The following letter was sent on 28 June 2000 by WCC general secretary Rev Dr. Konrad Raiser to United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan. Raiser’s letter is a response to a report entitled "A Better World for All" issued jointly by the UN secretary-general with the senior officers of the OECD, the World Bank and the IMF at the opening of "Geneva 2000" - the UN Special Session on Social Development currently underway in Geneva. The full text of the WCC letter follows:

"Dear Mr Secretary-General,

We were gratified by your presence at the Cathédrale Saint Pierre this past Sunday, and for your public words there and elsewhere in recent weeks about what is at stake in "Geneva 2000."

It is therefore with some regret that I feel compelled to write to you with respect to the report, A Better World for All, that you issued jointly with the senior officers of the OECD, the World Bank and the IMF as the Summit opened.

This report was received with great astonishment, disappointment and even anger by many representatives of civil society and of non-governmental organizations gathered in Geneva to support and encourage the Special Session on Social Development following your consistent injunction to move the world closer to placing controls on the negative features of globalization. Among these representatives are members of the Ecumenical Team coordinated by the World Council of Churches.

The consternation of these civil society representatives, and a good many of the government delegates as well, was aroused by your participation in what amounted to a propaganda exercise for international finance institutions whose policies are widely held to be at the root of many of the most grave social problems facing the poor all over the world and especially those in the poor nations. We and many other non-governmental organizations have consistently supported the United Nations and encouraged you in efforts to address the injustices embodied in these institutions. By identifying yourself with the goals and the vision promoted by this report in your address to the General Assembly on 26 June, you have cast doubt upon the will of the United Nations to reaffirm the Copenhagen commitments and translate them into effective strategies for the eradication of poverty and further significant progress towards the goals of a people-centered approach to social development.

The World Council of Churches addresses these concerns to you not as a simplistic criticism of the United Nations or of your role as its Secretary-General. The WCC has been with the UN as a supporter and cooperating body since the San Francisco Conference. While we have not hesitated to issue our critique when it was due, we have done so as an organization deeply committed to the aims of the Charter, and as one substantially involved in many of the aspects of the work of the Organization. You are well aware of our consistent efforts to sustain and support you personally in your enlightened approach to leadership of the world body in challenging and critical times. Thus we warmly welcomed the statement in your Millennium Report that the challenges of globalization need a functioning platform for States "working together on global issues - all pulling their weight and all having their say."

We have noted with dismay in recent years how the UN’s development agenda has floundered as more and more responsibility for global economic and trade reform was ceded to the World Trade Organization and the Bretton Woods institutions controlled by a small number of highly industrialized countries. Their policies have not only failed to bridge the gap between rich and poor and achieve greater equality, but rather contributed to a widening gap, the virtual exclusion of an increasing number of the poor and widespread social disintegration. The OECD, comprised exclusively of rich countries can hardly be said to have the interests of the poor nations at the center of its concerns.

By privileging these organizations as your partners in presenting a vision to UNGASS, considerable damage has been done to the credibility of the UN as the last real hope of the victims of globalization. It signals an acceptance of the logic of the market and could further limit space for governments and civil society to develop alternative goals and means to achieving social development through democratic and transparent processes. The question of how major international decisions are made has become one of pressing urgency in the world today. If the UN abdicates its independence and its authority, to whom are the peoples to turn?

I am deeply aware of the difficulties involved in the burdens you have been asked to carry. Repeatedly you have said that the change for which you and we have all hoped through this Special Session would come in large part through the imagination, technical skills and courage of civil society to press the case of the people. You have often appealed to these forces as your source of hope and support. The motto of our own ecumenical team which has participated actively since Copenhagen in the preparation of Geneva 2000 has been: "A Change of Heart." In this spirit, we remain with and stand behind you, encouraging you to hold steadfastly to your oft-stated goals for this Social Summit."

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The World Council of Churches (WCC) is a fellowship of churches, now 337, in more than 100 countries in all continents from virtually all Christian traditions. The Roman Catholic Church is not a member church but works cooperatively with the WCC. The highest governing body is the assembly, which meets approximately every seven years. The WCC was formally inaugurated in 1948 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Its staff is headed by general secretary Konrad Raiser from the Evangelical Church in Germany.

