MA - Presentation - Datashow and paper.

Christoph - Presentation about the global social movement.

Feb.15 global protest against war in Iraq was the largest ever in the world.
.Strength of the global movement: starts with the youth - is universal - reflects a crisis of the system - 1968: end of post-war growth cycle, youth-students as opposed to workers-unions - now, unions are also looking for new ways, unions are growingly involved in social movements.

Weakness of globalization: 2003 clash between rich countries/States on the Iraq war; the failure of the North in Cancun. Globalization collapsed in Germany first, then in the rest of Europe in the 1870s - France, loi celerate - Germany, repression against social democratic combined with concessions by capital to workers - cost of labor increased - Bismarck raised protections and so did France. State redistributes and mitigates. Polanyi. But the break of this pristine, colonial and imperialistic globalization market de surgence of a neocolonial era.. State as tool for change, but States protective thrust

Networks and global organizing: debate between anti and alterglobalization. There are both, there are Malthusians (Teddy Goldsmith, e.g.); debate on how to fight against imperial USA, how to deal with local elites; for some (Phyllis, etc.), main goal is to defeat Bush, he is danger for the world - Walden, Christoph, etc. Say that analogy with post WW is wrong. Our best allies in the US are those struggling against Bush, but for these we are the main ally, not our governments and elites. Networking and consensus are key words for us: with both we have built a diverse and dynamic global movement. Early approach was focusing economic globalization. Then, integrated new topics, new dimensions, growing and integrating various sectors and parts into a single global movement. Corporations are also becoming networks, altho centralized and hierarchical. Subconcracting, companies without workers, strikes, labor costs. Isomorphy - shape shifting of capitalist firms, trade-unionism and.insternational institutions as well - WTO = the UN without a security council, democratic rules, totalitarian practice. - they are also into networking and consensus...Strength: networking and consensus give power to minority actors. Creating new forms of organizing instead of submitting to the "majority" and waiting for next chance to vote.

Problems of consensus: can be extremely violent - voting obliges minority to submit and majority to respect rights of the minority. In consensus, violence is possible. Actors are more visible but have difficulty to understand what led toconsensus (risk of manipulation). Lack of strategy in the movement - political common goals, but lack of debate on strategy, usually.

Alternatives - traditionally, social movement, with responses coming from political parties.. Lula's continuity shows the difficulty of changing policy. Lack of global alternative defended by significant part of the social movement.. Important: to follow concrete demands from the movement; start from people's concrete demands; think that change in society starts in existing society. Critique of Proudhom by Marxists - from little handicraft, local small producers to State-led collective economy.. Now, recuperation of local small producers (Via Campesina) with networking - sharing of software (Linux type) towards a globalized movement.

Yoko

Focus on the goals of the Workshop - should include Controls in the name of the workshop.
What is globalization? Goods production industries - lead to excess production - gap between poor and rich - market becomes smaller and overproduction crises burst. Money concentrated and led towards speculative activities in capital and currency markets - 97.5% of total financial flows are speculative, remaining 2.5% for the real economy. . Japan now "being attacked by hedge funds".

Challenges for the Workshop - People first. People, not profit is the essence of a solidarity economy. IMF-WB-WTO are the actors promoting globalization. G7 leaders were seen as the bosses of the IFIs. G7 summit in Cologne promised cancellation and we felt we succeeded. Then we realized that much less was actually accomplished - $35b against the 70b promise. Ambivalent institutions, can act independently , as agents of TNCs, not only national governments. Need of regulations and controls over these institutions and of proposing new governance institutions. There are those who say 'close the IFIs' and that is also legitimate. In Cancun, behing SH governments resisting the NH were farmers' movements pressuring. US could not divide the G20+ (but is now doing that). Other stance: these organizations do exist, they are part of today's global governance, we must deal with them. WB, it is necessary? IMF, should it disappear or be pressed for change? WTO - defend multilateralism, transform WTO. UN also needs reforms - global summits very positive (environment, HR, social development, women, habitat, education). Good resolutions, but not implemented. Why? We must strengthen UN so that consensus documents are implemented. How? Democracy: should it be only representative? Political parties and politicians generally failed and are demoralized and discredited. People are protesting and expressing their interests. Participatory budget processes are also direct citizen action.

