GLOBAL COOPERATION NEWSLETTER
January 2010
ICSW wishes all our readers the very best for 2010 – the Chinese year of the tiger.
In this edition
International development central pillar of U.S. Foreign Policy
Poverty in focus - The MDGs and beyond
Tribute to Avraham Lavine a major contributor to social welfare
NGO Statement to WHO on Prevention and control of non-communicable diseases
World Bank - Civil society engagement: Review of fiscal years 2007 to 2009
An evaluation of progress toward the MDG one-Hunger target
UNRISD conferences and publications
2010 Joint World Conference on Social Work and Social Development TheAgenda
International development central pillar of U.S. Foreign Policy

With thanks and acknowledgment to the Center for Global Development (CGD) Washington D.C.
http://www.cgdev.org/content/article/detail/1423520/
In a major policy speech hosted by CGD, SecretaryofState
Hillary
RodhamClintondeclaredinternational development a central pillar of U.S.
foreign policy, together with diplomacy anddefence. She hailed Raj Shah, recently confirmed asadministrator of the U.S. Agency for InternationalDevelopment, and said she intends to rebuild
USAID into, “the premier development agency inthe world.” In her speech, Clinton said that,
especially in tough economic times, the American
people have the right to ask why the United States
spends tax dollars to help developing countries.

Development overseas is critical to U.S. security and prosperity, she said, and development
professionals must do a better job of measuring and communicating the impacts of their work.
“We must evaluate our progress and have the courage to rethink our strategies if we're fallingshort,” said Clinton. “We must not simply add up the dollars we spend or the number of programs
we run, but measure the results—the lasting changes that those dollars and programs have helpedachieve.”
Seasoned observers in the standing-room-only audience of development professionals said
afterwards that the speech was the most detailed and forceful on development by a top U.S. official
in many years. This reflected, they said, both Secretary Clinton’s personal interest in global poverty
reduction and the Obama administration’s broad commitment to elevate development policy issues.
CGD president Nancy Birdsall said that she has been pleased to learn that a 2008 CGD book, The
White House and the World: A Global Development Agenda for the Next U.S. President has been
widely read within the administration.
A central idea in Clinton’s remarks was the need for better coordination of development assistance,
both within the U.S. government and in U.S. activities overseas. She highlighted the multitude ofU.S. agencies involved in international development and described the complexity of today’s aid
environment, in which aid flows not only from traditional bilateral and multilateral donors, but also
Global Cooperation NewsletterPage 1

from the emerging powers, from non-profit organisations, individual charity, venture capital funds
and for-profit corporations.
Clinton highlighted key sectors where she says the United States will focus its assistance. She
described significant commitments to global health and agriculture, and stated that support for
women and girls will be a theme that runs through all of the U.S. development work. “I will not
accept words without deeds when it comes to women’s progress,” Clinton said.

Poverty in Focus - The MDGs and beyond

The latest issue of Poverty in Focus - The MDGs and beyond: Pro-Poor Policy in a Changing World is a joint effort with the Institute of Development Studies in the United Kingdom. This new
publication reviews the experience of the MDGs to date and asks what needs to be done to achieve
the goals by 2015. The guest editors are Andy Sumner (Institute of Development Studies Sussex)
and Claire Melamed (ActionAid) and the issue has a foreword by Lord Mark Malloch-Brown. More…
http://www.ipc-undp.org

Tribute to Avraham Lavine a major contributor to social welfare

Avraham Lavine, after 40 years in the Israel civil service has decided to retire at the age of 65.
Avraham has been Director of the Department of International Relations in the Ministry of Social
Affairs and has worked in this area since the age of 25.
ICSW is grateful for all Avraham has done for social welfare over four decades. No recognition orwords are sufficient to do credit to the enormous contribution Avraham has made over the years.
During Avraham’s time Israel hosted two ICSW global conferences – 1978 and 1998. Avraham has
been very much engaged in migration issues and his Ministry was a key driver of the 2007 ICSWExpert meeting on Cultural Preservation and Empowerment of Immigrant Communities.
Avraham has worked closely with the Israel Council on Social Welfare and has facilitated thepayment of the annual membership fee to ICSW for 39 years. Surely a record for consistency anddedication.
Avraham said in his farewell message “My personal warmest thanks to you for all yourwarm friendship and close cooperation that made my work during the past forty years so enjoyable
and satisfying, and hopefully productive!”
I am often asked “How big is ICSW?” My answer is that ICSW is enormous because of the dedicatedvolunteers like Avraham who contribute so much of the personal time and effort to international
welfare and to the relief of those in poverty.
ICSW wishes Avraham a long and happy retirement with his wife Miryam and his family.
Denys Correll Executive Director

NGO Statement to WHO on Prevention and control of non-communicable diseases

In January 2010 NGOs including ICSW submitted to the Executive Board of WHO a statement onPrevention and control of non-communicable diseases: implementation of the global strategy.
In part the statement read:
We welcome the report by the Secretariat on the overview of progress made in implementing the action
plan for the global strategy for the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases, including ashort summary of the outcomes of the 7th Global Conference on Health Promotion held in Nairobi, Kenya,
26-30 October 2009.
In particular, the NGO and civil society community would like to draw the attention of the Executive
Board Members to the “Nairobi Call to Action”, which aligns with the aspirations of Member States,reflects the vision of the Alma Ata Declaration on Primary Health Care and supports therecommendations of the WHO Commission on the Social Determinants of Health.
On behalf of over 600 experts from more than 100 countries represented at the conference, we would
like to reiterate our request to Member States to mandate WHO to:
Global Cooperation Newsletter

