Ann M. Scholz, SSND, PhD, School Sisters of Notre Dame A Non-Governmental
Organization
E-mail: ssndunngo@earthlink.net
School Sisters of Notre Dame
at the United Nations
Non-Governmental Organization in Special Consultative Status with ECOSOC
Affiliated with the Department of Public Information
Comments on the Secretary-General’s Report
“In Larger Freedom . . .”
Ann Scholz, SSND PhD
UN Representative of the School Sisters of Notre Dame
We welcome the Secretary-General’s call for a new global deal to tackle the
interdependent challenges of development, security, human rights and reform
of the United Nations and we welcome this opportunity to comment on his
report on the implementation of the Millennium Declaration, In Larger
Freedom Towards Development, Security and Human Rights for All
(A/59/2005).
These comments will be concentrated on the sections of the report that deal
most directly with development, especially Section II of the report, “Freedom
from Want.” It is this area, which includes the Millennium Development Goals,
where we have most experience and expertise and are, perhaps, best able to
make some contribution to the current review of the Millennium Declaration.
We begin with a discussion of the essential role that global partnerships play
in the realization of a world free from want and fear where all are free to live in
dignity. We then explore the need to address the underlying causes of the
present condition which results in poverty, discrimination and insecurity,
including the failure to meet the gender parity in education target due this
year.1 Finally, we suggest that action to ensure a world in larger freedom
must arise from shared values embedded in our common perennial wisdom
and articulated in the Charter of the United Nations.
1
We single out education for special comment for two reasons. First, it is the area in which
our NGO has particular experience and expertise and second, and more importantly, because
we are convinced that failure to meet this first of the MDG targets represents a significant
failure of global political will and jeopardizes the entire MDG endeavor.
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Partnerships for Development
The interdependent nature of the challenges we face requires collective
commitments, collective strategies and collective action supported by
strengthened collective institutions. It requires bold, new ideas about how a
variety of actors—local and national governments; civil society and nongovernmental organizations; churches and faith-based communities; private
sector and intergovernmental institutions—can work together for the common
good.
As the Secretary-General noted in his report, “The historic United Nations
conferences and summits held in the 1990s helped to build a comprehensive
normative framework . . . mapping out a broad vision of shared development
priorities.”2 It should also be noted that those conferences and summits which
were so influential in establishing the millennium agenda were also marked by
unprecedented participation of Non-Governmental Organizations and
members of civil society.
Realization of the vision of the Millennium Declaration and accomplishment of
the MDGs requires the continued participation of the citizens of the world.
Continued democratization of national, regional, and international
intergovernmental institutions is essential to good decision-making and good
governance. Likewise, increased participation by civil society actors,
especially Non-Governmental Organizations, in priority setting,
implementation and evaluation is indispensable to a world in larger freedom.
Millennium Development Goal 8 clearly acknowledges the importance of
partnerships in achieving the targets laid out in goals 1-7. However, its
breadth and scope is far too narrow. It does not go far enough in addressing
the underlying causes of the current economic and social imbalances and the
asymmetry of current partnerships. Furthermore, while it defines a clear place
and role for the private sector, there is no mention of the role of NGOs and
other civil society actors.
Global Partnership Recommendations:
1. The role of Non-Governmental Organizations in the Economic and
Social Council should be strengthened and their work extended to the
General Assembly.
2. Those most directly affected by aid, trade, debt and development policy
should be involved in its formulation at the national, regional and
international levels.
3. Timelines and measurable objectives for each indicator should be set
for Goal 8 targets including:
a. All OECD counties should set firm dates for achieving the
internationally agreed ODA target of .7% of GNI by September
2005.3
2
Report of the Secretary General, In Larger Freedom: Towards Development, Security and
Human Rights for All,(A/59/2005 (21 March 2005), 8.
3
We commend Denmark, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway and Sweden for meeting the
UN ODA target of 0.7 per cent of GNI and note that Belgium, Finland, France and Ireland
b. There should be100% debt cancellation for those countries
whose debts are unpayable on the basis of human development
needs and accomplishment of the MDGs by September 2005
Underlying Causes
The Millennium Declaration represents the clearest indication yet of a global
consensus on the need for bold common action to end extreme poverty, to
establish human security and to ensure the inalienable rights of all. The
Millennium Development Goals are an especially welcome tool which can be
employed by civil society actors to develop a global constituency for the
justice and peace agenda and to increase the accountability of governments
for their internationally agreed upon commitments.
However, we must take great care that the Millennium Development Goals do
not become either an end in themselves, or the full measure of a world in
larger freedom. The MDGs are, at best ‘minimum goals’. They tend to foster
a ‘charity’ approach to the problems of poverty and underdevelopment without
giving much attention to the systemic change needed to eliminate the root
causes which support existing structural injustice at the national and
international levels.
