Dear colleagues,
I'd like to state my agreement with this reaction to the Open Working Group summary. It is very disappointing. It is supposed to represent the gist of what was said during the eight substantive sessions, much of which was in fact "business as usual" thinking, but it leaves out many voices that spoke very clearly against the economic orthodoxy. For our part at Inter-Parliamentary Union, we made a strong case for a new economic model centered on well-being, not on economic growth by the usual means, and several member states also made arguments in that direction. However, there is no evidence whatever of that discussion in this summary. Similar views expressed by civil society and particularly the Women major group were left out entirely. Also note that in the end most of the discussion remains focused on the developing countries a la MDGs, with not much said about how the new agenda should apply to the developed countries. Had that being the case, everything the paper says about the virtues of economic growth as the driver of development (and of course we can assume it's growth by private sector, aka, big business), then it would have had to acknowledge that "perhaps" the consumerist model and the over-consumption of the developed world constitutes a little bit of a problem if global sustainability is to be achieved in any way.
I am very impressed and encouraged with this discussion and I agree with the comment that adding protection to the existing enterprise model will not cut it. We need to embed the social in the economic from the production level up.
Alessandro Motter
Senior Advisor (economic and social affairs)
Inter-Parliamentary Union
Office of the Permanent Observer to the United Nations
New York, USA
Office: +1 212 557 5880
Fax: +1 212 557 3954
I'd like to state my agreement with this reaction to the Open Working Group summary. It is very disappointing. It is supposed to represent the gist of what was said during the eight substantive sessions, much of which was in fact "business as usual" thinking, but it leaves out many voices that spoke very clearly against the economic orthodoxy. For our part at Inter-Parliamentary Union, we made a strong case for a new economic model centered on well-being, not on economic growth by the usual means, and several member states also made arguments in that direction. However, there is no evidence whatever of that discussion in this summary. Similar views expressed by civil society and particularly the Women major group were left out entirely. Also note that in the end most of the discussion remains focused on the developing countries a la MDGs, with not much said about how the new agenda should apply to the developed countries. Had that being the case, everything the paper says about the virtues of economic growth as the driver of development (and of course we can assume it's growth by private sector, aka, big business), then it would have had to acknowledge that "perhaps" the consumerist model and the over-consumption of the developed world constitutes a little bit of a problem if global sustainability is to be achieved in any way.
I am very impressed and encouraged with this discussion and I agree with the comment that adding protection to the existing enterprise model will not cut it. We need to embed the social in the economic from the production level up.
Alessandro Motter
Senior Advisor (economic and social affairs)
Inter-Parliamentary Union
Office of the Permanent Observer to the United Nations
New York, USA
Office: +1 212 557 5880
Fax: +1 212 557 3954
