Dawn Breaker's Reflections

Representatives of 180 nations attend the inaugural ceremony of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Monday, June 14, 2004. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

Police block a few dozen people from aproaching the Anhembi convention center where the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) takes place in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Monday, June 14, 2004. (AP Photo/Alexandre Meneghini)

Tehran Times | SAO PAULO (AFP) — UN Secretary General Kofi Annan warned that rich countries must not use looming world trade talks to put up new barriers to commerce as he opened a key trade and development conference. "Policies ought not to give with one hand and take away with the other. Rules designed to liberate ought not to create new barriers," Annan said in an opening speech to the 11th UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

Reuters AlertNet Foundation| Food shortages and malnutrition in Darfur at critical levels - 17 Jun 2004 11:14:00 GMT

O CHILDREN OF DUST!

Tell the rich of the midnight sighing of the poor, lest heedlessness lead them into the path of destruction, and deprive them of the Tree of Wealth. To give and to be generous are attributes of Mine; well is it with him that adorneth himself with My virtues.

-The Hidden Words of Bahá'u'lláh , Part II (Persian) 49


The week of June 13-18 2004 witnessed, in the city of Sao Paulo, Brazil, one of the most significant international conferences in the history of the economic development of this planet's global society: the Eleventh Session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). On the 40th anniversary of the founding of this increasingly important organization, world leaders and trade representatives from 192 countries attended this week-long event in Sao Paulo, where together they agreed upon a manifesto entitled the "Spirit of Sao Paulo" and drafted the more in-depth, 24-page "Sao-Paulo Consensus". In these documents, UNCTAD members call for Global Equity and Trade Liberization, confirm their support for and recognition of the importance of the WTO Doha Round of Trade Talks (a plan by the World Trade Organization to liberalize world trade through means such as gradual elimination of all barriers to international trade), and commit themselves to supporting developing countries in their efforts to integrate into the global economy through support and development of many different programs and tools such as the Global System of Trade Preferences (GSTP) and related Special & Differential Treatment (S&DT) programs.

This historic conference, in addition to serving as an arena for the addressing of issues on UNCTAD's agenda, also served as a magnetic venue for many different gatherings of leaders of governments and non-governmental organizations, the most significant of which were the gathering of India, Brazil, Australia, EU and U.S. trade representatives on the sidelines of the Conference to discuss the urgent need to resuscitate the stalled WTO Doha Round of Trade Talks by a self-imposed deadline of July 2004, and a gathering of the 44 GSTP participant nations' trade representatives to discuss the re-launch and expansion of the GSTP (the goal is to at least double the number of GSTP-participating nations by inviting all 132 members of the G-77, the largest UN coalition of developing nations in the world, to join by 2006) in order to stimulate South-South international free trade among developing countries and increase their share of and participation in global trade (The GSTP participants' share of global trade grew from 24% in 1990 to a healthy 32% in 2000, indicating the growing importance of this block of nations.)

The conference also served as a sounding board for many governmental and NGO leaders' ideologies, future plans, calls for action and pleas to address issues such as the extremes of poverty and wealth, the need to bridle globalization for the benefit of poor as well as wealthy nations, the need for global taxation to fund humanitarian aid, the technology gap between wealthy and poor nations, the ever-present violation of human rights (special attention was given to the current humanitarian catastrophe in the Darfur Region of Sudan)as an obstacle for development, inequity in global trade policies and the need for further development and enforcement of international trade law, the need for more multilateral trade vs undermining bilateral trade agreements, the important role of women in social & economic development (SED), the need for landlocked developing nations to have ocean access for trade, among many, many other subjects.

For the first time in the history of UNCTAD, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) took consultative part in the event (rather than only having their traditional separate NGO Forum with little or no interaction with governmental bodies), and the importance of grassroots-level involvement was stressed as part of the overall strategy to address issues concerning international economic and social development. The strong ties between trade and development were reiterated and demonstrated by these NGOs who brought first-hand, cutting edge statistics from the field to prove such a connection in fact exists, thus contributing to UNCTAD's credibility in its claims and endeavors to modify international economic policy and law.

