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 -
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