,” Arroyo said at the press briefing held at the Manila Galleria Suite in Mandaluyong City.

While noting the importance of having an international forum that facilitates the conditions to achieve the poverty-reduction goal, a representative from the nongovernment sector also underscored the need for every poor country to explore and take good advantage of what it has in its own backyard.

“The target of cutting poverty incidence by half can be done,” said Rep. Wigberto Tanada, president of the People’s Reform and Restoration Movement. “We can draw inspiration from our NIC neighbors. In a generation or so, several East Asian countries had the distinction of virtually eliminating extreme poverty. To be sure we need to apply the positive lessons and avoid the negative ones.”

The Philippines must aim for “sustainable and robust growth,” Tanada said. The growth that the country needs, he added, “is one that is poverty sensitive and equity oriented.”

Specifically, Tanada urged the government to pay attention to agriculture and to the countryside where the majority of the poor are concentrated.

“We must modernize agriculture and increase productivity in the rural areas,” he said. “We must implement and accelerate a sound agrarian reform; build the infrastructure; provide support and extension services; and adopt macroeconomic policies, including trade policies, that not only boost the productivity and competitiveness of the agricultural sector but also protect the nation’s essential sources of livelihood,” Tanada said.

He also stressed the importance of providing safety nets to deal with economic adjustments. But safety nets, Tanada said, do not have to be doleouts or one-shot solutions.

“Safety nets should encompass the building of institutions and the delivery of public goods to enhance the capabilities of the vulnerable sectors t improve their well being,” he said, however, noting with regrets that the Philippines has failed in this area.

But equally important, Tanada said, poor countries like the Philippines should reexamine their ties with donor and creditor countries “towards making these relationships responsive to our national development goals.”
“We need to develop nationally owned development and economic programs, forged through social consensus,” he said.

“International institutions should respect the development of nationally owned programs as the basis of development and economic goals.”