AFTERNOON - DISCUSSION

David - Thanks Marcos for very helpful, clear, useful presentation.
Points by Yoko on speculation. Global financial flows: I.8T per day. 2.5% real trade in goods and services? 80% of these flows happen in a week. Up to 20% would be trade in G&S. Cologne: the $32b of Hipc not sustainable. Process of campaigning involves so many players, generates a movement that is as valuable as possible positive results. Any failure is just half a failure.

Yoko - Jubilee campaign was successful, even if practical results were limited. WB highjacket Cologne and reduced it to the HIPC initiative. In WTO, TRIPs are the trench of pharma companies.

Njoki - Remarks about the HIPC fund, WB and governments. Odious debts - Philippines, Iraq... a positive development now as Bush administration throw on France and Germany that Iraq's debt is odious!

Joy - Links to be made between financial, social and ecological debt. The latter has to do with the global commons and touches everybody. The Economist on Cancun: slams the NGOs, accuses Oxfam... but good analysis - the hard-line stance has US fingerprints on it - WTO, a democratic mode of decisions by consensus, no regulation to ensure its implementation. That structure makes it difficult to reform.

Njoki -TV analysis - Southern government had gotten bad advice from Oxfam. Supposes that Africans have no stance of their own, Western arrogance. In many ways, WTO is more transparent than WB and IMF. Talks can collapse because WTO has a version of consensus! This does not happen in WB and IMF.

Pierre - Thanks for excellent presentations. - Innovations: a maturation of introducing innovations in the movement. WSF01 was more 'against'. Building alternative vision and strategies takes time. Practices that gain scale, also. Part of the movement does not value innovation. What do you think of this?

MA - WALDEN in WSF03...

Yoko - Globalization - relation between corporate globalization and Bush's project?

MA - Iimperial project - new contradictions. RECENT HISTORY OF INTL REGULATIONS.
.
Cristoph - Globalization, a particular step of industrial capitalism. Bush policy: the Washington Consensus of the first ideological statement after war - a positivistic approach that influenced the world - naivete and gradualism. With socialist collapse, neoliberalism would prevail and respond to all expectations. Stiglitz, Soros and other think the WC has failed > Neoreformism. A neoconservatist critique, saying it is not enough to way for the natural results of the market dynamic globally - we need weapons and other enforcements related to State action. Soros also thinks the main task is to fight Bush. New conflicts inside capitalism. New links Germany - Mercosur.
Unilateralism - between 90-93, Bush father and Clinton later defended multilateralism, relying on the UN, etc. After 93, US prevailed in the trilateral context - Brjzisnsky 5 big would control the world. Br: divide and rule.

Perspective of a chosen collective life does not repeat old forms of collective life before rampant individualism. WSF, moving to Mumbai, than back to POA. Then Cuba was against - wanted it to stay in LA.
Innovation: little capacity to innovate in social realm. Conflict is historical, but little capacity to create, innovate. German and English, better than French. But even in countries that have more tradition, not enough innovation globally. Babel: an international organization of interpreters. A new interpretation system.

Oscar - worried at the dianosis that we are at a breaking point analogous to 68. During the late 60 Africa became independent. LA had dictatorships, guerrillas everywhere, and a bi-polar world. Today, very different. LA envisaged a new future, Cuba as an example, overthrow of dictators, socialist governments in Africa, and student movement in Paris. Paris was a plus, not unique, not isolated. Internationally, US held its hegemony, in an international system that was in function, altho with contradictions. Technology transfer was a item of negotiation. Regional integration processes could question US hegemony. 35 years later, the US has lost its hegemony, are using more military power than before, sign of weakness; a UN system that for practical purposes has collapse; a WB that has become a global political party, giving little space for Southern country political maneuver. 20 years of low growth. Massive migration has changed the texture of the US social fabric. In this context, today is not analogous to 68. No objective conditions for reproduction of what happened then. In late 60s, there was a general idea of what a fair world was about. Today, a new general idea is not shaped up yet.
Importance of Marcos' presentation: an effective movement must unite all movements - I fear that, if we not succeed in showing a new way, a new wave of crude violence may take place. Level of frustration is increasing. Constraints tend to get worse. Plus: a major economic crisis at the door, drops in stock exchange, a virtual halt and inflationary process since the 30s. We may be closer to the 30s than to the 60s.
Only a few countries in Europe have a social movement.

