Debates about the meaning and legitimacy of what constitutes ‘security’ in international politics are not new.  During the Cold War, for example, there was a widespread—though by no means universal—consensus among international relations scholars that ‘security’ meant ‘national security’, i.e., the interests and survival of the state.  Distinctions often were made between ‘high’ and ‘low’ politics in international relations.  High politics was the realm f national security whereas low politics referred to the mundane world of international trade and finance and various forms of economic and social transactions that crossed international borders.  With the oil shocks in the early 1970s and the crisis brought on by the Arab oil embargo in 1973 following the Middle East War, the distinction between high and low politics became increasingly difficult to sustain.  Economics was clearly a matter of high politics if the economic health of the state was to be jeopardized by skyrocketing energy prices. 

 If essential sources of supply were threatened because of war or the actions of oil-producing states, there was clearly little practical distinction between an ‘economic’ and a ‘national security’ crisis.  As scholars and practitioners developed a better appreciation of how relations of economic interdependence affect the fundamental health and welfare of states, the purview of national security studies—and with it, the concept of security—expanded (see Buzan et al., 1998)

 Although many were prepared to accept a definition of national security that included an economic component, others were resistant to the idea of expanding the concept further to include other kinds of non-military threats, such as those of the environmental, biological, and even human (e.g., refugee) variety (Walt, 1998).  Proponents of environmental security argued that problems such as ozone depletion in the upper atmosphere or the prospect of global warming posed threats to human health and survival that were just as serious, if not more so, than the threat of war from hostile states.  With the end of the Cold War, they argued that the risks and potential costs of these human-induced environmental threats were more serious than traditional military threats and that therefore they should receive more attention and correspondingly greater resources to address them.  Defenders of the narrower conception of security based on traditional military threats to the state retorted that if the concept of security was expanded to include very conceivable threat to humanity, it would be so diluted as to mean nothing and would therefore be of little analytical or policy relevance.  They also argued that although the threat of military confrontation between the two superpowers had diminished with the end of the Cold War, the prospect of intercommunal strife and regional conflict had grown and military power still had its uses.

 Even so, some environmentalist believed that the language of national security was ill-equipped to address problems of the global commons that required co-operative, as opposed to independent, national solutions.  They argued that the language of national security needlessly ‘militarized’ problems, and in a psychological, way that was damaging to developing new cognitive frames of reference that would foster international co-operation.  During the Cold War, there were also critics within the traditional security studies camp who believed that the existence of nuclear weapons had fundamentally changed the nature of warfare and international conflict such that the risks of escalation of conventional conflict to the nuclear level were unacceptable. 

 These critics advocated a conception of ‘co-operative’ or ‘common’ security premised on the view that nation-states—especially those with nuclear weapons—had more to gain from co-operation when it came to reducing the risks of war and avoiding nuclear annihilation.  They questioned the premise that nuclear weapons were useful for deterrence because the risks of nuclear war were simply too great and the threat of nuclear use was simply not credible.

 The newest turn in the debate about the meaning and content of security comes from champions of the concept of human security.  Like earlier critics, advocates of human security share grave doubts about the utility of a concept of security anchored on the nation-state and abstract definitions of ‘national interest’.     However, the concept of human security is not just an argument about securing basic human rights.

 It is a conception that goes much further in its understanding, both about the potential sources of threat (or privation) to these rights and about the conditions and kinds of institutions and governance; arrangements (domestic as well as international) required sustaining human rights.

 Some proponents of human security also have decidedly ambivalent feelings about the role of the nation-state in advancing and promoting human security.  Although they recognize that democracy is necessary for human security, they also believe that the state itself has a potentially limited role to play in securing many of the conditions necessary for human security and well-being.  Certain aspects of the modern state are even considered obstacles or impediments to the advancement of human security.  Opinions about the relationship and importance of the state to human security naturally differ:

 some human security advocates have a strong pro-statist orientation because they believe that a strong, democratic state is ultimately the best guarantee and instrument of human security.    Others, however, believe that given the changing nature and structure of the international system and the emergence of a wide range of transnational forces and actors, new kinds of governance arrangements that transcend the territoriality and traditional functions of the nation-state must be created in order to promote human security.  They also believe that current international institutions are also not especially well-suited to addressing the new threats and challenges to human security because of the inherent bias towards the nation-state and principles of sovereignty in these institutions. 

 Conceptions of Human Security

 In discussing what is meant by the term ‘human security’ it is important to recognize that there are different schools of though about the meaning and implications of the concept.  Just as there is an active debate about the meaning of ‘security’ so, too, is there a growing and lively debate about the definitional boundaries of ‘human security and how the concept relates to the wider meanings of security.

 Although there is an obvious danger in drawing artificial distinctions in the current (and admittedly evolving) discourse about ‘human security’, three rather different understandings about how best to understand and promoted human security have emerged in this ongoing debate.  The first approach is what might be called a rights-based approach to human security centred on a fairly board definition of human security (in the sense of entertaining a wide variety of different legal rights), but nonetheless anchored in the rule of law and treaty-based solutions to human security. 

 The rights-based approach to human security seeks to strengthen normative legal frameworks at both the international and regional levels while also deepening and strengthening human rights law and legal and juridical systems at the national level, i.e., within the nation-state.  According to the human rights/rule-of-law view of human security, international institutions are central to developing new human rights norms and for brining about a convergence in different national standards and practices.

The second approach to human security is centered primarily, though not exclusively, on a humanitarian conception of human security where the ‘safety of peoples’ (sometimes described as ‘freedom from fear’) is the paramount objective behind international interventions.  This conception of human security sees war as one of the principal threats to human security and draws an important moral distinction between combatants and non-combatants.  Given the nature of modern warfare, non-combatants are increasingly being put in harm’s way not only because of the way wars are being fought, but also by the kinds of weapons used to fight them.  Since the founding of the  International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in he nineteenth century, the notion that people should be protected from violent threats and, when they are harmed or injured, that the international community has an obligation to assist them has gained widespread acceptance.  Many humanitarian intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations have had their origins in wars.