While the Secretary-General’s report suggests some significant changes in
the present structure and function of the United Nations it fails to adequately
address the need for fundamental reform of the present international
economic and political structures. There is little chance that the MDGs will be
achieved or that sustainable development will take root without the
democratization of present international political and financial institutions.
The scope of our attention must be widened to include not only the
consequences of poverty and social exclusion but also the root causes of the
current conditions of want, insecurity and injustice.
Structural Reform Recommendations:
1. The role of the Economic and Social Council should be strengthened.4
a. ECOSOC should assume primary responsibility for the
development agenda and its coordinating role with international
financial institutions including World Bank, the International
Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization should be
strengthened.5
b. ECOSOC should undertake an evaluation of the present
international development regime and make recommendations for
have now set firm dates by which they will achieve it. UNICEF, Progress for Children: A
Report Card on Gender Parity and Primary Education 2 (April 2005), 24-25.
4 We fully concur with the SG’s assessment concerning the need to restore balance among
the Councils and by extension their respective agendas. However, we are not sure that his
recommendations will result in an actual strengthening of ECOSOC. In Large Freedom, 4145.
5 If we thought it political feasible we would suggest that the Bretton Woods Institutions,
including the WTO be brought more directly within the United Nations system, possibly
through ECOSOC.
the creation of an open, rule-based, non-discriminatory trading and
financial system (see MDG 8, Target 12).
2. The global aid, trade and debt agenda should be brought into line with a
rights-based approach to human development and the accomplishment of
the Millennium Development Goals.
a. All Official Development Assistance should be untied and directed
toward areas identified as national MDG priorities.6
b. Trade reform should include a clear commitment to a just,
development-oriented international trading system.
c. All governments should demonstrate that development plans have
been formulated and monitored in consultation with those in civil
society most directly affected by those plans.
Education is Key
This year the world will miss the first, and perhaps the most critical, of all the
Millennium Development Targets—gender parity in primary and secondary
education. Unless we take immediate action, this unacceptably slow progress
will continue to be measured in the unnecessary deaths of millions of people,
the loss of billions of dollars and the postponement, perhaps by decades, of
the accomplishment of all the other Millennium Development Goals.7 When
girls are left behind the enormous social and economic benefits of girls’
education are lost to the entire community.
While many countries have made significant progress toward gender parity in
education, girls still account for 57% of the out-of-school children world-wide
and more than 60% in some regions. Of 83 developing nations for which data
are available only half have achieved gender parity at the primary level, less
than one-fifth have attained gender parity at the secondary level and only four
at the tertiary level.8
The Secretary-General has clearly identified girls’ education as an urgent
development priority.
If we are to succeed in our efforts to build a healthier, more peaceful
and equitable world, classrooms must be full of girls as well as boys.
By educating girls, we will help raise economic productivity and reduce
both maternal and infant mortality. By educating girls, we will improve
nutrition, promote health, and fight HIV/AIDS. By educating girls, we
will trigger a transformation of society as a whole -- social, economic
and political.9
However, simply providing access to school seats is not sufficient. Schooling
must always provide meaningful, quality education which enables the full
6
While we welcome calls to improve the quantity and quality of we hope that further
discussion will eventually include a move from “development aid” to the notion of “a
development tax.”
7 Girls Can’t Wait: Why Girls’ Education Matters, and How to Make it Happen (Brussels,
Belgium: Global Campaign for Education, 2005), 1.
8 EFA Global Monitoring, 1.
9 The Secretary-General's video message to the Conference on Gender Parity in EducationWashington, D.C., 2 March 2005.
development of the human person. It must promote understanding, tolerance
and respect for human rights as well as the development of the knowledge,
skills and attitudes necessary for all persons to participate effectively in
building democratic societies.
While no single model is appropriate for all, and education must always fit
carefully into local and national contexts, research has uncovered a common
set of elements which help to ensure quality education including:
 Teachers, with proper and continuous training, who encourage active,
participatory learning by students;10
 Curriculum and materials relevant to global, national and local needs,
grounded in students’ own culture and context and free of bias and
stereotypes;
 Local control of education in which parents, and other citizens, are
given an explicit role in holding schools and teachers accountable for
delivering results;11
 Flexible instruction modes, including alternative delivery formats,
classroom hours, and content, so as to meet the needs of out-of-school
children, particularly girls, and their families;12
 Transparent school management that is accountable to stakeholders
and constituents, and capable of monitoring and evaluating school
performance;13
 Dependable educational funding that ensures at least a minimum of
education infrastructure, materials, and personnel.14
The international community has consistently proclaimed its commitment to
Education for All and to the education Millennium Development Goals and
donor countries pledged their support for education at the International
Conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey.15 Thankfully aid to
education has shown a modest gain in the last few years. In 2002, ODA
commitments to education exceeded $4 billion for the first time since 1999
and represented about 9 per cent of total commitments. However, only about
23 per cent of this money is targeted specifically at basic education and far
less is ear-marked for girls’ education.16
Some governments have already shown the way forward. The governments
of Norway and Sweden have made significant contributions to girls’ education.
