Johan B P Maramis:
10. REACHING THE LESS FORTUNATE
It is broader sense social development embraces virtually all of ESCAP’s activities. An essential component of
economic development, social development concentrated on several vital areas relating
to social policy development, popular participation, social welfare programs,
activities for participation of youth and the integration of women in regional
development plans.
The most glaring problems in Asia Pacific region were poverty, low productivity,
poor health, and nutrition, and massive unemployment and /or under employment.
A
landmark of ESCAP’s social development
Division was the second Asian and Pacific Ministerial Conference on Social
Welfare and Social Development in late 1980. The Conference re-affirmed that
social development must accompany economic development and the result of
development could no longer be measured solely in terms of Gross National
Product, with the benefit of the human individual as the end
result. Development policies must aim at providing more productive
employment, relieving poverty, making education, housing and health services
more readily available to all, and distributing income and wealth more
equitably.
The social development activities undertaken by ESCAP were part of a
comprehensive and integrated effort toward regional and national development
and complemented the policies and programs of member countries.
The mobilization of youth for national development focused on enhancing
the welfare and status of youth and ensuring their integration in development.
More specifically, it sought to increase the level of national concern with the
problem of youth in national development efforts while building up trained
manpower and necessary leadership to undertake youth development work.
For example, in co-operation with the World Council of Churches. ESCAP
held a leadership workshop for youth leaders and workers from Papua New Guinea.
The role of women in development received ever-increasing attention and
ESCAP’s program for women focused on building the individual and collective
self-reliance of women at grass roots level. Again the
Pacific region provided a good example. Women from seven island countries
received training in basic rural family and community services. Elsewhere,
national co-ordinators from five Pacific island
countries attended an intensive workshop on training of rural women in
income-raising activities.
ESCAP also brought together successful women farmers in Tuvalu in the
South Pacific to meet women on other islands. Capitalizing on such operational
and demonstrational experience, ESCAP in co-operation with FAO instituted a
peer-teaching methodology for use in other countries.
Meanwhile,
to reach policy makers, ESCAP provided a package of services to train national
planners and operational-level personnel in project identification, formulation
and evaluation as well as technical and consultancy service.
The
activities of ESCAP in health and development featured a series of 10-week
regional training courses on planning, development and health, and a 5-week
regional training seminar on primary health care. ESCAP also undertook
comparative studies in areas such as community participation, and prepared
planning manuals.
Copenhagen Conference
Of prime importance was the follow –up to the 1980 Copenhagen Conference
of the United Nations Decade for Women. Representatives of the 12 members and
associate members of ESCAP, as well as observers from French Polynesia and New
Caledonia were among the participants who gathered in Fiji in October. This
meeting represented the first international follow-up action of the Copenhagen
Conference and it adopted a sub-regional plan of action for the United Nations
Decade for Women.
Human settlements.
In human settlement, ESCAP’s future role was directed towards developing
strategies aimed at upgrading existing settlements and re-directing the growth
of nascent ones, acutely aggravated by massive rural-urban migration.
Decentralization to the region of staff and programs from the United Nations
Centre for Human Settlement (Habitat) would facilitate ESCAP’s endeavours. It was hoped that the United Nations Regional
housing Centre for research on Human Settlement at Bandung would be
strengthened to enable them to become centres of
research on housing building materials and related subjects.
Family planning was carried out on the national level in well over 30
Asia and Pacific countries, which taken together account for 90% of the
region’s population. ESCAP’s input to population activities may be considered
as a \n element of the “macro” effort to reach and sustain the broader aspect
of demographic goals through population-influencing policies and programs in
three main fields, namely general demography, fertility and family planning.
ESCAP provided training for population personnel through a number of workshops, training courses and seminars and
provided scholarships for advances demographic training at universities within
and outside the region. It organized and supported many research projects on
population in the region. Important activities included the preparation of
technical reports on regional trends and characteristics in the context of
social and economic development; reviews and appraisal of programme
performance and comparative studies. An example was the country monographs
project, which sought to analyse past present and
future demographic trends in relation to socio-economic development in each
country.
The main
thrust of the Population Division was to show how population factors could be
influenced to promote the development goals of regional countries. The division
focused on the population problems in Asia and Pacific as a
whole and in its sub-regions and recommended actions for their
solutions.