 The ‘safety of peoples’ approach to human security also sees a need to go beyond the provision of emergency and humanitarian relief in war-torn societies and conflict settings by addressing the underlying cases of conflict and violence.  As the United Nations and the international community in general became involved in long-term political and economic reconstruction as a result of the conclusion of formal peace settlements, many of which were negotiated in the 1980s and early 1990s, the importance was recognized of adopting ‘an integrated approach to human security’ that would, at the same time, address the deeper causes of conflict such as ‘economic despair, social injustice, and political oppression’ (Boutros-Ghali, 1992). Reflecting this change in thinking, the United Nations Security Council issued a declaration in 1992 formally recognizing that ‘the non-military sources of instability in the economic, social, humanitarian, and ecological fields have become threats to peace and security’.  The goals of human security thus came to be linked to preventive and post-conflict peace building and to a considerably enlarged understanding of the challenges, the international community confronted in reducing the potential for armed conflict and civil violence around the globe. 

 The third and, in some respects, most expansive definition of human security is what might be termed the ‘sustainable human development’ view of human security.  This conception is associated with the United Nations Human Development Report (1994), which offered a wide-ranging analysis and assessment of the different dimensions of human security.  Human security was defined in terms of economic, food, health, environmental, personal, community, and political security.  The Report argued that the end of the Cold War provided real opportunities to capture the ‘peace dividend’ and that the real threats to human security in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries were coming from disease such as AIDS and from drug trafficking, terrorism, global poverty, and environmental problems.  These problems were not local (or national) but global in scope, requiring new ways of thinking and new institutions and forms of global co-operation to deal with them.  However, underlying many of these problems—though obviously not all-are fundamental problems of inequality and a lack of social justice in international relations (also referred to as the ‘freedom from want’ dimensions of human security).

 In the discussion that follows, we will elaborate on these three different conceptions of human security and consider the similarities and differences between them.

 Rights and Rule of Law

 The rights and rule-of-law conception of human security has its origins in liberal democratic theory and the foundations of the modern democratic state.  It considers the main threat to human security to lie in the denial of fundamental human rights, including the right of national self-determination, and the absence of the rule of law.  Of these rights, the issue of minority rights is the most problematic because minority rights may conflict not just with the ‘will of the majority’ but also with the rights of the individual.  Although some argue that minority rights trump many other civil and political rights, others argue that minority rights are not unlimited and that the political and social space occupied by such group rights must not curtail or restrict the fundamental civic rights of the individual.

 In international politics, the belief that respect for human rights is linked to international peace and security arguably goes back to the so-called Peace to Westphalia, enshrined in the Osnabrück and Munster Treaties of 1648, which not only ended the religious wars of Europe and formalized the principle of sovereignty, but also sought to guarantee for religious minorities the right to practice their own religion with the understanding that all parties to the treaties would respect these rights in exchange for territorial (i.e., sovereign) control.   

In the American and French revolutions, the ‘rights of man’ were given political and legal effect, although there was no immediate universal acknowledgement of these rights.  That would come after World War II in the UN Charter and Declaration of Human Rights.  However, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, international recognition of majority rights grew.  French forces intervened in Turkey in 1860 to protect the local Christian population in Lebanon form being massacred by the Druses and Russia intervened in Bulgaria in the 1870s to halt the murder of Christians. 

 With the end of World War I, minority rights became equated with the concept of self-determination.  Woodrow Wilson’s ‘14 points’ in his address to the US Congress on 8 January 1918 called for the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France, the readjustment of Italy’s frontiers ‘along clearly recognized lines of nationality’, limited self-government for the people of Austria-Hungary, independence for the Balkan  counties, independence for Poland, and ‘an opportunity to develop self-government’ for those nationalities ‘under Turkish rule’.   

The mechanisms of protection included the right of minorities to petition the League if they felt their rights under of minorities living within their borders.  The mechanisms of protection included the rights of minorities living within their borders.  The mechanisms of protection included the right of minorities to petition the League if they felt their rights under the treaties were being violated, the establishment of special Minorities Committees  in the League to oversee these disputes, and advisory jurisdiction of the Permanent Court of International Justice on issues pertaining to the interpretation or application of the treaties.  The League of Nations was to ensure compliance with these treaties, but its record of protection after an auspicious start in the 1920s worsened in the 1930s because those countries bound by the treaties rejected the double standard that forced a distinction between them and the colonial powers.

 The Versailles conference in 1919 also saw an attempt to secure rights to religious freedom and racial equality in the League’s Covenant.  However, Woodrow Wilson strongly opposed any mention of race in the Charter, so the proposal to include these rights was withdrawn.  There was a second attempt in the 1930s, led by France and Poland, to develop an international agreement on human rights, but this, too, came to naughty because of international opposition as well as for fear of antagonizing Nazi Germany.

 The experience with fascism in the 1930s, coupled with Nazi and Japanese atrocities during World War II, underscored the need for the international community to pay much greater attention to human rights.  Although the UN Charter does not define the content of human rights per se, it does suggest a linkage between human rights and international peace and security. 

 The linkage is implied in the various affirmations in the Preamble and in Article 1, which spell out the purpose of the organization.  The Preamble to the Charter ‘reaffirms faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small.’  Unlike the Covenant of the League of Nations, the United Nations Charter states that one of the main purposes of the organization is ‘To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of people’ (Article 1, Section 2).  In addition, the United Nations aims to encourage ‘respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, and religion’ (Article 1, section 3). 