MA - Conflict between globalization projects within capitalism. New contradictions and new opportunities for people worldwide. Today the objective conditions exist for the working people to unite and to innovate, not only economically but also politically.
Innovation - the time has come for economic, not only political and cultural innovation, become an important component of the struggle. Brazil example, global networking around WSF.

HP - We are dramatically exposed to information. Piquetes, caserolas, la lucha es una sola. WSF, a space, not a movement (Chico Whitaker). Spaces are very powerful.

REIKO - CANCUN AND WTO

TW governments played the hero. Dialogue with civil society. Openness to the press thru conferences. US-EU tried to divide them and did not succeed.
Presence of farmers very srrong and quite influencial on their respective governments.
Demos well coordinated. For the first time in the WTO process we gathered the fair trade movement to confront the dominant unfair trade promoted by the WTO and Northern governments. Critical activists-researchers like Mark R. And Vandana, now very active in Fair Trade!
Zoellick: No problem. US will promote bilateral treaties.
Opposing bilateral agreements is more difficult, only S.Korea has an organized movement against it. We still don't have an articulate movement around this in Asia.

Yoko - Two agendas were critical in Cancun: agriculture and Singapure issues, especially investment. A trade-off was going on. Brazil prefers that investment is brought to the WTO than in bilateral context. On Singapore issue, there was no consensus in G20, EU and Japan put discussion on investment first - a strategic mistake, because the majority of LDCs is African, who have no stake on this and were stubborn about agriculture. The Kenyan rep stated in the last Green Room negotiation that Africa would withdraw if Singapore issues were included in the agenda! The Mexican president of Cancun, then, said that the negotiations were over. The four LDCs - Bfaso, Benin, Mali, Tchad.

Njoki - Relevant that Africans were negotiating since before Geneva. TW technical knowledge in Geneva has been growing. Africa Trade Network very important in that juncture. WB talking about being champion of TW countries - opening trade will help overcome poverty... Concessions by EU to cotton producing TW countries. EU cows get annual subsidies that are twice the value of African peasant income. US and EU : do as I say, not as I do.

Yoshinori Murai - Japanese ODA loan for Indonesia to construct a big dam, people moved out of the land and lost everything. Indonesian farmers are suing Japan in a Japanese court. I also work with Parc on Fair trade - import banana from the Philippines...

10/10/03 - Friday

PIERRE JOHNSON - "Global Fair Trade: An Alternative to the Liberal Market" - paper

Need to change policies, besides implementing alternative trade.
There are no social regulations related to the production of goods and services, neither nationally, nor internationally. Public procurement should also have social and environmental regulations on the products they purchase.

Unveiling illusions produced by the dominant paradigm! There is no really free trade, yes.
Big firms don't pay for natural resources and workforce?
Consumers are badly informed. But this is not enough as evidence that global exchanges are no free. Monopolies, cartels, protections, intrafirm trade and restrictive business practices are key factors of distorted and unequal exchanges in the global trade system.

Global fair trade is the challenge, not only North-South fair trade.
We must support initiative that stimulate purchase of local products primarily.
Better communication between partners.
Put discussion on WTO in context of the discussion on international regulations, and sustainable human and social development.
Discuss and clarify the goals of trade and means for achieving, fulfilling those goals.
Satisfaction of basic needs, food sovereignty, protection of staple foods, fair prices for producers...
Build alliance with organizations working on related issues.
Clear, positive policy proposals for regional agreements.