There were so many fruitful, positive outcomes from this conference that it would be impossible to list them all on this weblog, but suffice it to say that the Conference was a tremendous success, especially as far as the cohesion and unity of the body of nations represented was concerned. Unlike the WTO ministerial gathering in Cancun which was charactarized by an antagonistic, war-like spirit, this conference had a spirit of unity and cohesiveness, of agreement and understanding; the evidence of this was the "Spirit of Sao Paulo" declaration itself. The sessions of this conference closely resembled those of a united parliament, which has led the author to believe that this organization will continue to develop and exercise a more and more important role in the economic and social affairs of the world as its unity and credibility grow.

While this conference has exercised and will continue to exercise for many years to come a positive influence upon the progress of humanity towards a more equitable global society, there are yet many more steps to be taken. This Conference was like a toddler's first step in the process of learning how to run. Many of the issues that are at the very root of the social and economic problems facing our tender global society have yet to be addressed at such Conferences, but surely as humanity learns through trial and error it will come to realize what the causes of such issues are and will begin to successfully tackle them one by one.

To close this post, a long but enlightening quote from "The Prosperity of Humankind":


"...As the purpose of development is being redefined, it will become necessary also to look again at assumptions about the appropriate roles to be played by the protagonists in the process. The crucial role of government, at whatever level, requires no elaboration. Future generations, however, will find almost incomprehensible the circumstance that, in an age paying tribute to an egalitarian philosophy and related democratic principles, development planning should view the masses of humanity as essentially recipients of benefits from aid and training. Despite acknowledgement of participation as a principle, the scope of the decision making left to most of the world's population is at best secondary, limited to a range of choices formulated by agencies inaccessible to them and determined by goals that are often irreconcilable with their perceptions of reality.

This approach is even endorsed, implicitly if not explicitly, by established religion. Burdened by traditions of paternalism, prevailing religious thought seems incapable of translating an expressed faith in the spiritual dimensions of human nature into confidence in humanity's collective capacity to transcend material conditions.

Such an attitude misses the significance of what is likely the most important social phenomenon of our time. If it is true that the governments of the world are striving through the medium of the United Nations system to construct a new global order, it is equally true that the peoples of the world are galvanized by this same vision. Their response has taken the form of a sudden efflorescence of countless movements and organizations of social change at local, regional, and international levels. Human rights, the advance of women, the social requirements of sustainable economic development, the overcoming of prejudices, the moral education of children, literacy, primary health care, and a host of other vital concerns each commands the urgent advocacy of organizations supported by growing numbers in every part of the globe.

This response of the world's people themselves to the crying needs of the age echoes the call that Bahá'u'lláh raised over a hundred years ago: "Be anxiously concerned with the needs of the age ye live in, and center your deliberations on its exigencies and requirements." The transformation in the way that great numbers of ordinary people are coming to see themselves -- a change that is dramatically abrupt in the perspective of the history of civilization -- raises fundamental questions about the role assigned to the general body of humanity in the planning of our planet's future.

The bedrock of a strategy that can engage the world's population in assuming responsibility for its collective destiny must be the consciousness of the oneness of humankind. Deceptively simple in popular discourse, the concept that humanity constitutes a single people presents fundamental challenges to the way that most of the institutions of contemporary society carry out their functions. Whether in the form of the adversarial structure of civil government, the advocacy principle informing most of civil law, a glorification of the struggle between classes and other social groups, or the competitive spirit dominating so much of modern life, conflict is accepted as the mainspring of human interaction. It represents yet another expression in social organization of the materialistic interpretation of life that has progressively consolidated itself over the past two centuries.