In Article 55 and 46 all members of the organization pledge themselves to take ‘joint and stability and well-being which are necessary for peaceful and friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples’, and, in addition, ‘universal respect for and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion’. 

 International efforts to codify and specify the content of human rights began with the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human rights in 1948 by the General Assembly of the United Nations.  The resolution was not building, but it did identify some 30 human rights principles, which included the following clusters of rights (see Morsink, 1998):

 §          Personal rights (e.g., right to life, recognition before law, protection against cruel or depredating forms of punishment, and protection against racial, ethnic, sexual, or religious discrimination);

§          Legal rights (e.g., access to legal remedies for violations of basic rights, right of due process, including fair and impartial public trials, protection against arbitrary arrest, detention, or exile, etc.);

§          Civil liberties (e.g., freedom of thought, conscience, and religion);

§          Subsistence rights (e.g., right to work, rest and leisure, social security); and

§          Political rights (e.g., right to take part in elections and participate in government, etc.).

 Subsequent UN conventions and covenants have given additional content and meaning to these rights.  They include the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948); the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (1951); the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination (1965); the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966); the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (1979); the Declaration on the Elimination of all Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief (1981); the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment and Punishment (1984); and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) (see Lauren, 1998; Alston, 1992).

 Strategies and Instruments

 The human rights/rule-of-law approach to human security has tended to rely on three different kinds of instruments to promote human security.  These instruments typically have aimed at altering the political calculations of governments so as to deepen and entrench human rights norms and principles in national legislation and domestic law.  Setting aside military force, which has been used in a growing number of humanitarian interventions under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, and which is discussed at greater length in subsequent chapters of this book, following Moravick (1995) the three instruments for promoting domestic protection of human rights are as follows: sanctioning, shaming, and co-operation.  Sanctions seek to promote respect for human rights by denying domestic groups access to foreign goods, services, markets, and capital.  When the instrument is effective, domestic élites will change policies in favour of greater protection of human rights. 

 Relevant examples include UN sanctions against Rhodesia/Zimbabwe following the Unilateral Declaration of Independence by the Smith regime (1966-79); UN sanctions against South Africa during the apartheid era; UN sanctions against Iraq following Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait (1989(; and UN sanctions against Haiti following the overthrow of Bertrand Artisitide’s  government by General Cedras and his cohorts, which were in effect in 1993-4 (Doxey, 1996).

 In contrast, shaming works on public opinion by focusing the international spotlight on state policies and practices that are detrimental to human rights and at variance with established international norms, principles, and rules.  This process can be instigated through the close monitoring of human rights by international bodies and through the dissemination of information and the publicity given to individuals and groups whose rights have been violated or denied.  A well-mounted international campaign, over a period of time, may tip the domestic balance of power in favour of greater protection of human rights and force governments that are fearful of the impact of continuing negative publicity on their political reputations abroad to change their human rights policies and practices.  Mobilized constituencies and groups within states, such as business associations of non-governmental organizations that are keen to see policies changed, can also generate such pressure. 

 The process of co-optation is more subtle and typically works through a combination of direct and indirect means.  As noted by Moravick (1995), co-optation methods involve the use of international or region-wide courts and commissions that seek to enforce human rights and promote democracy by promulgating legal norms and suggesting reforms of domestic juridical structures and legal systems.  These bodies also work with various intergovernmental bodies and networks of organized pressure groups (transnational and non-governmental) to change domestic behaviors and law. 

 The European Court of Justice, for example, has more or less successfully co-opted domestic courts that request and enforce its judgments.  The process of co-optation is also evident in the various legal and juridical processes behind the incorporation of the European convention on Human Rights into domestic jurisprudence and statues.                                                                   g 

et me at the outset say that since the conference is about globalisation, I will not bother or dare to try and provide any definition.  Except to declare a personal view, which is that globalisation is inevitable, and the sooner we learn to live with it and achieve our goals, the better, because of the progress we need to make.  Globalisation poses challenges to democratic governance in all countries, not only Africa.  Regrettably, in the 19th and particularly in the 20th centuries the management or response to globalisation has been determined and shaped by the developed countries of the North, whose priorities, agendas and ideologies do not necessarily coincide with the needs and values of developing countries of the South.  The result is a reduction in the capacity of all states to control economic power thus raising particular challenges for developing countries. However, as always, challenges come with opportunities, which we need to seize.  The legacy of weak states and the absence of strong entrenched institutions of governance in post colonial Africa contributed to the lack of democracy and the seizure of power through undemocratic means, and the over zealous and often illegitimate exercise of Executive Authority that characterized our continent in the decades following the independence of most African States. 

 These problems were often promoted and sometimes even created by the continuing and conflicting interests of former colonial powers and by those engaged in the Cold War.  The end of the Cold War regenerated the pursuit of democracy and good governance on our Continent.  Today there are a large number of countries across the globe (140 out of 200) which hold multiparty elections, but as you know that is not necessarily the totality of democracy.  The number of wars between countries has also dropped considerably but at the same time, civil conflicts have become more damaging than before.  In 1990’s alone 3.6 million people died in wars within states, and the number of refugees and internally displaced persons increased by 50%.  The link between democracy and development is now well established, and I do not need to dwell on it.  The challenge is how we ensure good governance and pursue development that will improve the condition of our people, while also managing globalization to our benefit. 