Debate

PJ - World shops sell fair trade certified products. Certification has not included environmental criteria. Negotiations on cost-price are current among fair trade partners and follow criteria like the producers' demanded price, the costs of transportation and sale in the Northern marketplace.
Artisans du Monde - evaluated its own activities and their effects on Southern partners.

OU - Terms of trade. Martinez Alier: the concept of physical terms of trade. LA - early 20th century 40% of world trade, today, 3% only! The amount we need to sell in order to buy industril products!

YK - Japan export of 1t - a car - and imports 50t of coffee, e.g. Producer decides the price of the car and imposes it on buyers. Price of coffee, in turn, is strictly related to cost.

Transparency of information on cost is crucial principle of a SSE.

Njoki - Commodity prices is set by global capital markets... Kenyan farmers' coffee bags of 70kg are worth less in the market than a one kg-packet in Starbox Supermarket.

HP - "Fair Trade is not fair" text, important to read and reflect upon. In Chile, successful producers are just as capitalist, altho they are part of of fair trade networks. The meeting was more like a business negotiation roundtable. How can production and consumption be in solidarity.

Reiko - Coffee producers in E. Timor - 7t last year, 37t this year imported by PARC. Their income in general is $100-200/y. Cooperatives have established fair trade and get better prices. 30c per kg is price they get for removed cherries. Perchment... Their income has increased 3 times - $300-600/y. Rejected beans are sold to other markets. $2.78 is maximum price we pay. Price here is Y600 for a 250g packet. Blue Mountain 100g costs Y2.700 - from Jamaica. Producer gets about Y100 our of the Y600.

PJ -
Commodities are volatile. A very speculative market. The one who has the money in advance sets the price. TT cannot be physically the same and we cannot demand that.
How to incorporate value added in benefit of producers - Cocoa in Ghana - 40k producers involved in fair trade. Remove intermediaries or replace them with solidarity intermediaties
Shadow coffee positive in many ways - combined with staple produce.
Fair trade, a movement of producers and consumers. The education of the consumers is crucial. Fair trade should also be domestic.

Are the fair trade networks developing strategies of building solidarity production chains?
What kinds of regulations and controls is Fair Trade Movement working for besides Certification.

Christoph - Need of cartel regulation. In EU, price that covers cost is garanteed through subsidies.
UNDP - discussing trade in perspective of establishing it as a common good of humanity.

MA - elements for an agenda of the Workshop on I.R.
* Breaking the dominant paradigm of the free market - what in its place that is marked by solidarity and cooperation?
*
* Free trade agreements including Singapore issues kills any possibility of a solidarity socioeconomy and a sovereign national development project.

ON MONEY----------------------

NJOKI - On Debt

Popcorning: associating terms like debt and the IFIs with?

Debt: Prometheus bound - coercion - unfinished business - Sisiphus' work - Demeter: debt to the Earth and to future generations - Poverty - the original sin/eating the apple/believing that money is wealth - capital flows - debt is about power, not about money - debt is unpayable - deprivation of freedom/autonomy -

IMF-WB: dont even have to talk about them - god who expels humans from paradise - pople of economic world - jail keepers - dream gone wrong, turned nightmare - SAPpers - policy makers for debtors - unknown - don't care about (in North) video Life and Debt - faceless institutions (in North) - stranglers

Debt - austerity programs are not a belt being tightened - it is a noose around the necks of the Southern countries. A tool of domination and control. In a Washington school, WB was associated with their parents and the good livelihood they are getting from their jobs. In Africa we say there can be no agreement between the fox and the hens. It is the foxes' nature to eat the hens. Omitted from the agenda of recent international negotiations.

Context - China and India are doing well. Wolf. Speech in 1999: break the chains of the debt - standing ovation - nothing happened. Which nations - multilateral and bilateral creditors - will give up on their credits? IFIs insisted that member countries should take the cost of multilateral debt reduction or cancellation. Finland cancelled 100%... once debt is cancelled, what?