Page 2

1. Develop a Global Health Promotion Strategy and action plans with regional follow up that
respond to the major health needs.
2. Strengthen its internal capacity for health promotion so as to be able to assist Member States indeveloping sustainably funded structures and in setting up accountable reporting mechanisms.
3. Gather and disseminate compelling evidence on the social, economic, health and other benefitsof health promotion to other key governmental sectors.
A lot has been said and much is known about health promotion, however there is an urgent need formore to be done to close the implementation gap.
Therefore, in order to reduce the growing health equity gap, we believe that it is imperative to empower
the people of low-income communities to conduct health promotion using community assets, focusing
on the people themselves and their knowledge, abilities, and skills. For countries to achieve sustainable
health improvements, local people themselves must be the active agents of empowerment, taking
charge of their own health with the support and encouragement of national, regional and global social
policies, infrastructures, systems and organisations. Medical and public health education should also
adopt a more holistic health promotion approach that goes beyond disease control.
In conclusion, we as NGOs and civil society are called to be responsible partners to provide a vital link inspanning the health equity gap. NGOs and civil society by working directly with local people at the grassroots level and partnering with their governments will fulfil our responsibility not only for promoting thehealth and well-being of all citizens, but also for building the community capacity in finding sustainable
solutions to tackle the social determinants of poor health.

World Bank - Civil Society Engagement: Review of Fiscal Years 2007 to 2009
The World Bank’s Global Civil Society Team recently launched a new reportthat assesses the Bank’s relations with civil society for the period 2007-2009.
The review report provides detailed information on the Bank’s increased
engagement with civil society worldwide and reports on global consultation
processes, examples of operational collaboration, CSO funding mechanisms,
and civil society outreach initiatives by region and constituency teams.
World Bank - Civil Society Engagement: Review of Fiscal Years 2007 to 2009
notes that the World Bank’s engagement with civil society has been evolvingfrom being “institutionally based to being more issue oriented.”
At the same time civil society organisations interacting with the World Bank have shifted from a "dono-harm" to a "do-good approach" in their efforts to influence the Bank to further adopt socially justand environmentally sustainable development approaches.
It further finds that the Bank has been mainstreaming its engagement with more specificconstituencies, such as indigenous peoples, labour unions, parliamentarians, persons with disabilities,and youth.
However, the report underscores that although progress has been made in the Bank’s engagementwith civil society, “the challenge remains to streamline and scale up institutional partnerships andfunding mechanisms.”
For more information and to access the report, click here.
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/CSO/0,,contentMDK:22361954~pagePK:220
503~piPK:220476~theSitePK:228717,00.html

Anevaluationofprogress

towardtheMDG

one-Hungertarget

One of the targets of the first Millennium Development Goal (MDG) is to reduce the proportion ofpeople who suffer from hunger by half between 1990 and 2015, with hunger measured as theproportion of the population who are undernourished and the prevalence of children under five whoare underweight. Many countries remain far from reaching this target, and much of the progress
made has been eroded by the recent global food price and economic crises. As we enter the finalfive years to achieve the MDGs, we look upon one of the greatest challenges of our time with onebillion people hungry, 129 million and 195 million children underweight and stunted respectively andmore than 2 billion people deficient in micronutrients. http://www.undg.org/index.cfm?P=327

UNRISD Conferences and Publications
Global Cooperation Newsletter

Page 3

UNRISD Conference ‘Social and Political Dimensions of the Global Crisis: Implications forDeveloping Countries’
http://www.unrisd.org/80256B3C005BF3C2/setLanguageCookie?OpenAgent&langcode=en&url=/802
56B3C005BD6AB/search/58DA663256DB6A34C125769B0054C1E8?OpenDocument&category=Confe
rence+Details
Pension privatization and economic development in Central and Eastern Europe: A
political economy perspective
The paper takes a political economy approach to analyse the importance of economic factors andmotives in the making of pension privatisation in Central and Eastern Europe, with a closer look at
the cases of Hungary and Poland.
http://www.unrisd.org/80256B3C005BF3C2/setLanguageCookie?OpenAgent&langcode=en&url=/802
56B3C005BCCF9/search/B6182D3FED8BDEE4C1257601003F64B2?OpenDocument
Financing Social Policy: Mobilizing Resources for Social Development
The contributors in this volume edited by Katja Hujo and Shea McClanahan explore the economic,
social and political implications and the developmental impact of a wide range of potential resources– including taxation, aid, mineral rents, social insurance, pension funds and remittances – forfinancing social policy in development countries.
http://www.unrisd.org/80256B3C005BF3C2/setLanguageCookie?OpenAgent&langcode=en&url=/802
56B3C005BCCF9/search/612F3E661B8B1600C125765E0049535B?OpenDocument

2010 Joint World Conference on Social Work and Social Development The
Agenda Update: Nearly 2000 abstracts have been submitted. The conference will be held from10th to 14th June 2010 at Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre(www.hkcec.com.hk). Three international and eight local hosts will jointly organise the conference.
This first ever consortium offers a unique platform for more than 2,000 professionals, academics,practitioners, social planners, policy makers and advocates from East and West to meet, exchange
and develop an action agenda for social work and social development in the next decade. Early bird
registration to 1st March.
The content of this Global Newsletter may be freely reproduced or cited provided the source isacknowledged. Views do not necessarily represent policies of ICSW.
Newsletter Editor: Denys Correll – Executive Director.
ICSW C/- MOVISIE Netherlands Centre for Social Development
PO Box 19129
3501 DC Utrecht
Netherlands
Website www.icsw.org Email: icsw@icsw.org
If you wish to cease receiving this newsletter, please click 'here' and give us your name and email
address

Global Cooperation Newsletter

Page 4