 The 2002 Human Development Report shows substantial progress over the last decades in the level of human development in some countries.  But more revealing is the growing inequality. Of the 173 countries, the 24 countries ranked last in terms of human development are all in the sub-Saharan Africa.  Today, global poverty and inequality are the main impediments to sustainable development.  Unsustainable patterns of exclusion coupled with poverty and underdevelopment made matters worse.  If the world continues along its current trajectory the combined threats of ill health and disease, conflicts over natural resources, migration, underdevelopment, environmental degradation and poverty will undermine prospects for prosperity and political and social stability. Whereas sustainable development implies reversing the trend of the marginalisation of developing countries from the benefits of a globalising world economy, many countries, particularly those in Africa are excluded from increasing global flows of trade, investment, finance and technology.  As a result there is growing inequality, poverty and social dislocation between and within countries. 

 The NEPAD founding document declares across the continent that, Africans will no longer allow themselves to be conditioned by circumstance. The question is how do we actualise this?  How do we avoid becoming the victims of circumstances?  I would submit that parliaments composed of the directly elected representatives of the people need to be more actively engaged in the processes that are now unfolding.  The starting point for all of us is to strengthen the institutions of governance.  Unless we do so, our nation’s democracies will remain vulnerable and may not survive the impact of globalization and the new forces that are exercising powerful influences on our people’s lives. 

 At the outset we need to recognize that whatever might have been the ideological preferences for a minimalistic state elsewhere, in developing countries only a strong state can make the necessary economic and social interventions and begin to respond to globalization by minimizing the negative impact and seizing opportunities that open up. 

 It is necessary to say that a strong state needs to be distinguished from an authoritarian or dictatorial one:  More appropriate description would be to speak of developmental states. The institutions of governments would be the ones that would be able to address the particular needs of each society.

All institutions are based on certain assumptions about power relations, values and objectives.  They can be structured and managed to change these, or to perpetuate them.  Too often we believe that simply by building capacity to manage, by being more efficient we can change the outcomes.  Managing to run inherited colonial institutions better than our colonial masters will simply perpetuate the system.  We need to re-examine these assumptions, values and objectives and change them according to our own objectives. 

 Only then, we will be able to achieve our objectives.  If we are to meet the challenges of globalization, we need to act on the assumption that only transformed and appropriate institutions can give us the capacity to deal in a meaningful way with the negative consequences of globalization.  The very absence of strong institutions opens the way to enable countries to shape new institutions, not in the image of those of the colonial powers, but rather to reflect and respond to the particular needs of society.  Without being prescriptive, I would submit that this will require States, values and institutions geared towards development, and nowhere more so, than in the institution which is the custodian of democracy, namely parliament.    

In most countries, in Africa and elsewhere, the role of parliaments is seen simply as making laws and holding the executive to account.  I would submit that this is an outdated concept.  As the institution representing the people, it is necessary for parliaments and members of parliament to be more actively involved in development rather than to conduct postmortems on the failures or omissions of the executive to whom we assign the role of being responsible for development.  This requires that we do not simply ape and reproduce institutions in the image of European ones, but rather re-conceptualize them for our needs.  We cannot ignore the traditional functions of law making and oversight but we need to do much more. 

 To start with, Parliaments must be and must see themselves as both the custodians and promoters of democratic values and assume responsibility for consolidating democracy.  They provide the interface between the executive and civil society for the interaction with the executive on an on-going basis. Equally and on the same basis they must interact with civil society and be informed by it.   

 Flowing from this, come additional jobs and functions of parliaments.  Parliaments must be involved in the national project of nation building.  The legislative structures inherited by most post colonial societies were characterized by a winner takes all culture regardless of electoral systems in which the needs of the majority were met and the role of the opposition in its competition for power was limited to being the watchdog and holding the executive to account.  What is being submitted here is a model that engages the entire institution in certain agreed national goals, without in any way diminishing the function and rights of the opposition.  Rather it allocates an additional role and responsibility to the opposition and that is to further the national project of nation building.  To facilitate this other measures are necessary.  

  The composition of the legislature must be fully representative of the full diversity of society since very few legislatures anywhere in the world are.  What this means is that legislative systems and measures must be those which provide for representation of the broadest range of views of political parties of otherwise marginalized groups such as women, young persons, rural populations, workers, the disabled as well as ethnic, religious and linguistic persons who are not in the majority.  This can be provided through electoral systems and legislation, voluntary quotas and other actions, education of political parties and society.  In all of these, parliament should be involved, and even take the lead.   

 Secondly, the organization and functions of the legislature should be such as to enable all public representatives to participate in all areas of its work.  This would require firstly a change in the culture and facilities to accommodate women, the disabled and people who speak in different languages.  I think the legislatures are trying to accommodate women but how many run creches in their parliaments?  Surely if we want women to participate, how many stop debate at 6 or 7 in the evening on the basis that women should be part of their families.  The South African parliament provides Braille, for we have blind members and we provide sign language interpretation; and the nightmare is that we have to cope with 11 official languages. We also need to take account of the education and economic divisions in society and instituting programmes to build the capacity of all representatives to participate in the institution.  We tend to structure parliament and assume that those who come to participate in it are lawyers and other professionals. 

 But if we want a truly representative parliament, representing the broad range of people I referred to, can we continue to function on this assumption without referring that person’s capacity to participate in the law making and in other functions? We need provision of financial and other resources to political parties to enable their representatives to function in the legislature.   There should be institutional support for the proper functioning of the legislature.  And transparency and open access to all of the proceedings of the legislature to the public and the media. 

 Parliaments must function to provide the appropriate legislative framework for agreed policies and objectives in conformity with the national constitution.  If the population is expected to respect institutions of governance, then democracy must be seen to be more than a periodic event and citizens must be involved in more than just casting their votes.  This requires that there is public participation in the making of policy as well as the law making process.  The first is the prerogative of political parties, but the involvement of the public in the legislative process is crucial, in order to ensure that real needs and problems are addressed rather than academic and bureaucratic perceptions of what the people want and what the people need.  Therefore, communities and civil society organizations must be able to come to legislators to articulate the need and communicate their views on policies as well as legislation.  There are few technical obstacles to providing for public participation.  However, what is required is the political will and resources which few parliaments in Africa have.   