Latin America and Caribbean
1996-2002
Debt Service = $ 909,831
Interest payments = $ 281,412
Debt stock 1996 = $670,868
2002 = $789,398
+$118,530 or a 17.7%
Net transfers on debt = - $205,992

Source: World Bank, 2003, "Global Development Finance", Washington DC.

CREDITORS AS FINANCIAL VAMPIRES

For many debtor countries, net transfer is negative.

Our strategy:
1. Odious debt - concept > use historic jurisprudence!
2. Illegitimate debt - audit as a proposal for LA
3. Reparations - ecological debt - colonialism - loans for failed projects, never finished, never done, repressive governments, damage from SAPs, inadequate conselling (SSA: debt grew 400% more)
4. Debt tribunal - an independent truth commission - binding > under UN supervision???. Should first be done in the countries!
5. International Court of Arbitration - under UN control???

OSCAR - paper

OU - Reparations is very important in Africa, official and multilateral debt - both borrower and lender have responsibility for the use of the loans.
In LA, private bank loan is different. ???. In countries like Argentina and Brazil, 90s: accomplices in corruption.
We should not generalize solutions.
Indonesia - WB chose it as a model. Thai, Malaysia, no.

Njoki - Nicaraguan - the $15m denied Sandinista government after Somoza fell.

YK - WB-IMF board complains that info to take decisions ofter comes very late, with little time to study and consult with countries represented.

DH - Any hope that debtor countries would collective withhold debt - put payments in a separate fund?

OU - Consulted Venezuelan officials about discussion of text on ICA - scared! Came up with another proposal. No government wants to touch debt issue because it may increase their country risk.

NN - Peru and Zambia, only countries who tried to withhold, were hammered - cross punishment, such as purchase of pharmaceuticals
with no financing, only in cash...

MA - It would take Brazil to articulate a debtor's cartel, but... Lula preferred to accept a deadly condition - keep the contracts - and be elected first and then see how he could introduce a transformational agenda - which apparently will never happen.
As of 1970, WB shifted from being a development bank to becoming a commercial bank, as grants for development were replaced with loans for profit.

PJ - Debt cancellation - deals with ML debt?

NN - Demand is absolute for the HIPC.
.
MA - Summary and topics for the agenda of WIR.
IFIs- the various proposals for reform and transformation - new role for them in the context of a project of globalization of solidarity
UN - how to transform and make it a true agent of democratic global governance
Proposal of regional Monetary Funds
Delocalization.

ON THE TOBIN TAX

DAVID - papers by him and by Machiko Nissanke.

A campaign perspective.

1970 - 18b/day; now, 1,8t/day
20 huge players dominate this market.
Growth rates dropped in last part of the 90s. Unemployment exploded in Asian countries. Erosion of workers' rights. All groups are affected, especially women and children. Rising poverty, children going to work instead of going to school. Children also affected by cuts in health spending. Malnutrition and infant mortality increased - reduction in employer provided health facilities and less public investment.
Official budgets for environmental protection declined.
Women laid off massively. Physical violence, increasing domestic violence, gender inequalities increased.
Globally - contagion effects... U = rose by 10M as result of Asian crisis. Thai prostitute girls increased 20% in 1998. HSBC report: profits increased in 1998.

A currency transctions tax, by J. Tobin 1972 and 1997. Grew into a movement in 50 countries+. Social forums: people come before profit.

Main problem is political will, not technical feasibility. Spahn: proposes a strategy of starting with EU+UK+Switzerland.
If Southern countries know they wont go into a financial crisis, they will make international reserves more available for development purposes, instead of 'sitting' in banks.

Today's campaign.
$1m in a pile would be my heart. Over one trillion is traded a day.
1k miles high - just one day's trading. In a year, 360k miles. To the moon! This market is equivalent $100 bills from the Earth to the moon.

UK foreign dept. - Millenium goals cannot be met. Favorable to Tobin tax. Was in the final statement of G8 in Evian. How to pay for the Millineum development goals?

