Social Security

Rio here we come!

The Swedish delegation is now making all the necessary preparations – and tomorrow we will be meeting our YWCA-WMCA friends in Rio de Janeiro. We are all looking forward to this, once in a lifetime, opportunity to meet and discuss urgent issues such as food and energy provision, the extension of sanitation services, clean drinking water and ‘green economy’. I am wondering what ‘green economy’ really means. It is not clearly defined in the negotiation text “The Zero Draft of The Outcome Document” and I am not sure how we expect to achieve progress in an area that is undefined. I will spend the day trying to find out what the concept of a green economy really means. Perhaps it is pen to different interpretations. Please let me know if you have any thoughts on the subject!

I am currently looking over the negotiation text and I have been frustrated over the vague formulations and lack of specifications in the first section “Our common Vision”. The second section on “Renewed Political Commitment” is also vague. There seems to be no concrete suggestions of actions for states. However, turn to the fifth section called “Framework for Action and Follow Up”. There are some concrete suggestions here, although very few are of a binding character (often denoted we agree to/we commit to).

Under the heading Poverty Eradication paragraph three “We recognise that promoting universal access to social services can make an important contribution to consolidating and achieving development aims”. If people can get access to social protection from the state, then their lies can improve or poverty can be alleviated. Inequality can be reduced, since the idea of a social security network may be that all citizens make a contribution but only those in need claim compensation. I further read “we strongly encourage initiatives at all levels aimed at providing social protection for all people”. This sounds all very well but I cannot help but asking, what about countries that lack a social security service? Where there is no such service, it cannot be extended. Doesn’t the negotiating txt miss the point here? Should it not be about establishing a social security service in the first place, rather than talking about extending its services?

I feel that the text assumes that most countries already have a well-functioning social security service, which of course is far from true. I recently discussed this topic with my two of my fellow delegates, Marcus Gustafsson and Philip Aluko. We talked about the YWCA and its assistance to women in many countries. This assistance often resembles what the Swedish social security system provides for some women in Sweden. We reached the conclusion that the YWCA provides assistance to women in many countries, acting as a kind of social security. The YWCA fills the function of the state in this regard. We discussed both developed and developing countries and aw that the YWCA provides this kind of service in both. I take this as evidence for the lack of social security in many areas, even in countries that we normally consider to have a very strong social security network such as Canada where I stayed for three months at the YWCA. I witnessed the YWCA providing social services to many women. Taking Canada as an example, I guess that the negotiating text fits the picture well. Social services needs to be extended. However, in many countries, they first need to be developed, or fundamentally reformed to even begin to fill their functions. I think that the negotiating text missed this important element, although I am naturally for the extension of social services to more people. This can alleviate much suffering.