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Oral Statement presented on 26 June 2000 to the Committee of the Whole of the Special Session of the General Assembly on the Implementation of the Outcome of the World Summit for Social Development and Further Initiatives, Geneva

I (Judy Williams, Grenada) speak to you on behalf of the Ecumenical Team which is co-ordinated by the World Council of Churches. In partnership with many others, we have made the journey from Copenhagen in 1995 to Geneva 2000. We have arrived at a critical moment in the process of implementing the commitments made by the world’s governments at Copenhagen. From our faith-based perspective, poverty eradication, full employment and social integration are fundamental. Our Jubilee vision includes sustainable, just and participatory communities and an interdependent world in which we share responsibility for one another.

We come to Geneva 2000 with a sense of profound disappointment. Efforts to implement the Copenhagen Declaration and Programme of Action have neither reversed nor significantly improved the situation for millions of the world’s people. In fact, the reality for many has dramatically worsened in spite of huge increases in wealth worldwide. In the past five years the few have continued to accumulate excessive wealth, while many still lack basic necessities and are constantly struggling to survive with human dignity and hope.

At this Special Session, we find the absence of a significant number of heads of states disturbing. Is this a sign that governments have abandoned their responsibilities? Does this reveal the extent to which the power of governments to act in the interests of their citizens has been usurped by the forces of globalization? Have governments been held hostage to market forces, and coerced into excluding social development from their central policy agendas?

People around the world are calling upon their governments and political leaders to stand up and to say "No!"—no to the imposition of globalization that allows markets to determine life and death for many; no to the privatization of goods and services necessary to sustain life; no to the illusion of "free" markets that lead to wealth concentration, weaken public accountability, and diminish social responsibility. Some significant voices in the global community are questioning a market system that widens the gap between rich and poor, disables democracy, undermines cultural diversity, and threatens biodiversity and the natural resources upon which life as we know and love it depends. People know the vital distinction between growth that nurtures just and sustainable communities, and growth that aggravates social inequity and environmental destruction.

Now is the time for people, their governments and the United Nations to claim a clear Jubilee vision and move boldly toward it, a vision of a global community whose interdependence is not reduced to trade and markets. This requires a change of heart, which recognizes that real value cannot be expressed in monetary terms, and that life in its many forms cannot be commodified. The economy should serve the well-being of people, rather than people being servants of the economy. This moral vision upholds the right of all people—particularly those excluded -- to participate in the economic realities that impact their lives. The ultimate aim of economic life is to nurture sustainable and just communities. Building such communities requires nothing less than profound moral courage and political action.

The urgency of the situation, and the Jubilee vision for sustainable and just communities leads us to call yet again for fundamental changes. We call for new financial institutions and systems that include the concerns and participation of developing countries in determining the direction of international financial institutions and trade regimes. We call for a stronger United Nations governance role through the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in establishing policy and accountability of international monetary, financial, and trade institutions and monitoring their practices. We support the implementation of currency transaction taxes. We reiterate the need for binding codes of conduct for transnational corporations, and financial and investment institutions to insure they are held accountable and responsible for the social and ecological consequences of their operations. Governments need to fully support the legitimate role of non-governmental organizations and people’s movements in planning, fostering, and monitoring social development. Finally, we repeat our fundamental opposition to proposals for an Enhanced HIPC initiative. Debt cancellation is a Jubilee imperative. The governments of the world must take political action to cancel the debt ... and do it now!

Now is the time for governments to recognize their fundamental responsibility for social development, and to take political action to honour the promises made at Copenhagen. Now is the time for the governments represented at Geneva 2000 to have a change of heart, commit themselves to true global solidarity, and dare to address the pressing social concerns of our time with courage and determination. Now is the time for the United Nations to be accorded—and to claim -- its legitimate role in building a world in which social justice and the social development of all people is secured. Now is the time for an economics of life and a politics of hope. Those who depend on you to act can wait no longer!

The Ecumenical Team

Geneva

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An ecumenical team is present for Geneva 2000 to offer a church viewpoint on social development. Being held 26-30 June, Geneva 2000 will assess results of the World Summit on Social Development, held in Copenhagen in 1995.