Strategy for a solidarity agenda:
Target - on the income side: target the Euro and the Pound, framework of the Millenium goals. Go to DCs as perspective users of the fund. Circuit breaker idea: using the intl reserves.
Partnership - Make this an international push, not only Northern countries.
Lead countries: Canada, in landmines campaign - regional leads is a great possibility. Regional currency-guarded areas. Brazil, India...
Tools - advocacy, a business case for the TT. Vast majority of businesses are ruined by the financial delinquency of a few giants. Getting a general to speak out. Arguments should center on utility ground - a business leader stating that he lost millions with the Asian crisis.

The ROBIN HOOD TAX -

Discussion

YK - The fall of the Asian currencies happened after the IMF recipe was imposed. Its intervention aggravated - the prescription was wrong. Indicators were good, liberalization of the financial sector led them to the crisis. First initiative was go seek Japan, but Japan sent them to the IMF. Disaster. An Asian MF could have resolved regionally.

CA - Inside the EU, possible, but in the case of Asia, the risk of a AMF would be control by Japan.

YK - But China is also very strong. China opposed AMF because of Taiwan. A political reason. Now Asean + 3 (China, S.Korea, Japan) Chermay Initiative. A swap system.

TOBIN TAX CURRENCIES

Euro + Pound - ECB and BE > tobin money goes to an international fund to be held > IMF? WB? UNDP
Currencies under attack - national governments should make national public policy to protect the economy. Raising the TT can be a device to cope with attacks. But whose development goals are the target? Latinia's? Hold the countries to whatever they committed themselves to do - 2005-2015.
Management of the MG - Concord coalition - Work country-by-countries, setting deadlines by goal/sector - across countries and across targets-indicators - International Financing Facility: a coordination of donors... Is the framework classical aid? Money does not create development: it is inclusion, participation.

DH - A paper on the IFF - www.tobintax.org.uk - position paper on the IFF.

JK - TT is not to be called AID! FDI replaced. Who owns the wealth?

NN - Cancellation - SAPs - TT, in POA01 to the Davos group. Soros: would support the TT even if it is against his interests as a speculation.

DH - Advocacy on TT: we have to communicate that it is much more than what JT proposed. A much lower rate tax

CA - Transferring the money directly to those countries concerned. Soros? Not convincing.

MA - The Brazilian CPMF: originally for public health, gradually diverted to feed the primary surplus!!! A lesson for the TT debate to consider. How to make the CTT part of a broader strategy of radical reform of the international financial system?

ON SOCIAL MONEY

HP - Datashow "The great misunderstanding, from Adam Smith to the IMF/WTO"
HP's paper and Marcos' short paper.

HP lays more than 30 notes - official and social on the floor. Participants chip in their home currencies, credit cards and others. One credit in Argentina' Vilar del Tuerto serves to pay up to 30% of municipal taxes.

Redefining -
Money: a social contract allowing exchanges - is about power, not wealth...
Money issued by Argentinian states to pay civil servants - during 10 years - until it was forbidden... by the IMF!
Campina de Monte Alegre - mayor produced the alternative currency for use in municipality - exchangeable in the Trade Association.
Argentina - 5y, 6m people
Market:
Civil Society:
State/government:
Social Responsibility:
All have to do with strategies to

Money is not necessary for trade - TNCs do it
Barter systems are effective as of the 1930s - 12%
www.irta.com - reciprocal trade association - Reagan approved the law tax-equity responsability law.
Duty free shops, air miles
TV and movie business use little cash

LETS and time dollar since the 80s
Argentina - 6m people, reaching transactions equivalent to US$ 3b
HP covered 40% of domestic expenses with community money.
System is well developed but unknown.
In Japan - more than 100 systems in operation, isolated from each other.

Why is money scarce?
the easiest way to make rich richer and poor poorer (IMF-WB)
an absurd promise that relates faith, authority and religion (E.Sabato)
A crazy collective commitment not to say that the King is naked (HP)

Why agreement is so difficult?
Cognitive blindness - inertia in mental models - irresonsibility on creating new categories

The paradigm miracle - scarcity or abundance is a matter of choice!
The world IS enough for all humans. It is a matter of adequate, fair organization.