 If the public is expected to obey laws, then legislatures need to ensure that people can understand the laws that are made?  How many laws in our country are enacted in language simple enough that can be understood by those who are supposed to obey them?  The truth is most laws are written for lawyers and judges and yet we expect the population to respect and obey the law.  How many of us here understand the real detail of the laws that are in our country?  It is possible to produce them using simple language, but it is a costly exercise both in effort and in kind. 

 Legislatures need to build capacity among members and through the institutional technical and research support provided to ensure that all bills tabled conform to their constitution and that they do not erode or violate human rights.  To do this, it is necessary that there are mechanisms within the legislature that constantly monitor all new legislation.  It is also essential that legislatures are engaged in consolidating democracy through public education programmes which impart knowledge but also raise awareness and promote vigilance to defend democracy and counter efforts to curb human rights. 

 Parliaments need to ensure that security forces are under civilian control, and mechanisms need to be established in order to monitor their activities. The political head must account for the activities of the security forces before the legislators. 

 Parliaments must introduce and institute mechanisms for proper scrutiny of those undertaking oversight of the functioning of the executive.  It is often assumed particularly by the opposition parties that the executive is accountable to the opposition alone and that is false.   The executive is accountable to the entire parliament including members from the governing party.  The challenge here is to ensure, enable and encourage those members to hold the executive accountable.

 It is parliament’s responsibility to provide the mechanisms for doing this while acknowledging and recognizing that each political party will perform and conduct itself according to its own policies.  An important mechanism is the implementation of a committee system which enables detailed scrutiny of legislation, of policy, and of executive and departmental actions prior to reporting to the legislature for decision making.  Parliaments need to take the lead in fighting corruption starting off by initiating codes that require declaration of assets of all public representatives including members of the executive as well as declaration of all gifts, benefits, and sponsorships. 

 Public exposure of corruption would have a deterrent effect and bring support for legislative action.  This should cover the private sector as well taking into account the fact that bribery is a transaction between two parties not just the receiver of the bribe but also the giver.  We need to make sure that we are in a position to take legal action against both.   

 A strong parliament consisting of representatives who have been provided with training and resources will be able to reassess the national budget, ensuring allocation of resources to the disadvantaged and preventing wastage.  All parliaments are told you can’t change the budget.   You can’t add to the budget is the truth.  There is nothing to stop parliaments saying No.  This programme we are going to adopt, spend money on that.  In most constitutions that is permitted.  What is needed is not a new constitution but a different mind set.   

 Parliaments need to place international issues on their agendas with great emphasis on international economic issues.  Too often ratification of international agreements is simply a rubber stamp.  Ideally, systems should be and can be established to involve members in negotiations prior to the finalization of agreements.  Debates in Parliament, public hearings and special working groups, could place crucial issues in the public domain, and ensure that the Executive has a broader understanding of the issues and the views of civil society before it commits the country to international issues. 

 Civil Society now functions globally and parliaments can do so also, using the variety of international forums to exchange information, debate and build coalitions that will tilt global interaction and interdependence in favour of the people.  The pressure for democratization of international institutions and economic and trade systems would be strengthened immeasurably by the proactive involvement of informed Parliaments acting nationally and internationally.  There is nothing to stop parliaments debating reports whether they are from the World Bank, IMF or any national or continental institutions; and decisions of multilateral institutions, exposing them to public scrutiny and debate and thereby drawing attention to problems and difficulties.   

 In Africa we often talk about the need for market access and about the barriers against our agricultural exports.  Imagine the impact if on May 25th next year, every parliament on this continent debated the common agricultural policy of the European Union and the damage it is doing to this continent.  Public opinion is important and parliaments are one of the best agents for mobilizing it.  On the African continent Parliaments are devalued in part because of executive action.

 It is important to appreciate that Parliaments on the continent have far more power than they exercise and very often they constrain themselves.  If parliaments could project themselves as partners in governance with a distinct role, rather than simply watchdogs they can take initiatives.  However, executives would also have to change their own attitudes.  

Consumers International, the federation of  250 consumer organisations in 115 countries representing over six billion consumers, strongly supports the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as positive political, economic and social measures to ensure that poverty is eliminated and all people have access to development. The consumer movement shares the MDGs’ objective of building a just and equitable society.      

Consumers International sees the review of the Millennium Development Goals as a crucial opportunity for governments, the private sector, and civil society to revitalise their efforts toward promoting global economic and social development for all. Failure to achieve the MDGs on schedule will condemn half of humanity to continue to suffer from the severe, but preventable, effects of poverty and deprivation, such as lack of access to food, services, and essential medicines.  

 As part of the consultation process for the 2005 World Summit, Consumers International prepared comments on the report prepared by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan entitled ‘In Larger Freedom’. Our commentary addressed the need for a greater balance between demand and supply-side, expansion of the role of international civil society alongside the activities of the private sector, access to water and sanitation, trade, and the environment and sustainable consumption.

 We recommended that the final report of the 2005 World Summit should clearly reflect the need for governments everywhere commit themselves to implement policies that guide us onto a sustainable course and that the business sector follows the same path. Also, we suggested that the final report required greater emphasis on the concept of sustainable consumption. Both sustainable consumption and production can and should contribute to achieving the MDGs. Equally important are those consumers learn to manage their consumption patterns in a responsible and equitable manner.