The team is coordinated by the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the Lutheran World Federation (LWF). The team has been active throughout the preparation for Geneva 2000, following the series of UN meetings in New York which started in 1998 to prepare for Geneva 2000, also called Copenhagen plus five. Team members represent global networks of the WCC, member churches, faith-based groups and partner organizations.

Team members have been following debates in the UN Commission on Social Development, talk with government representatives, make recommendations as UN documents and initiatives are prepared, and do whatever they can to keep diplomats and the world from forgetting the neediest and most marginalized people.

The World Council’s interest in this international effort to face the issues of social development was expressed at the Copenhagen event itself, where WCC General Secretary, Rev. Dr Konrad Raiser, addressed a plenary session and pledged the support of the churches for "promoting cultures of solidarity and life".

In selecting team members, priority was given to the South, to women and to indigenous people. As one team member put it, the purpose of the team is to "put a strong ethical vision forward" as the UN addresses social development issues. This vision is articulated in such statements as the February 2000 document "A Call for a Change of Heart:

Some Ethical Reflections to be Considered for the Draft Declaration" and the April document, " For Clarity of Vision, a Sense of Urgency and a Change of Heart."

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For more information on the work of the Ecumenical Team, the World Council of Churches, and Geneva 2000 and photos, visit the web site:

http://wcc-coe.org/wcc/what/jpc/geneva2000.html

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The World Council of Churches

on 20 June 2000 said:

 

When the members of an ecumenical international team arrive in Geneva on Wednesday, June 21, they will already have completed a marathon of meetings in preparation for the United Nations (UN) General Assembly’s Special Session on Social Development (UNGASS) - "Geneva 2000", June 26-30. The United Nations meeting in Geneva will review progress on commitments made at the 1995 World Summit on Social Development in Copenhagen, Denmark. It is the role of the ecumenical team to monitor critically the Special Session and to bring expert local voices to the UN discussion.

The ecumenical team is supported and coordinated by the World Council of Churches (WCC) in cooperation with the Lutheran World Federation (LWF). Its members represent the Council’s global networks, member churches, faith-based groups and partner organizations.

Explaining the team’s goals Gail Lerner, WCC UN representative in New York, and Rogate Mshana, WCC executive secretary for economic justice, said that they were giving primary emphasis to the first of the ten commitments in the plan of action adopted in Copenhagen: creation of an "environment that will enable people to achieve social development". Church representatives are also stressing the urgency of the second commitment, eradiction of poverty, they said.

From experience in the meetings they have already attended, the ecumenical team has concluded that Geneva 2000 will not likely bring any major steps towards the goals they consider especially important for social development in the poorer countries. But they point to promising incremental developments in three key areas:

• debt cancellation;
• democratization of the Bretton Woods institutions - World Bank and International Monetary Fund;
• Tobin tax - a currency transaction tax, first proposed by the economist James Tobin in 1972, that could help weak economies both by limiting currency speculation and by raising substantial sums for development.

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The Tobin Tax : An Idea Whose Time Has Come?

An orderly, stable and just international financial system has yet to be created. The current financial crisis in Asia is just one result of its non-existence. The current system fails spectacularly to channel sufficient funds towards the eradication of world poverty and other social and economic problems.

In the 1990s, the idea of taxing international currency operations - first proposed in 1972 by Nobel Prize laureate for economics James Tobin - was re-floated. Tobin had called for an internationally uniform tax, payable every time a currency was converted. His idea underwent several subsequent refinements; the current version draws upon the work of Professor Paul-Bernd Spahn of Frankfurt/Main University. Considered a workable variant, the proposal may now be able to mobilize enough political will for actual implementation.

The proposed Tobin tax, or currency transaction tax, would be payable every time a currency is converted into another, proportional to the size of the transaction. This would discourage speculation by making currency trading more costly, and also stabilize exchange rates. At the same time, with annual estimates of tax revenues ranging from tens of billions to hundreds of billions of US dollars (depending on tax bases, rates and types of financial instruments taxed), this globally raised revenue, largely outside the control of sovereign states, would create a global revenue base to be devoted to meeting the global challenge of poverty.