Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-02-10-Speech-1-057"
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"en.20030210.7.1-057"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by saying how pleased I am that these two global forums have run their course without violence; we have experienced rather different ones. I would like to put forward a few points on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party.
The first is that there is still large-scale and persistent poverty in the developing countries despite all the developed world's pledges to halve poverty by 2015, and our good progress towards this has come to an end. As I see it, this is another area where there is a major role for the private sector. This is not about the major international concerns always transferring production to the countries where wages are lowest in order to reduce their production costs. This is about their consciously seeking partnerships with local firms and organisations. By investing in local trade and industry, by making sure that they make good social provision for their employees and that men and women receive fair wages, they can contribute a great deal to the fight against poverty. Corporate Social Responsibility is not only a splendid expression but also of fundamental importance. This must of course be exercised on a completely voluntary basis and from the bottom up. So I call on business too to be as socially responsible as possible when making investments. The ideal is that business at a national level should implement this in all its policy areas.
A second point that I want to make has to do with the importance of education in combating poverty. Here, too, the private sector can do its bit. By deliberately using their own know-how to support local vocational training, this sector can give the people a better education. In the long term, this will also be of benefit to their own personnel policy. In all this, I do not, of course, want to play down the part played by the developing countries' national governments and by the international community. Human rights must always be nurtured and promoted. These include good working conditions, along with democracy and good management, for which the developing countries' national governments are themselves responsible; they must take action themselves, even though the developed countries can give them support. Through constructive policies in their own countries, in which the environment and freedom of access for everyone to all the basic amenities, such as water and land, have a major part to play, they too can contribute to spreading prosperity on a fair basis.
It is to be hoped that the outcome of both forums will be that these points are taken on board, and then we will perhaps have a better chance of reducing poverty, if not by 50% by 2015, then by an amount not too far from that objective."@en1
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