Interactive debate: Forging ahead: partnering for the future of development, Friday 6 July 2012
Moderator:
Bruce Jones, Director, Centre on International Cooperation, New York University
Panellists:
HE Kim Bong-hyun, Deputy Minister of Multilateral and Global Affairs, Republic of Korea
Rogelio Granguillhome, Executive Director of the Mexican Agency for International Development Cooperation
Katsuji Imata, Acting Secretary-General, CIVICUS
Talaat Abdel Malek, Co-Chair, OECD/DAC Working Party on Aid Effectiveness and
Economic Adviser to the Minister of International Co-operation, Egypt
Thank you Mr. Chair.
My name is Katsuji Imata, Acting Secretary General of CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, based in Johannesburg. CIVICUS is a broad global alliance of civil society organisations working toward the goal of strengthening civil society and citizen action. CIVICUS has been an active civil society player at DCF, as well as civil society coalitions in the lead up to and post-Busan. For Rio+20, CIVICUS was one of the Organising Partners for the NGO Major Group. And we will be an active civil society convener for the Post 2015 agenda.
So the question here is the future role of DCF. I was at the Friends of DCF side-meeting yesterday and heard a lot of good comments. Not only that, throughout different sessions yesterday and today, I believe that we see some common threads emerging.
On my part and on CIVICUS' part, it seems obvious that we need to highlight at least 4 areas of work that can be priorities for the DCF. They are 1. enhancing policy coherence; 2. leveraging non-aid resources; 3. working on gender equality and women's rights in development, and 4. furthering mutual accountability. I don't think I need to elaborate on the first three points as good arguments have already been made, but I have a small contribution on mutual accountability.
I was fortunate to participate in the session on mutual accountability in Africa yesterday and heard an insightful remark by Namhla from African Monitor, in which she said that we had been discussing mutual accountability as a two-way street but that something was missing. What is missing is citizens. Citizen both from aid providing and aid recipient nations.
And I felt that it would be quite strange if we do not emphasise it prominently in discussing mutual accountability. Because it doesn't matter if you are a government official or UN agency or parliamentarian or civil society. Development is about people and development cooperation is about putting people at the centre. Yesterday we heard Meja Vitalice of Reality of Aid Africa speak about democratic ownership of development, and that's really a keyword CSOs have been pushing since pre-Accra in the HLF.
So one expectation for DCF in the future is to further the engagement on mutual accountability and focus on the multiplicity of accountability, especially domestic accountability to respective citizens. This will require examining tools and instruments available to citizens by which citizens, that are each and every one of us, can hold governments accountable.
To me, these can be focus areas for the DCF discussions in its next phase, but equally important are some "cross-cutting" principles that should work as guiding posts for all thematic discussions.
I offer two.
One is human rights based approach to development, and the other is promoting enabling environment for citizen participation. If the focus areas are considered as horizontal axes, these principles should work as vertical axes that penetrates all discussions.
As it has been stated numerous times since yesterday, UNDCF is a unique space where discussion on development cooperation takes place. It is unique because of its inclusive and multi-stakeholder nature. Hosted by the UN and representing all member-states as well as other actors, it provides legitimacy to the discussion that unfolds.
To take advantage of this nature of DCF, I believe it is very important to raise the issue of principles that guide our discussion. And CIVICUS will argue that they should be human rights based approach to development and enabling environment for citizen participation.
Because of time constraints, let me focus on the latter. I emphasise the enabling environment precisely because of unfortunate turn of events we are witnessing in the last several years in which many countries, both in the global south and north, are trying to restrict the activities of civil society and citizen action. As some of you know, this is CIVICUS domain of work and I can talk about many recent examples of legal, regulatory, administrative and other measures of governments that exacerbate what we call "shrinking civil society space."
I call your attention, especially those representing member-states, and ask how you can maximise the potential of development cooperation if you are repressing healthy voice of citizens. A recent quote from a head of state, which I won't say which country, goes something like this. “If you get permission, you go and march. If you don’t – you have no right to. Go without permission, and you will be hit on the head with batons. That’s all there is to it.”
In the business of development cooperation, it goes without saying that citizen participation, especially those who are directly affected by development cooperation, is crucial. Women, young people, marginalised groups, those in poverty. It is part of our collective responsibility to reach out to them, listen to them, and act on their demands.
One of the major achievements for civil society in Busan was the explicit commitment in the Busan Partnership document to implement fully their respective commitments to the enabling environment. Although it was not explicitly defined in the Busan Partnership document, the explicit reference to international human rights standards made it clear that it relates to the existence of: freedom of association; freedom of expression; freedom of assembly; the right to operate free of unwarranted state interference; the right to communicate and cooperate; the right to seek and secure funding; and the state’s duty to protect.
Nonetheless, with merely half a year since the Busan Partnership document was signed, governments around the world seem to be showing scant regard to what was agreed with regards to an enabling environment for civil society. This is very concerning and discouraging, to say the least.
We talk about civil society participation and involvement at DCF. Mr Chair, you spoke about the engagement with CSOs built into the Terms of Reference of DCF. And we also talk about cross processes, in which international commitments in one process is cross-examined in other processes. With this pretext, I urge us to make use of this DCF space, come to a shared understanding of what is happening to citizen participation globally, and what we can agree on what's needed to ensure enabling environment. I would like to see DCF taking bold actions on this international commitment.
I thank you very much.
