Welcome to CENFACS’ Online Diary!
25 April 2018
Post No. 36
The Week’s Contents
The week commencing 23 April is made of the following contents:
• Local Protections month with Economic Protection as a focus
• Reflection Day on Making Transitional Economy Work for Poor Families
• Halving Poverty by Halving the Number of Children without Access to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation
Key Highlights of the Week’s Contents
Our month of Protections has entered its final phase with Economic Protection this week. The last three weeks of our Local Protection activities were made of natural events (week one), infrastructure (week two) and people’s empowerment (week three). We would like to thank those who supported us so far.
This week’s Local Protections is about ways of protecting local people and local life in the process of meeting their unlimited needs of consumption and production under the limited availability of resources and their budget constraints. This demands the protection of local economic rights. The week is also of our Reflection Day, reflection whose theme is about Making Transitional Economy Work for Poor Families.
So, we are conducting two protection activities this week, which are: 1) Protection of economic rights (to be run the all week), 2) A one day of reflection on Making Transitional Economy Work and Succeed for Poor Families.
Our campaign against child poverty known as Halving Poverty is resuming this month to take over the ReLive fundraising work which officially ended on last 20 April. We would like to thank those who supported the 10th Issue of ReLive.
This year’s Halving Poverty focuses on Halving the Number of Children without Access to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation. For more about Halving Poverty or to support it, go to http://cenfacs.org.uk/supporting-us/
• Economic Protection Week, started 23 April
The economic protection week is about dealing with the protection of economic rights of local people and families. This raises the issue of how we can use limited availability of economic resources to protect the minimum fulfillment of unlimited demand, for goods and services, for local people and families.
Raising this issue is also pointing at what we can do to go beyond the efficiency of resource use in the economy to add the removal of damage and injury from poor people and families. This can be done by building protection-friendly development agenda.
In practical terms, the problem of economic protection leads to re-visit what can be called economic rights or second generation of rights in terms of constitutional protection of economic rights (as defined by the Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 16 in 1966).
For example, in the Article 10 of this Covenant it says that the state parties commit themselves to the protection of the family, mothers, children, and minors. So, economic protection goes hand in hand with the care of economic rights. This is this week’s activity about local protections.
To support or join the Local Year Campaign, contact CENFACS.
• Reflection Day, 27 April: Making Transitional Economy Work and Succeed for Poor Families
There is always an economic cost when countries decide to disengage from economic regional integration, just as there could be benefits in doing so. This is particularly obvious when exiting the European Union economic integration model.
Because our week is about protection from harms and risks, we will focus on what we can do to minimise or nullify economic costs and threats rather than on protecting the benefits and opportunities resulting from this disengagement.
Due to potential risks or costs that may accompany any exit from the EU, there is a need to make sure that these costs and threats are considerably reduced or nullified for the most vulnerable and poorest people. In other words, how we can economically protect poor families (particularly but not exclusively women and children) when a free market-based economy exits from a regional economic integration model and goes in transition. Equally, we can ask ourselves this: what to do to make transitional economy work and succeed for poor women and children? Our Reflection Day will tell us what to do.
The Reflection Day will be about thoughts on Making Transitional Economy Work for Poor Families. We shall reflect on the shape that the economy may take during the transitional phase before the full exit. Then, we will mirror the kinds of steps that need to be taken for the new economy meets the needs and aspirations of poor families.
To do that, we are going to refer to economic rights or second generation of rights. We will think of direct and indirect economic rights as well as ways of protecting them.
Thought on direct economic rights
We are going to reflect on ways of protecting poor families to get the following: adequate standard of living, health and education, work, social security etc. These are the direct rights touching the economic interests and welfare of these families.
Thought on indirect economic and sustainable development rights
There are indirect sustainable development rights as well, which include the protection of the poor from food prices, the necessity to combat biodiversity, the protection of poor countries and poor people from the effects and impacts of adverse climate change etc. Whether it is about bio-diversity or climate change, there is always an economic content in them that is not easy to disentangle and that requires protection.
Briefly, our week of economic protection that will climax to an economic day of protection will be about thinking ways of keeping safe the different items that make household budget in a poor family; items making family balance sheet, income and expenditure account, wealth accounts etc.
Finally, our Reflection Day will be about how poor people, women and children can economically protect themselves rather than how we protect them. In this respect, we shall think about economic self-protection and economic self-empowerment for protection.
To support or join the Economic Reflection Day, please contact CENFACS.
Below we have provided a timeline about CENFACS’ Reflection Day for reference.
• Reflection Day Timeline
The Reflection Day is a day of thoughts by bringing together the two pillars of our network and protection programme, which are 3W and PPS. Although they started in 2003, we only introduced a Reflection Day (RD) in them in 2011. In 2016, we amalgamated 3W and PPS to become women and children projects.
The RD is a day of introspection to think in deep the ways forward for our systems of support network and protection for poverty relief and development in face of the current, new and emerging challenges ahead as well as the changing development landscape.
Since its inception, the following is the timeline of 3W and PPS
2011: Making Networking and Protection Even Better in 2011
2012: Raising Standards in Poverty Reduction for Improving Lives
2013: Place of Women and Children in the Post-2015 Development World (Part I)
2014: Women and Children in the Post-2015 Sustainable Development Agenda (Part II) – A Stock Taking Reflection Event
2015: Doing Business to Lift Women and Children out of Poverty
2016: Improving Digital Protection for the Extremely Digitally Poor Women and Children
2017: Reducing Information and Communication Poverty for Multi-dimensionally Poor Women and Children
For your information,
3W & PPS = Support Network and Protection for Poverty Relief and Development
Women and children projects = amalgamation of 3W and PPS in 2016
3W (What Women Want) = a CENFACS support network scheme to enhance the lives of multi-dimensionally deprived women and families.
PPS (Peace, Protection & Sustainability) = a CENFACS child and environmental protection programme to support multi-dimensionally vulnerable children, young people and families
For more information on 3W and PPS or Women and Children projects, please contact CENFACS.
Thank you for visiting CENFACS website and reading this post.
Thank you as well to those who made comments about our weekly posts.
We look forward to receiving your regular visits and continuing support during 2018.
With many thanks
