Oslo conference fails on pledges of extra aid

By T. Sima Gunawan

OSLO (JP): The International Conference on Child Labor ended yesterday failing to obtain more pledges of financial assistance to fight child labor especially in the developing world.

Participating developed countries, to whom the conference had turned for most funding for the campaign, fell short of promising to increase development assistance.

In their closing speeches, however, all participants declared continued commitment to abolishing child labor and adopted an Agenda for Action.

The Agenda, to serve as the blueprint for the world fight against child labor and which calls for international cooperation, was adopted by 40 nations, including 16 developed countries.

Only a few developed countries, including Norway, Sweden and Finland, spelt out plans to increase assistance to developing countries. Others said they had contributed a lot of money and would maintain their levels of support.

Dutch Minister of Social Affairs and Employment APW Melkertmade appealed to the international community to budget more money to support action against child labor. He did not say whether the Netherlands would increase its funding.

Head of the Japanese delegation Tokio Nanase praised the International Labor Organization (ILO) for its efforts toward eliminating child labor and said Japan would continue to contribute and support ILO in these activities.

J. Brian Atwood, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said that this year his government planned to invest more than US$110 million in basic education in developing countries. He did not mention increased funding but said "we expect to maintain this commitment over the years to come".

Countries that pledged continued support but did not mention increased funds included France, Britain, Switzerland and Germany.

Sweden has allocated additional funds in 1998 for measures to combat child labor exploitation, according to Minister for International Development Cooperation Pierre Schori.

Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik had said his government would increase the annual GNP percentage set aside for development aid to 1 percent.

The Agenda calls for developed countries to fulfill the agreed UN target of 0.7 percent of GNP for overall official development assistance (ODA).

The average percentage of ODA from developed nations now is only 0.3 percent of GNP.

Child labor is prevalent in developing countries.

The International Labor Office estimates there are about 250 million working children aged between five and 14 worldwide.

About 120 million of them work full-time.

Asia has the highest number of child workers (more than 60 percent) compared to Africa (32 percent) and Latin America (7 percent).

The Agenda for Action, read out by Norwegian Minister of Human Rights and Development Hilde Frafjord Johnson, gives direction to the drafting of regional and national policies.

But the obligation to develop and implement policies, and legislation and measures to fight child labor rests with individual governments.

"Good governance can maximize the potential for equitable and sustainable economic growth as a strategy to counter child labor," the Agenda says.

Child labor is a consequence and cause of poverty, it says, so strategies to reduce poverty must address this.

Growth

"Extensive use of child labor slows down economic growth and social development," the Agenda says.

Sustainable social development policies should focus on the link between child labor and the children's social conditions.

The conference said the 20/20 initiative was a relevant way of combating child labor. The initiative is a mutual commitment between interested developed and developing countries to allocate an average 20 percent of official development assistance and national budget, respectively, to basic social programs.

Governments should also ensure that the voices of the children, their families and communities, are heard in an appropriate and meaningful way when policies and actions against child labor are decided.

Practical actions to fight child labor include legislation, education and social mobilization.

The Agenda says adults should replace child workers, where possible. To be effective, incentives to compensate parents for the loss of income from children withdrawn from work should be part of larger income-generating programs.

Child labor -- Page 2