Social Development and Public Governance > Social Development
Social Development - November 2001
From the Division Chief:
In Durban, South Africa at the UN World Conference on Racism, the IDB participated both in the NGO Forum and the official UN session. We organized and hosted: (a) two seminars during the NGO Forum, an operationally oriented seminar on how to work with the IDB in promoting social inclusion and a panel on research advances on the same topic; (b) a breakfast meeting with representatives from delegations from Latin America and the Caribbean attending the official meeting; (c) an informal tea with NGO representatives from the region; and (d) at the request of Mary Robinson, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, a dialogue with multilateral and donor agencies present at the conference. The IDB delegation included K. Burke Dillon, Executive Vice-President, and Chair of the Delegation, and Germán Quintana, Executive Director for Chile and Ecuador.
More than 60 high-level representatives from government delegations (including the Vice Governor of the State of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, the Minister of Planning of Chile, and the Head of the Anti- Discrimination Commission in Mexico) attended the breakfast offered by Ms. Dillon and moderated by Mr. Quintana.
During the discussion, government delegates underscored the importance of having the IDB facilitate dialogues among governments and between governments and civil society to achieve regional and national commitments to social inclusion. They also highlighted the IDB's financial role in supporting work on social inclusion.
The IDB-hosted seminars and informal tea during the NGO Forum were marked by rich exchanges of ideas. These occasions were especially welcomed by the NGOs because we provided interpretation (professional and ad hoc); therefore overcoming the difficulty that many NGO participants encountered in other Forum sessions that failed to provide these services. A recurrent theme in the dialogue with the NGOs was their need to be consulted in the design of IDB projects and to be active participants in their implementation.
At these different events, the Bank distributed a portfolio of materials, including a CD ROM containing research papers the Bank had produced, special editions of both the SOC newsletter, Social Development, on a Bank sponsored High-Level Dialogue on Social Inclusion, and IDB America on the
Bank's work with indigenous people, as well as an IDB video on the topic of social exclusion.
The LAC Region was well represented and very visible at the NGO session as well as the official meeting. This, and the salience that was given to the intersection of race/ethnicity and gender in the processes of social exclusion, were two important and positive features of the conference. Overall, the IDB's active participation reflected the Region's interest in the conference and in the goal of social inclusion to both reduce poverty and promote economic growth.
Mayra Buvinic
Last updated: 06/01/07