Three new abundance theorems
Poverty is only a great misunderstanding
Win-win is always the best business
Prosperity is a starting point not an arrival goal (a means, not an end)

Money as an trust contract - A lady arrives at a village, goes to a hotel, makes a room reservation in case she has to stay in town overnight because her car could not be repaired today, and leaves a R$ 50 bill. Hotel manager goes to the pharmacy and pays a R$ 50 debt. The pharmacist goes to the meat store and pays his own debt of R$ 50. And so on, until the bill is back at the hotel. Debts wiped out without one cent having been spent.

REGIO - Margritt Kennedy's project combining bills and e-money.

Community currency is the easiest innovation, but is resisted because people don't know it is possible.

G.Simmel, 1901 - money is about the kind of society in which we want to live.

Goliath finds a new David - external debt payments - pension funds - fiscal havens VERSUS microfinance - participatory budget - local currencies.

"THE EARTH IS OUR ONE AND ONLY IRREPLACEABLE HOME.
HUMANKIND, IN ALL ITS DIVERSITY, BELONGS TO THE LIVING WORLD AND IS PART OF ITS EVOLUTION.
THEIR FATES ARE INDIVISIBLE".

JK - Debit cards?

HP - clearing houses, use of points instead of currency.

CA - Problem with SELs in France. Suit against social currencies - dismissed because the users were poor.

HP - People were tried and condemned. Suit was made by people, not government. Sentence: to do social work, mutual assistance among the defendants.

NN - Thai experience tackled by the central government. Scared peasants. How much they spent only on lunch $2k vav $500 being circulated in the community. Ithaca hours.

HP - Regional moneys increase autonomy of participants with respect to the internationally accepted currency, the US$. b

11/10/03

POINTS FOR A WORKSHOP AGENDA

1. Activities

DIALOGUE - electronic forum and meetings
INTERACTION with other Workshops and Workgroups/Colleges
INTERACTION with social movements and Networks
PARTICIPATION in Social Forums
Organizing specific events on SSE
Participating in events organized by others
5. A SHARED CALENDAR MAP (Joy's)

2. Themes

Development Paradigms as conceptual framework for international regulations and controls
capital/free market-centered versus people/Earth-centered
economic and technical development as a means for human and social development
interconnections between local-national-international-global - development - institutions - regulations and controls
ETHICS - MODES OF DEVELOPMENT - GOVERNANCE

WTO - TNCs

Production - Investment - Sharing wealth, knowledge and power
Trade
Knowledge - technology

IFIs -INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL SYSTEM
Debts
Regulations on capital flows - Tobin Tax
Alternative forms and uses of money

YK - explains the importance of this final strategy session and the focuses.

MA - explains about the general co-funding strategy of the WSSE and the need for the Workshop in I.R. to produce a work plan and a budget.

He also presents the broader framework for a Workshop agenda.

PJ - Fair trade is also about circulating knowledge and building capacities and know-how.

DH - A very good framework - to forge ahead a positive strategy. Mutual support, collaboration in solidarity among us and our networks.

JK - Solidarity and accountability. Criteria around our own work. Articulating a mission.

MA - looking at what has been done in the WSSE - internet site and papers with proposals.

OU - We are worse off than 100y ago. Quality of life eroded in last 50y. Justice and stability. Argentina was the 4th economy in the world in 1900, now more than 50% of the population are poor. Stability - needs to have a strong content of harmony and justice, resources exist, how to share them. Rules of the game can no longer be set by a few for their own benefit - in fact two sets of rules, one for them, the other for the rest. Elements of redistribution have been eroded and, to a large extent, disappeared.

CA - Risk: to have a utopian discussion about the future, losing the roots and losing sight of the reality of the correlation of forces. Be attentive to those all the time. Trend of the world: two risks - last book by M.Castells on the Internet. The current map of the world as an archipelagus, with important interconnected islands in the North and very few ones in the South. Empowerment of local and communal is important but risks isolation and disempowerment. Networking is crucial: becoming powerful both individually and collectively, locally, nationally and globally.

HP - How much can local development be reinforced by this debate and work.

