Today during a dialogue seminar entitled “Global Governance: where we stand” co-organised with the European Policy Centre (EPC), COMECE launched its “Global Governance Assessment 2005 – One More Step On A Long Way To Go” before a panel of experts at the Residence Palace, Brussels.
Co-hosting the event with the EPC as part of their EU and Global Governance programme, the dialogue seminar drew together experts in the field to discuss the assessment’s analyses of events in 2005. On the panel giving their reactions to the assessment were: Michel CAMDESSUS, former Director General of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Michel HASENNE, former Director General of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), Raymond VAN ERMEN, Executive Director of European Partners for the Environment, and Antonio de LECEA, Director for International Economic and Financial Affairs, ECFIN Directorate General, European Commission.
The Global Governance Assessment 2005 is the latest in a series of reports annually compiled for the COMECE bishops and other interested readers to assess the progress made in the field of global governance based on the 28 recommendations made in the 2001 “Global Governance Report – Our responsibility to make globalisation an opportunity for all”.
The 2005 assessment charts developments in this sphere in three chapters focusing on fundamental values and principles as a basis for better global governance, effective measures to reduce poverty and to protect the global environment, and establishing a stronger system of global governance in relation to the role and tasks of stakeholders and actors. In a year which was marred by natural environmental disasters, this report gives particular precedence to the imperative to stem human kinds’ impact upon their natural surroundings, particularly as it is the poorest in our global society who suffer the most as a result.
In concluding its analyses of developments – or lack of them, the Global Governance Assessment 2005 posits that faith communities have an inherently important and potent role to play in this field not only by their own contributions towards good global governance but in holding governments and international institutions to account. It also highlights the importance of education and information technology as a means for increasing knowledge and involvement with issues related to good governance.