 In the weeks prior to the 2005 World Summit that will produce a final report assessing the progress made toward achieving the MDGs, as well as reinvigorating the process toward their implementation, Consumers International calls on the 191 government who signed the Millennium Declaration in September 2000 to ensure that the following recommendations are incorporated:

 Global Partnership for Development

 ·    We are encouraged by the language in the revised draft outcome document that recognises the role of good governance, calls for enhancement of the role of civil society, and supports the promotion of international trade as an engine for development. However, Consumers International stresses that in addition to these elements, in order for market economies to be more fair and equitable, national governments need to have in place a ‘competition culture’ or ‘pro-consumer policy environment’ consisting of an appropriate regulatory framework, effective competition laws, established standards and means for their verification, means of consumer redress through consumer protection laws and enforcement procedures, and consumer education and awareness programmes. Failing this, consumers and small producers may lose out in benefiting from efficiency gains. If market economics and the processes of globalisation are to realise the widespread human benefits so regularly claimed for them, demand-side considerations must carry the same weight as supply-side concerns.    

·    Consumers International calls on the governments of the UN to provide consumers with an enabling environment that provides greater freedom of information, democratic, legal and judicial space, and support to work toward the achievement of the MDGs. 

·    We also urge the governments of the UN, UN agencies and inter-governmental institutions such as the World Trade Organization, World Bank and International Monetary Fund to operate in a transparent, accountable and inclusive manner and to put in place governance processes and mechanisms that will ensure this.  

 Financing for Development

 ·    Developed countries must meet their commitments of providing 0.7 per cent of their GNP to development assistance. Such a commitment, in addition to greater debt relief and more just trade rules, is critical to alleviating poverty, achieving real economic development, and meeting the Millennium Development Goals.  

·    Consumers International welcomed the G8 development assistance package that will provide developing country governments with increased ability to expand their economic growth. However, the increased funds will only begin in the year 2010 - five years in the future. This will delay not only economic growth, particularly in Africa, but also further delay the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. Therefore, development assistance should be delivered immediately.

 ·    External development assis-tance should be monitored to ensure it supports better governance.

 Debt 

·    Consumers International wel-comed the G8 announcement to write-off debt equaling US$40 billion for 18 Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC). However, while this is an encouraging development, ana-lysts estimate that a total of 62 poor countries need to have their debt written off if the Millennium Development Goals are to be met. Consumers International urges the developed countries of the UN to keep the momentum going on debt elimination and increase the number of developing countries eligible for 100 percent debt write-off.    

·    All debt relief should be monitored to ensure that it benefits poor consumers.

 Trade

 ·    The international consumer movement demands a multilateral trading system that supports and encourages the protection and development of consumer rights. Consumer policy is integrated into trade policy at both the national and international level and this requires that consumers must be represented in policy making.

 ·    We call on all members of the UN who are members of the WTO to immediately recommit to ensuring that the WTO Doha Round of multilateral trade talks is completed no later than 2006. 

 ·    Special and differential (S&D) treatment provisions must be expanded and put into practice as a core principle within the WTO Agreements, not as an exception to the general rules. S&D must be mandatory and legally binding as well as subject to the dispute resolution mechanisms of the WTO.

Rural and Agricultural Development 

·    Developing countries should be allowed to develop clearly defined national food policies that address the issues of secure and reliable food supply and availability, food quality and safety as well as protection of incomes and jobs of farming households.   

·    Consumers International urges the governments of the UN to develop sustainable agricultural policy that provides consumers with their basic food needs (i.e., food security, fair practices, and safe and healthy food).

·    Consumers International calls on the governments of the UN who are members of the WTO to agree to the following at the upcoming Hong Kong Ministerial:

Þ             Industrial countries must eliminate their subsidised agricultural exports by 2010  

Þ             The abolition of dumping agricultural surpluses on world markets 

Þ             Phasing out of trade-distorting domestic support in developed countries

Þ             A sustainable agricultural policy that provides consumers with their basic food needs (ie, food security, fair practices, and safe and healthy food)

Þ             Greater market access for developing country agricultural exports.

 Protecting our Common Environment

 ·    Ever-increasing and irresponsible consumption is putting a strain on the environment, by causing pollution, destroying the ecosystem and undermining sustainable lifestyles. Poverty and deprivation continue at alarming levels and disparity in income and consumption is a feature in all countries. Consequently sustainable development cannot be achieved without fundamental changes in the way industrial societies produce and consume. Therefore, Consu-mers International recomm-ends that the final outcome statement should clearly reflect the need for gover-nments everywhere commit themselves to implement policies that guide us onto a sustainable course and that the business sector follows the same path.

·    Also, we suggest that the report would be strengthened if more emphasis were placed on the concept of sustainable consumption. Both sustainable consumption and production can and should contribute to achieving the MDGs. Equally important are those consumers learn to manage their consumption patterns in a responsible and equitable manner. We hope that an integrative approach that includes all relevant stake-holders will improve our under-standing of the environmental threats, but also promote coherent approaches to over-coming such threats.  

Meeting the Special Needs of Africa and Asia     

 ·    Consumers International supports the special emphasis on Africa and the integrated approach to its development including progress in the areas of trade, debt relief and development assistance.  However, it must also be recognised that consumers in Asia are also among the most deprived people in the world. 

 ·    Consumers International calls on the members of the UN to:

 Þ             Make markets work more effectively to give consumers throughout the world access to quality goods and services at affordable prices.

Þ             Involve consumers in the development process in order to ensure that their needs are met.

About Consumers International

 Consumers International defends the rights of all consumers, particularly the poor and marginalised., through empower-ing national consumer groups and campaigning at the international level. Consumers International has approximately 230 members in 115 countries. For further information see: www.consumersinternational.org

or Francois Pienaar, the World-Cup-winning former captain, moving back to South Africa from England in 2002 was one of the best decisions he ever took.  Going to Europe for a few years was a good professional move, but he missed friends and family and thought South Africa a better place to raise children.  He has now become the poster boy for the Homecoming Revolution, a non-profit outfit helping South Africans living abroad to come back.   