Those same governments, along with Finland, New Zealand, and the United
10
Teach a Child Transform A Nation (Washington, DC: The Basic Education Coalition, 2004),
3.
11
The UN Millennium Project Task Force on Education and Gender Equality, Toward
Universal Primary Education: Investments, Incentives, and Institutions (NY: UN Millennium
Project, 2005), 77.
12 Teach a Child Transform A Nation (Washington, DC: The Basic Education Coalition, 2004),
3.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid.
15 UNICEF, Progress for Children: A Report Card on Gender Parity and Primary Education, 2
(April 2005), 24.
16 Ibid.
Kingdom are supporters of the Education for All Fast-Track Initiative and
Spain and Argentina have agreed to a Debt-for-Education swap.17
However, with more than 100 million children out of school, we can not afford
to simply continue along our present course. We need heroic efforts, not
“more of the same “. Failure to meet the education goals set forth in
Millennium Declaration jeopardizes our ability meet the other goals and to
fulfill the promise of a world free from want, free from fear where all are free to
live in dignity.
Education Recommendations:
Civil society organizations and NGOs should partner with governments and
intergovernmental organizations to:
1. Build political will necessary to
a. Create a national and international ethos which clearly identifies
the importance and value of educating girls as well as boys.
b. Make the education of girls a priority recognizing the key role it
plays in the accomplishment of all the promises of the
Millennium Declaration.
2. Develop of Comprehensive National Education Strategies which
a. Include education as an essential component in all development
plans and poverty reduction strategies.
b. Encourage hard-to-reach children to attend school by
emphasizing quality, removing all school fees, introducing
conditional cash transfers and school feeding programs and
taking actions to make education girl-friendly, such as increasing
the number of female teachers, providing adequate sanitary
facilities, eliminating gender bias from the curriculum and.18
3. Mobilize National and International Resources for Education
a. Developing nations should increase national funding for basic
education to at least 3% of Gross Domestic Product.19
b. OECD nations should demonstrate their political and financial
commitment to “Education for All,” as well as, the “United
Nation’s Girls Education Initiative” and the World Bank’s “Fast
Track Initiative” by canceling the unpayable debt of poor
countries and increasing donor aid for basic education to at least
US$7 billion per year.20
Action—Not New Commitments
As the Secretary-General stated so succinctly, “The business of the summit to
be held in September 2005 must be to ensure that from now on, promises
made are promises kept”. 21 The most important work of the September High
Level meeting must be to revitalize the consensus on key priorities and turn
17
Ibid.
State of the World’s Children 2004: Girls, Education and Development, (NY: UNICEF,
2003), 84.
19 Girls Can’t Wait, 4.
20Ibid.
21
In Larger Freedom, 7.
18
those commitments into collective action which will lead to significant
improvement in the lives of the billions of people who live in conditions of
poverty, denied their human rights and human security.
We applaud the Secretary-General for situating his report within the
framework of the values upon which the United Nations was founded. Action
if it is to be authentic and efficacious, must always flow from our commitment
to common values which lie at the core of the perennial wisdom of the world’s
great religions and philosophies and are enshrined in the documents of the
United Nations. An action-agenda which seeks a world free from want, free
from fear—where all are free to live in dignity must embody:
 human dignity and human rights where all are valued in equal measure
and where the measure of every institution, policy and action is
whether it enhances or threatens human dignity;
 solidarity which acknowledges that we are one human family and that
the common good must be the concern of each and all of us;
 democratic participation to create solutions and social conditions that
allow all people to develop their full human potential;
 care for creation that acknowledges our essential kinship with all life;
 promotion of a culture of peace through work to establish a world
where justice and right relationships flourish.
Action Commitments:
1. We urge the leaders of the United Nations to recommit themselves to
the values of the Charter of the United Nations, the goals of the
Millennium Declaration and the objectives and targets detailed in the
Millennium Development Goals.
2. We commend to their deliberations the hopes and aspirations of all
people everywhere to live in freedom and dignity.
3. We expect the leaders of our world to keep the promises they have
made and we promise to partner with them to create a world in larger
freedom.