PRESS
RELEASE
United Nations Population
Fund
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The ICPD+5 review
process
POLICY-MAKING TOO IMPORTANT
TO LEAVE
TO GOVERNMENTS ALONE, DHAKA ROUND TABLE TOLD
DHAKA, Bangladesh, 27 July -- Setting a
provocative tone for the just-opened Round Table on Partnership with
Civil Society in the Implementation of the ICPD Programme of Action,
Bangladeshi development expert Rahman Sobhan said, "Policy making is
too important a subject to be left to the care of governments."
Mr. Sobhan, a former government official and now the Chairman of
the Centre for Policy Dialogue, was one of three panellists at
today’s plenary session, intended to give an overview of issues to
be taken up at the four-day meeting organized by the United Nations
Population Fund (UNFPA). The others were Ingar Brueggemann,
Director-General of the International Planned Parenthood Federation
(IPPF), and Ghulam Samdani, Secretary of Pakistan’s Ministry of
Population Welfare. Mohammed Nizamuddin, Director of UNFPA’s
Technical and Policy Division, was the moderator. The round table is
the third in a series reviewing progress in carrying out the
recommendations of the 1994 International Conference on Population
and Development (ICPD).
Governments in many countries, Mr. Sobhan argued, no longer have
the resources to shoulder their responsibilities, and are being
reduced to "mere coordinating agencies" for aid donors. These
external actors have appropriated the development policy agenda,
getting governments to implement the policies they formulate by
attaching conditions to their assistance.
"No area has been more affected by this process than the area of
reproductive health and family planning," he said. Conflicting
recommendations by various international donors that provide
resources for family planning programmes sometimes result in
"projects with competing aims, and a waste of resources."
The concept of "civil society" -- the focus of the round table --
has been abused over the years, he continued. Non-governmental
organizations (NGOs), he argued, do not by themselves constitute
civil society, which includes citizens engaged in civic mobilization
to improve their communities. Many of those actors have organized
locally on issues like family planning, improving the environment,
or opposing military dictatorships in Bangladesh’s case. Civil
society predates today’s NGOs, dating back more than 100 years in
the Indian subcontinent, for instance, to protests against the
burning of widows.
Governments are being downsized, demoralizing civil servants, and
many of their functions are being taken over by privatization on the
one hand, and "NGO-ization" on the other. Ironically, he contended,
the increasing reliance on NGOs to carry out programmes has weakened
and disempowered civil society in many nations. As NGOs have grown
from small, spontaneous civic groups into large, externally funded
groups with many employees, they have become less transparent, and
accountable only to their donors, not their constituents.
Small and effective civil society groups should be mobilized to
counter well-funded forces that are actively opposing the ICPD’s
reproductive health agenda, he suggested. He also called on
round-table participants to suggest ways that States and civil
society can cooperate on reproductive health and related issues.
In her statement to the overview plenary, Ms. Brueggemann said
partnerships between governments and civil society must strike a
balance between cooperation and a clear demarcation of the
respective roles of each sector or organization.
"NGOs must not allow governments to abdicate their social
responsibility," she stressed. They should continue to act as "a
nagging force" advocating for change. They should retain their
independence by stating clearly under what terms they will enter
affiliations. In cooperating with governments and other sectors of
civil society, NGOs can perform a variety of functions: they can
establish and develop sexual and reproductive health as a movement;
act as watchdogs; set and monitor standards; become donors; and
provide technical assistance. They should restrict their activities
to those they can carry out effectively, with a proper division of
labour between them and governments.
Partnerships and networking -- with less exclusivity -- should
become the norm throughout the world, Ms. Brueggemann said. NGOs
should work to overcome resistance to dialogue with governments and
other NGOs, she concluded.
Mr. Samdani said he agreed with the view that many NGOs are
neither transparent nor accountable, although there is an increasing
transfer of roles to them. Countering Mr. Sobhan’s view that policy
making is too important to be left to government alone, he said
democracies are run by the elected representatives of a country’s
people. While bureaucracies are often criticized, he said it should
be kept in mind that they merely carry out policies and do not make
them.
Civil society should be involved in development and in
implementing the Programme of Action since there are many things
that government cannot do, he continued. For example, in Pakistan,
an Islamic society, NGOs can discuss reproductive issues more openly
than the Government can. "NGOs should accept their roles as partners
of government, work together and take the ICPD agenda forward
together to save the world from a population explosion that will
affect the entire global community," he said. "All of us, all
citizens, all governments, all NGOS and all civil society actors
must be involved in carrying out the ICPD agenda. In that endeavour,
a partnership of all sides is necessary."
Following the plenary, the round-table participants split up into
four working groups to consider in detail different aspects of civil
society involvement in implementing the ICPD Programme of Action.
The meeting will continue until 30 July.
(For information purposes only. Not an official
document.)
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