Its aim, with a warning that it is not for ‘pessimists, racists, bigots and moaners”, is to bring talent back home.  Apartheid deprived the black majority of high-quality education, leaving the country with a shortage of skills that the education system is now struggling to remedy.  The brain drain of the most highly qualified has worsened the problem.

Though hardly new, emigration accelerated after the country moved to democracy in 1994 and its international isolation ended.  While 70,000 South Africans are thought to have left the country in 1989-92, the estimated number ballooned to over 166,000 in 1998-2001.  Some 1.4m South Africans are thought to be living in Britain alone.  According to official statistics, over 16,000 highly skilled South Africans emigrated between 1994 and 2001, but the real numbers are probably three to four times higher.  Close to half of the South Africans living in rich countries, have higher-education degrees.   

Official’s statistics do not offer a racial breakdown of migration, but a survey has indicated that white professionals are only slightly more likely to consider emigrating than black professionals are only slightly more likely to consider emigrating black professionals.  Whites probably make up the majority of those who leave largely because they are disproportionately well educated: close to 45% of South Africans with a university degree (and possibly over 70% of those with a doctorate) are white, though they make up less than 10% of the population. 

But South Africa is hardly alone.  The International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Geneva reckons that the global stock of international migrants more than doubled in 30 years to 175m in 2000 and the African continent probably has the most mobile population in the world.  Many Africans are pushed out by conflict or poverty.  Those with exportable skills are lured by countries that pay better and offer more attractive career prospects, work conditions or lifestyle. South African expatriates also cite crime as a reason to leave, while some whites say that affirmative action to advance blacks is shrinking their career opportunities at home.

The effect of emigration is hard to assess.  According to emigration is hard to assess.  According to the Human Science Research Council, a South African Science Research Council, a South African think-tank, the country’s research-and-development activity has been resilient.  But the departure of doctors and nurses, for instance, is hitting the region hard.  The British Medical Journal has reported that 23,000 of them leave Africa every year. According to some estimates, 10% of hospital doctors in Canada are South Africans, while the countries whose nurses got the most British work permits in 2001 were South Africa and Zimbabwe.  The IOM says that more Ethiopian doctors are practicing in Chicago than in Ethiopia. 

migration is aggravating already crippling staff shortages in many of Africa’s state clinics and hospitals.  Only 50 of the 600-odd doctors trained in Zambia since independence have stayed.  In South Africa, over a quarter of annual vacancies for doctors and nurses in the state hospitals and clinics are unfilled; as many as two-thirds of such jobs outside the bigger cities are not taken up.  About $1 billion has been spent on training South African health-care professionals now working abroad. 

You can leave and still help 

Those who leave can still, however, help their home countries develop.  An increasing number of diaspora networks, such as the South African Network of Skills Abroad or the IOM’s Migration for Development in Africa, are trying to foster research and exchange programmes or even business links between those who have left and those who have stayed.  The Francophone Initiatives of African Women in France and Europe, another diaspora networks, has contributed to humanitarian aid, vocational training for orphans and micro-credit for women in place like Congo, Gabon and Cameroon.  Many African expatriates also send money back to their families.  The amount is a lot higher than the $4 billion officially recorded in 2002, as cash often travels in suitcases or thought informal channels.  For small countries, such as Cape Verde and Lesotho, remittances make up 12.5% and 26% of GDP, respect-tively. 

In a regional powerhouse like South Africa, the migration door swings both ways.  The number of foreign students enrolled in South African universities, most of who are from other African countries, is reckoned to have grown from 12,600 in 1994 to 35,000 in 2001.   

South Africa has also singed agreements with several countries, including Cuba and Germany, to lure doctors to South Africa for a specific period.  New immigration rules, in force since last month, are supposed to make it easier for educated foreigners to move south, while staunching the inflow of illegal migrants; some 2m Zimbabweans are now said to be in South Africa. 

Most African countries are still a long way from being tempting places to come back to.  However, those such as South Africa, with strong and sophisticated economies and fine amenities, are plainly better placed.  South Africa The Good News, an outfit which has produced a series of books, arranges public events and has a website, all born out of the frustration of two Johannesburg businessmen tired of hearing their compatriots moan about their country, is trying to change perceptions.   

A lot of young South Africans working abroad are keeping their options open-and may come back.  The Homecoming Revolution has organized events in London to convince South Africans that, in the wake or Mr. Pienaar, it is worth returning.         

Burundi: A question of justice 

"The army came to the village. They started killing people," says Jean-Claude Karenzo, a Hutu who as a child escaped from Tutsi soldiers during Burundi's brutal civil war.  "My mother stayed behind. The soldiers stabbed her to death. I never saw my father again after that day."

Ten years on, Jean-Claude has returned to his village to restart his life after the official end of the 12-year war in which an estimated 300,000 people were killed.  And he, like many of other refugees streaming home, wants to see people guilty of war crimes during the fighting between Hutu rebels and the Tutsi-led army brought to justice.  Violence like this has scarred Burundi since independence in 1962 when a small group from within the Tutsi minority took power.  They ruled through a form of ethnic apartheid, brutally suppressing Hutu opposition.  

Balancing act

Finally Hutu rebels took up arms.  But under a peace deal designed to share power between Hutus and Tutsis, a new government has been elected with former Hutu rebel leader, Pierre Nkurunziza as president.  

His challenge now is to find a way of delivering justice, while at the same time keeping stability and reconciling a divided population. Therese Ndahirabusa, a Tutsi, counts off on her fingers the family members she lost during the war.  "A group of rebels came at night. I was hiding in a hole. When I went to see what was happening I saw them take my three children," she says.

