Introduction

On September 2000, the 189 United Nations member countries signed the UN Millennium Declaration. This eight-chapter declaration is the framework for the formulation of the UN Millennium Development Goals (UN MDGs) concerning eight targets that were scheduled to be realized by the year 2015. These concerns are:

As IBON Foundation celebrates its 30th anniversary, the IBON Partnership in Education for Development (IPED) continues its work in helping Filipino educators realize transformative education by successfully holding the 11th National Educators’ Conference in Baguio City, Northern Philippines last May 7-10, 2008.

At the ongoing Philippine Development Forum (PDF), foreign aid donors have rightly taken President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to task for corruption in her administration which, along with other factors such as poverty, could hinder economic development. But Philippine AidWatch, a national network of civil society groups that monitors foreign aid, stresses that policy conditionalities attached to foreign development aid is the biggest threat to the country’s development.

So far, only a small minority of top earners has benefited from global integration. Even conservative economists have begun to worry about social inclusion and effective redistribution.

The U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), aimed primarily at reducing poverty, hunger, disease and illiteracy, are being undermined by a rash of new problems threatening to cripple the ongoing efforts by developing nations to reach their targets by 2015.

Arguably for the first time in its history the Nepali nation has regained, through popular franchise, a degree of sovereignty that its servile political leadership had steadily surrendered over the years to various foreign interests. The idea of a Constituent Assembly to found a republic first came up in political circles in the 1950s. Today, five decades later that has become a reality and this reality is a spectacular one.

In session, Beltran stood tall and dignified among many, untainted by the corruption that soiled many multimillionaire-congressmen’s seats.

Across the Universe is an ode to the sixties, a love story set to the songs of The Beatles. And if the filmmakers had been content to keep the movie at that level then it might have been a success. Unfortunately, they also try to grapple with some of the harsher realities of the period, and end up revealing they haven’t really grasped the sixties’ spirit of rebellion and possibility.

The clearest signs of economic failure under the Arroyo administration are in the poor conditions of millions of Filipinos.

Women heavily exposed to the pesticide DDT during childhood are five times as likely to develop breast cancer, a new scientific study suggests.

1. The WTO’s Doha Round negotiations are at a crucial stage. At this time, we need to re-affirm the centrality of development concerns and the interests of developing countries in any outcome of the Round. It should be remembered and reaffirmed that the objective of this Round is not market access per se, and especially not market access for developed countries, but the reorientation of the multilateral trading system so that it will contribute to the development of developing countries.

Independent think-tank IBON Foundation said that a recent international study which showed that the Philippines lacks transparency and accountability in aid disbursement only confirmed what broadband scandal whistleblower Rodolfo Noel Lozada Jr. described as a “dysfunctional” official development assistance (ODA) system.

Aid, in the case of Bangladesh, has put an end to the possibility for sustained economic growth by driving local producers, particularly farmers, out of business. Instead of providing assistance, aid cotributes to the rise of corruption. As a result, in Bangladesh, despite receiving almost 20 billion US dollars in aid since its independence in 1971, the country remains one of the poorest and most corrupt nations of the world.

The Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness may have the effect of circumscribing national sovereignty and country autonomy over development policies contrary to its stated principles of country ownership and mutual accountability, research has shown.

Aid effectiveness was the main subject for discussion in the OECD this week in Paris. Representatives from developing country governments, donors and CSOs converged in Paris to discuss the recently released Accra Agenda for Action – effectively a draft Communiqué for the Accra High Level Forum in September. CSOs are very concerned that donors are dragging their feet in current negotiations, given the very weak commitments being proposed.

More Filipinos feel that their livelihood worsened compared to the previous quarter, according to the latest results of the nationwide survey conducted by research group IBON Foundation.

The April 2008 nationwide survey shows that the number of Filipinos who said that their livelihood worsened grew significantly from 46.3% in January 2008 to 64.3% in April. Those who answered that their livelihood got better fell from 6.1% in January to 4.4% in the latest survey.

Asked if their family’s income is enough for their needs, 71% of the respondents said that it is not enough, an increase of almost 10 percentage points from January 2008.

The latest IBON survey was conducted across various sectors nationwide with 1,495 respondents from April 7 to 16. The survey used multi-stage probability sampling and has a margin of error of plus or minus three percent.

Below is the tabulation of results of respondents’ perception of their livelihood and income.

How is your livelihood today compared to a year ago?

Is your family’s income enough for its needs?

The following is a summary of the submissions of Karapatan, National Council of Churches in the Philippines, Ibon Foundation, Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, Indigenous Peoples Rights Monitor, GMA Watch, Asian Legal Resource Center and NGO Working Group on Asia to the UN Human Rights Council as it conducts the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on the Philippines. This summary also includes the report prepared by Bayan Muna, a political party in the Philippines which suffered political persecution.