The
division worked within the parameters of the Asian and Pacific population
programmes. The regional Asian Conference highlighted it and the Pacific
Population Conference convened every ten years to review progress and propose
further strategies and action. The division’s three sections would implement
the programme: the general demography section, the fertility and family
planning section and the clearinghouse and information section.
The research projects of this section were aimed at the improvement of
national and regional development strategies through a complete understanding
of the relationship between development objectives, population and other
factors and the use of technology and resources. The programme
in 1980s included the development of economic-demographic models and analytical
techniques for fertility and mortality.
The relationship between migration, urbanization and development were
the subject of another project geared to migration policy-making. The
improvement of vital statistics systems, and the establishment of population
units in national planning bodies were the two fields for technical assistance.
This section focused on policy measures relating to fertility among the
populations of the ESCAP countries. A deeper understanding of the fertility behaviour, improved management of programmes
to reduce fertility, monitoring of fertility trends and levels, and improved
evaluation of fertility policies and programmes were
the objectives. The section contributed to a global project in comparative
analysis of fertility data. Other fields of research and work were the
relationship between fertility behaviour and the
size, structure and function of the family, socio-psychological aspect of
fertility and family planning programmes and
integrated programmes with food and nutrition
components.
This section aimed at establishing national clearinghouses; transferring
service responsibilities to national clearinghouses; providing advice and
supporting sub-regional clearing houses programmes.
In line with the Colombo Declaration which defined food as the most
urgent priority, ESCAP developed an all embracing programme
in the field of food and agriculture, being the backbone of development in most
of the countries in the in the region.
The
Agriculture Division formulated policies and activities focusing on more
efficient production of the limited land under cultivation.
Major emphasis was intensification of agricultural production through an
integrated strategy of development encompassing crops livestock, fisheries and
forestry, followed by agro-processing and intensive
by –product utilization.
ESCAP provided consultation, training and information on the
socio-economic of food and agriculture.
It also
analysed the agricultural policies and strategies to determine if faults could
be corrected in land ownership, patterns the price policies and other related
areas.
The lack of trained personnel hampered effective agriculture planning,
analyses, implementation and evaluation, and therefore ESCAP undertook training
activities in member countries through seminars and workshops. by organizing
visits to successful agricultural projects of regional agricultural planners.
It also helped the developing countries to exchange experience and transfer of
technology.
ESCAP had develop several programmes aimed at
increasing food supplies by diversification of agriculture, with special
emphasis on coarse grain, pulses root and tuber crops (CGPRT). In addition, it
was also involved in the stabilization of food supplies and prices through food
security systems of the Asian Rice Trade Fund.
The Secretariat carried out studies and surveys on CGPRT crops, and
assisted the regional co-ordinating centres for research and development of CGPRT crops which
would begin co-operation in 1981 in Bogor, Indonesia
Food production, marketing and trade, storage and transportation were
being studied to work out programs for regional co-operation in food security.
The Asian Rice Trade Fund, which would help to stabilize the market for this
commodity, was supported by advisory and secretarial assistance to the Fund
Board of Directors.
ESCAP encouraged the use of inputs to increase smallholder crop
production in the ESCAP developing countries. The assistance was in the
framework of the Agricultural Requisites scheme for Asia and the Pacific.
The low level and improper use of agro-pesticides
in the region had led tom waste and ineffective pest control. The scheme tried
to improve the management programme and marketing
practices.
A regional information network on chemical fertiliser
marketing and supply and the promotion of technical co-operation in the region
were implemented to improve fertiliser’s supply and
use.
ESCAP’s
responsibilities were enormous and steadily increasing as the economic and
social gap between the industrially advanced countries and the large majority
of
developing
countries continued to widen. With its limited resources and manpower, ESCAP
tried to limit the gap with its efforts described above to try to reach the
poor.
It is my
earnest hope that all the efforts being made by the Unites Nations Family (UN
proper including ESCAP, its agencies and bodies) would assist them in their
struggle to survive.
We can only hope those efforts would at least give the less fortunate
rays of hope for a better future.
Posted
April 28, 2002 - rudyct https://tumoutou.com