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Despite promise, G-8 reduced aid in 2006
Global campaign calls for tackling poverty’s roots
Diana Cariboni in Montevideo
The Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP) made a commitment in Uruguay last Saturday to extend their campaign until 2015, and to emphasise the structural causes that determine that over one billion people in the world are living in extreme poverty.
GCAP was launched in 2005, at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, as a one-year project, after which it was extended for another year, to 2007.
Now its component organisations have committed themselves to continuing the campaign until the 2015 deadline established by United Nations member countries to halve the proportion of people living in extreme poverty and suffering from hunger, from 1990 levels.
That is the first of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adopted by the international community in 2000, which include commitments to specific targets to improve health, education, gender equality, the environment and sustainable development.
At the international meeting that brought together 150 leading activists which ran Thursday through Saturday last week in the Uruguayan capital, GCAP decided to “highlight the causes of poverty, with a particular emphasis on the groups specifically affected by social exclusion,” such as women, indigenous peoples and other sectors that suffer discrimination, Ana Agostino, a member of the GCAP International Facilitation Group, told IPS.
The need for this focus was stressed by Latin American and Caribbean organisations, with the support of the Asia Group and women’s organisations, said Agostino, a member of GCAP’s Feminist Task Force.
“There was an intense debate on whether or not to include sexual orientation when referring to excluded groups, because GCAP is characterised by great diversity,” with hundreds of non-governmental organisations and social movements from around the world, said Agostino.
Religious associations were opposed to including sexual orientation, and in the end the activists agreed not to specifically mention the question with respect to concrete measures and actions, which will be left up to each country to decide.
In 2006, GCAP and the U.N. Millennium Campaign promoted an initiative called “Stand Up Against Poverty”, in which 23.5 million people around the world “stood up” on Oct. 17, the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty and made the Guinness Book of World Records. In 2007 they hope to mobilise 50 million people, under the slogan “Stand Up and Speak Out.”
The “Stand Up” action in 2006 had little impact in Latin America. One of the reasons, according to activists consulted at the time by IPS, was that the region’s own priorities and agenda were not sufficiently taken into account.
In some countries, “nothing happened; it basically passed unnoticed,” said Agostino.
This year, the aim is for each country and region to adopt their own “political messages” to promote participation in the coordinated Oct. 17 activities, among other measures aimed at increasing visibility of the event, said the activist.
The Latin American and Caribbean national coalitions and networks in GCAP said in San Salvador on Apr. 13 that the campaign should promote a view of poverty based on justice, not charity.
This should involve not handouts for the poor, but ensuring the conditions for the full enjoyment of civil rights, without discrimination of any kind, said the activists meeting in the Salvadoran capital.
The future of GCAP will only be sustainable if there is clarity about its political objective, which should be the basis for developing its strategies, and if mechanisms are adopted to democratise the way it works and make decision-making transparent, said the San Salvador statement.
The conference in Montevideo ended with the participants “in high spirits,” and with a “strong sense of reaffirmation of the validity of their campaign,” said Agostino.
The activists decided to maintain their decision not to “institutionalise” the coalition and to meet every three years, until 2015, to assess the progress of their actions against poverty.
GCAP achieved peak visibility in 2005, when it devoted its energies to extracting concrete commitments from the Group of Eight (G8) most powerful countries in the world, at their meeting in Scotland that year.
Although the G8 promised on that occasion to increase aid to developing countries by up to 50 billion dollars by 2010, in fact development aid from rich countries fell by five percent in 2006, according to a report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) which was published in April.
— Inter Press Service
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Free trade zone in Kashmir proposed
A Correspondent in Islamabad
An Indian-based working group has suggested creation of a free trade area across the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir after nearly 60 years of forced aloofness, officials told Dawn newspaper of Pakistan.
The working group headed by M Rasgotra was set up by the Indian government with a mandate to work out some practical solution for allowing trade between the two divided regions of Jammu and Kashmir.
A diplomatic source told Dawn that the modalities were being worked out by the two sides. The group also submitted its report at the third roundtable conference on Kashmir in April 2007.
The report said that the trade and commerce representatives, including those of chambers of commerce, had already visited the (LoC) and reported that there was lot of enthusiasm for the opening up of trade and commerce between the two sides.
The group recommended setting up a joint consultative machinery of officials and representatives of commerce from both sides, to resolve any difficulties in the flow of trade.
The list of items for export and import would include handicrafts, fruits, cement, iron, medicines, sugar, basmati rice, machinery and equipment, and other items that are manufactured or assembled by small-scale industries in Jammu and Kashmir, said the report.
The issue of state taxes on goods traded across the LoC may be determined by the state government after due consideration of all aspects, it added.
India and Pakistan made the landmark agreement to revive trade and commerce between the divided regions of Jammu and Kashmir in the year 2006.
According to an official, the two sides had already agreed to allow trading of only raw products, mostly food items, between the divided regions of Jammu and Kashmir. No value-added products — manufacturing products —would be allowed for trade under the proposed trade treaty between the two Kashmiri regions, he added.
Courtesy: DAWN
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Mobile phone charges drops 78pc since 2004
Call charges in Bangladesh very competitive in region
Holiday Desk
Stein Naevdal, chief marketing officer of GrameenPhone, said that mobile phone call tariff has come down by 78 per cent since 2004 because of stepped up competition among the country’s six mobile phone operators to woo subscribers.
Grameenphone, a joint venture between the Telenor of Norway and Grameen Telecom of Bangladesh, commands around 64 per cent of the country’s mobile phone market. According to the Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission, the number of mobile phone users in the country stood at 26.6 million in May.
‘As of February this year, the operators have cut the tariff by 78 per cent from that in 2004,’ said Naevdal. He said that the cellphone call charges in Bangladesh are very competitive in the South Asian region, when one compares them with the tariffs in Pakistan and India.
Around 2.5 million of Grameenphone’s 14 million subscribers use its Enhanced Data rates for Global Evolution facility for high-speed mobile internet and data services. Its EDGE network now covers around 90 per cent of the country’s population.
He said, as of February, the highest and the lowest mobile phone call charges in Bangladesh were Tk 1.9 and Tk 0.25 per minute, which were Tk 3.2 and Tk 0.20 in India and Tk 1.4 and Tk 0.90 in Pakistan.
Handset prices have also come down significantly following some industry initiatives and introduction of cheap new and refurbished sets in the country, Stein said in an interview with a group of reporters.
The GrameenPhone executives was talking to a group of reporters in Dhaka and discussed various aspects of the companiy’s operations including its network, customer service, and business opportunities.
When asked about the prospect of mobile phone operators marketing data service to customers, he said it was increasing. ‘We believe there is an unmet demand for data service in the country, even in its rural areas,’ he maintained.
Around 2.5 million of Grameenphone’s 14 million subscribers use its Enhanced Data rates for Global Evolution facility for high-speed mobile internet and data services. Its EDGE network now covers around 90 per cent of the country’s population.
The marketing executive projected that the number of mobile phone subscribers in the country is likely to reach 50 million by end-2009 with a penetration rate of around 29 per cent.
On any possibility of Grameenphone losing its huge market share to other operators because of the intense competition and entry of new players like Warid, he said Grameen was ready and knew well how to defend its market share. ‘We are not going to leave hold of our market share.’
Stein Naevdal brushed aside various allegations against the Grameenphone including that of its involvement in illegal voice over internet protocol business to provide international voice communication service.
‘Grameenphone has never been involved in termination and origination of international call traffic,’ he said, adding, ‘We have the necessary licences for all the services we have been offering to our customers.’
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