In a letter addressed to Queen Victoria over a century ago, and employing an analogy that points to the one model holding convincing promise for the organization of a planetary society, Bahá'u'lláh compared the world to the human body. There is, indeed, no other model in phenomenal existence to which we can reasonably look. Human society is composed not of a mass of merely differentiated cells but of associations of individuals, each one of whom is endowed with intelligence and will; nevertheless, the modes of operation that characterize man's biological nature illustrate fundamental principles of existence. Chief among these is that of unity in diversity. Paradoxically, it is precisely the wholeness and complexity of the order constituting the human body -- and the perfect integration into it of the body's cells -- that permit the full realization of the distinctive capacities inherent in each of these component elements. No cell lives apart from the body, whether in contributing to its functioning or in deriving its share from the well-being of the whole. The physical well-being thus achieved finds its purpose in making possible the expression of human consciousness; that is to say, the purpose of biological development transcends the mere existence of the body and its parts.

What is true of the life of the individual has its parallels in human society. The human species is an organic whole, the leading edge of the evolutionary process. That human consciousness necessarily operates through an infinite diversity of individual minds and motivations detracts in no way from its essential unity. Indeed, it is precisely an inhering diversity that distinguishes unity from homogeneity or uniformity. What the peoples of the world are today experiencing, Bahá'u'lláh said, is their collective coming-of-age, and it is through this emerging maturity of the race that the principle of unity in diversity will find full expression. From its earliest beginnings in the consolidation of family life, the process of social organization has successively moved from the simple structures of clan and tribe, through multitudinous forms of urban society, to the eventual emergence of the nation-state, each stage opening up a wealth of new opportunities for the exercise of human capacity.

Clearly, the advancement of the race has not occurred at the expense of human individuality. As social organization has increased, the scope for the expression of the capacities latent in each human being has correspondingly expanded. Because the relationship between the individual and society is a reciprocal one, the transformation now required must occur simultaneously within human consciousness and the structure of social institutions. It is in the opportunities afforded by this twofold process of change that a strategy of global development will find its purpose. At this crucial stage of history, that purpose must be to establish enduring foundations on which planetary civilization can gradually take shape.

Laying the groundwork for global civilization calls for the creation of laws and institutions that are universal in both character and authority. The effort can begin only when the concept of the oneness of humanity has been wholeheartedly embraced by those in whose hands the responsibility for decision making rests, and when the related principles are propagated through both educational systems and the media of mass communication. Once this threshold is crossed, a process will have been set in motion through which the peoples of the world can be drawn into the task of formulating common goals and committing themselves to their attainment. Only so fundamental a reorientation can protect them, too, from the age-old demons of ethnic and religious strife. Only through the dawning consciousness that they constitute a single people will the inhabitants of the planet be enabled to turn away from the patterns of conflict that have dominated social organization in the past and begin to learn the ways of collaboration and conciliation. "The well-being of mankind," Bahá'u'lláh writes, "its peace and security, are unattainable unless and until its unity is firmly established."

(Baha'i International Community, 1995 Mar 03, The Prosperity of Humankind)

Representatives of 180 nations attend the inaugural ceremony of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Monday, June 14, 2004. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

Police block a few dozen people from aproaching the Anhembi convention center where the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) takes place in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Monday, June 14, 2004. (AP Photo/Alexandre Meneghini)

Tehran Times | SAO PAULO (AFP) — UN Secretary General Kofi Annan warned that rich countries must not use looming world trade talks to put up new barriers to commerce as he opened a key trade and development conference. "Policies ought not to give with one hand and take away with the other. Rules designed to liberate ought not to create new barriers," Annan said in an opening speech to the 11th UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

Reuters AlertNet Foundation| Food shortages and malnutrition in Darfur at critical levels - 17 Jun 2004 11:14:00 GMT

This week in Sao Paulo, from June 13-18, one of the most significant economic & social development events in the history of our fledgling global society is taking place: the Eleventh Session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development(UNCTAD), which happens to coincide with the 40th anniversary of this increasingly important UN organization. The Conference Center where the event is being held has become a lively venue for world leaders to hold many bilateral and multilateral discussions along the sidelines of the main event, including a meeting that took place between Brazil, India, Australia, EU and U.S. trade representatives to discuss the resuscitation of the stalled WTO Doha Round Trade talks by a WTO self-imposed July deadline.

After the Closing Ceremony of this historically significant event, reflections will soon be posted on this site upon the immediate, mid and long-term impacts of this Conference on the State of the World.