Poverty or Social Exclusion: What Unites Civil Society in the North and South
Release Date: 21 February, 2005
By Kumi Naidoo, CIVICUS Secretary General
I have just returned from a brief trip with Aruna Rao, Chair of the CIVICUS Board and Anabel Cruz, Secretary of the Board, to Glasgow, Scotland, the venue for the next CIVICUS World Assembly in June 2006. I was also joined by two new colleagues on staff, John Treat, Senior General Manager: Organisational Services and Margaret Fish, Executive Assistant.
The launch event of the World Assembly was planned to coincide with the annual gathering of the Scottish voluntary sector, organised by our lead partner, the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO). Several CIVICUS members welcomed us to Scotland, including the International Network of Street Papers (INSP) which is headquartered with Big Issue Scotland, a popular homeless people’s newspaper.
What was important about the SCVO annual gathering, was that like NCVO, its English counterpart, who were also hosting their annual conference, there was a very significant focus on international issues, exploring the role of the domestic Scottish voluntary sector in the global effort to secure social, economic, political and civic justice.
While addressing domestic concerns, there was a strong commitment to better understanding global responsibilities, and building and expanding a range of international efforts as undertaken by the members of the Network of International Development Organisations in Scotland (NIDOS). While recognising the stark differences between civil society organisations (CSOs) in the North and South, it is also critically important that we now seek common ground. It might very well be that civil society experience in developing countries is significantly more helpful to CSOs in the North who are working with their most vulnerable citizens, and vice versa.
In developed countries, the scale of poverty is significantly different from developing countries. However, the deepening inequality both within rich and poor nations, as well as between them, raises many questions for reflection. In Europe, for example, the terms of the debate are somewhat different, while the content might very well be essentially the same. While in developing countries the talk is about eradicating poverty, in developed countries it is about social or financial exclusion, or similar descriptions.
The key issue that unites CSOs in the North and South is around equitable access to basic services. CSOs, serving marginalised constituencies in the North, similar to their counterparts in the global South, are working to ensure that there is equal access to education, health and employment. Today we can talk about the growing ’South in the North’ (growing number of poor people in notionally developed countries) and equally the growing ‘North in the South’ (growing number of extremely wealthy individuals in the South). By using conventional measurements about what constitutes poverty, such as living on less than a dollar a day, some might well argue that the impact of poverty, measured in this way, is more acute for the individual citizen in the North, since the purchasing power of one dollar in a rich country is significantly less than in most poor countries.
We hope that you will be able to participate in the 2006 CIVICUS World Assembly, our principle convening event which now attracts civil society activists from more than 100 countries worldwide as they seek to explore the linkages between them. The Scottish voluntary sector extended a very warm welcome to the hosting this event in Glasgow, Scotland on 21 to 24 June 2006. Please take this communication as an initial invitation to book these date and to consider attending this event next year.
The CIVICUS Board has decided to maintain a consistent theme for future World Assemblies: ACTING TOGETHER FOR A JUST WORLD. The sub-themes will also remain unchanged: CIVIC JUSTICE, ECONOMIC JUSTICE, POLITICAL JUSTICE AND SOCIAL JUSTICE.
We plan to call for proposals for workshops, which we believe to be the heart of the CIVICUS World Assembly, no later than the middle of April 2005, which is much earlier than we have done in the past. This will give CIVICUS members and partners more than six months’ notice before we close the acceptance of proposals. Please look out for this call.
We also hope that many of you are planning activities or will participate in events being organised around International Women’s Day on 8 March this year. For further information, please see International Women’s Day.
Warmest regards,
Kumi Naidoo
Please send your comments and suggestions to e-mail kumi@civicus.org.