YK - We agree with MA's proposal and with CA's remarks. Connection with local initiatives, networking. But our task is to focus on International Regulations. Unfortunately Wbello is not with us. But after Cancun, assessment of the WTO per se:
Before,... trade in goods, defend the multilateral approach.
After Doha: shrink or sink.
After Cancun: not so bad to reform the WTO in a way that TW voices be heard and become relevant, eventually dominant.

MA - TW is not a homogeneous force, altho the countries share a variety of common problems. Local elites and collusions with global elites. Civil society action and pressure is crucial to change the correlation of forces and impose on governments the interests of the majority. How can this Workshop and the WSSE facilitate the reinforcement of the network and movements that we represent here, and those who have not participated in this meeting?

JK - The Global South approach is crucial. Linking people who are struggling for a voice in South and North. True security and just peace. Kairos will focus on these. Not just militarization and peace, but security.

CA - Good unequal approaches that serve the harmonization and the overcoming of inequalities. It is impossible to do it in the current WTO framework, because it was designed to promote unequal relations. Unctad is a more favorable frame. EU as a political project, more than an economy - but it started with the economy, and with a liberal approach.

YK - Unctad, however, is a UN body. A good resolution always stay on paper. We can demand that non-trade issues be removed from the WTO. ILO, UN should be targets of reform movements. Ecosoc? An Economic Security Council? The Marrakesh Convention was adopted by every country, but government officials ignore it. There are bomb hidden inside it. WTO as an illegal, illegitimate child.

NN - Nafta debate - R.Nader challenges US Congress - a press conference saying that any member of Congress who reads through this "phone book" and is still in favor of Nafta will receive $10,000 from me. Only one did and he was outraged against the treaty, and refused the money.
Difference between protesters and campaigners. Who are WE, what do WE want, what do WE seek to achieve?
the consensus approach, its potentials, its risks
what do we want with the campaigns on the WTO, the IMF, the WB, the regional banks...
what LOGIC of regulations and controls, serving what development
what is our vision of the world we are trying to create

OU - Correlation of forces. What we are seeking is to produce the changes from inside the societies. But what moves people to the streets? Conflict between interests of European peasants, whose governments protect them by sending massive food aid to Africa, and African peoples whose livelihood is threatened over time by the aid that destimulates local food production and creates food import dependency.

CA/YK - People see the problem on inequality between South and North and between the rich and the excluded; and they see the real actors, then they go to the streets.

MA -
Do we want to have a common agenda? With who else - institutioons and networks - other critical actors
What common agenda
Activities
Themes - focuses
A timetable and a budget

Proposals (1):

Including IR and SSE
Including the ecological paradigm
Yes, a common agenda. But it is difficult.
What kind of networking - Alliance agenda and other agendas - Our World is not for Sale - Via Campesina, linking farmers - Public Citizen - Big Unions - 50y is Enough - Tobin Tax actors, ATTAC, War on Want...
Using the Social Forums to deepen the linkages
NGO caucuses around the UN agenda

Reiko - we failed in incliding the Asian networks because WB and MK could not come. We have personal networks that are effective.

Proposals 2

This Workshop is a common space, not an organization - to be a source of proposals, for dialogue, interconnection and elaboration of proposals, syntheses that serve further to empower our networks.

HP - shares her original approach and gradual integration with the Alliance and WSSE.

CA - Interact with the social movements and networks and bring out a common agenda. Avoid a closed box. Start with Activities 3 and 4 to plan 1 and 2.

WSF -

YK - in 2004, produce a paper to share in the social forums.

PJ - Agenda until the WSF: what are the critical issues for debate.

CA - Articulating meetings and debates on the various thematic fronts.

NN - possible proposal of activity in WSF

DH - Converting into action. I suggest some overarching themes:
- what keeps the rich rich

OU, YK, MA will produce the report and an agenda/timetable/budget proposal before Mumbai.
A short meeting of the Workshop on IR in Mumbai is agreed.
All will contribute with suggestions of other potential participants, to be shared by email or in the Mumbai meeting.