 "They cut them with machetes by the gate of my house. I saw them being killed. I saw my children dying."  Therese says the men who killed her children were from the Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD) - the former Hutu rebel group now in power.  Huge task

 Now, every morning former rebel fighters run through the streets of the capital, Bujumbura, training with their former enemies in the government army.  Together they make up Burundi's newly united armed forces.  It is a remarkable sign of progress.

 President Nkurunziza, who led the FDD during the war, admits many bad things were done and that both parties were responsible.  For him the planned truth and reconciliation commission is an opportunity to take things forward.  "I think what is important is to begin to know this truth and after having the truth, we are going to see how we can begin to bring some people to justice."   The truth commission will have a mixture of international and local members and a special chamber will try the most serious crimes.  But the task is huge. Ethnic massacres have been committed with impunity over four decades and many Burundians are sceptical of what the new commission will achieve.  

Backlash  

Louis-Marie Nindorera, head of the organisation Global Rights in Burundi, says that is because the former enemies in the civil war have a shared interest in protecting themselves.  "Given the way people have been waging war in this country, I believe that top officers would be threatened by this prosecution. It's fairly certain that very important people - MPs, members of government - could be involved or tried," she says.   And there are fears that if powerful individuals are threatened too quickly it could provoke a backlash and destabilise Burundi's hard-won peace.  But Ms Nindorera believes the costs of impunity may be even higher and that if nothing is done the victims will one day take revenge.  

"The people who will make violence in five years, or in 2010, or in 2015 will be the victims of today who will ask a lot of questions and who won't have any answers to their questions and who take advantage of any situation to retaliate, to kill people," she says.  Whether Burundi's new government can deliver answers to victims like Jean-Claude and Therese will be one of its first and most difficult testsg

           Kofi Annan urges bold UN reform

 UN chief Kofi Annan has urged world leaders to persevere on UN reforms and take bolder steps to fight poverty. He told the UN summit the members' deal on a reform package was a good start, but differences had prevented progress.  

President Bush urged the UN to pursue meaningful reforms to allow it to meet modern challenges. He said the US was committed to helping overcome poverty. The summit of some 150 leaders opens a day after UN ambassadors reached a watered-down deal on reform plans.

 The three-day meeting marks 60 years since the founding of the organisation.  The UN Security Council passed a resolution to prevent the incitement of terrorism and another to prevent conflict, especially in Africa.  "Terrorism won't be defeated until our determination is as complete as theirs," UK Prime Minister Tony Blair told the Council in prepared remarks.

 Mr Bush said terrorism, fed by anger and despair, passed easily across oceans and borders. "There can be no safety in looking away or seeking the quiet life by ignoring the hardship... of others," he said.  

'Posturing' concern

 The UN chief said the lives of millions and the hopes of billions rested upon leaders' pledges to fight poverty, disease and inequality.

Mr Annan said members had failed to achieve the profound reform the world body needed.  "We have not yet achieved the sweeping and fundamental reform that I and many others believe is required," he said.  The secretary general said the biggest failing was in the areas of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, where "posturing" had got in the way of results.  He also expressed concern about the lack of agreement over Security Council reform.   "I urge you... to have patience to persevere, and the vision needed to forge a real consensus," he said.

The BBC's Susannah Price at the UN says his words were particularly pointed. They came after weeks of acrimonious debate among members over their blueprint for future international action.

Outgoing General Assembly President Jean Ping, of Gabon, presented delegates with a compromise text:

·         No international definition of terrorism, although hope remains for an agreement during the summit

·         Plans to reform the UN's much-criticised Human Rights Commission deferred to the General Assembly

·         Commitment to break down trade barriers substantially weakened

·         Creation of a peace-building commission to help nations emerging from war agreed, as well as an obligation to intervene when civilians face genocide and war crimes

·         Development section backing the UN's Millennium Development Goals, a long-term strategy for eliminating world poverty.

A spokesman for the UK-based aid agency Oxfam criticized the compromise deal and accused several countries of undermining the plan.  But the agency welcomed the anti-genocide move.

"This is an achievement worthy of the 60th anniversary of an organisation set up to save generations from the scourge of war," the agency said in a statement.            

Darfur talks start despite split 

Government and rebel leaders from Sudan have begun the latest round of talks on the Darfur conflict.Representatives of the Sudanese government and the two main rebel groups are present in Abuja, Nigeria.  

However, one faction of the main SLM group is boycotting the talks, raising fears over their prospects of success.

Talks to try to resolve the conflict, in which 200,000 people have been killed and at least two million displaced, have had limited success.  

"The inter-Sudanese talks have been extremely difficult and at times seem to have been conducted with complete disregard to the imperative of the situation on the ground in Darfur," said Baba Gana Kingibe, a top African Union official, at the opening session of the talk. But he remained optimistic, saying: "This round may turn out to be a turning point for the long suffering people of Darfur."   

Rebel dispute    

Members of one SLM faction, led by Abdul Wahid Nur, arrived in Abuja for the talks, but another, headed by Minni Minawi, stayed away.  Members of the dissenting group said they wanted the SLM's differences settled before it participates in talks.  

The BBC's Yusuf Sarki Mohamed in Abuja says there is also another splinter group which sprang up last year which has not been invited.  It says it will not recognise anything agreed at the talks, our reporter says.  

Attacks  

The AU-mediated negotiations had originally been due to begin last month, but were delayed to allow the rebels time to agree their positions. Proposals include disarmament and increased autonomy for the people of Darfur. Aid agencies say large-scale bloodshed seems to have been curbed in the region in recent months, and supplies to refugees are improving. But the United Nations mission in Sudan says there have been a number of attacks on humanitarian workers in the past four wee