civil society

THE TOOLKIT FOR ACTIVE CITIZENSHIP AT ALL LEVELS, FROM LOCAL TO GLOBAL

Posted on by Susanna Cafaro

composition of assorted service instruments on black surface
Photo by Maddy Freddie on Pexels.com

The last (and fifth) edition of the Supranational Democracy Dialogue – held on May 18-19 – has been a success. We organizers are very proud of it and very grateful to all those who contributed.

As this year’s topic was “Focus on Tools”, we have accomplished putting together a toolkit for active citizens’ engagement. I am really happy to share it and encourage anyone to do the same. Here it is:

THE TOOLKIT FOR ACTIVE CITIZENSHIP AT ALL LEVELS,

FROM LOCAL TO GLOBAL

Multilevel democracy – from local to global-  cannot be considered a utopia anymore, but the only reasonable endeavour to ensure well-being and lasting peace in the era of interdependence and interconnectedness. The Supranational Democracy Dialogue (SDD), since its first edition, became a place where like-minded scholars, activists and international professionals exchange ideas and freely discuss proposals and possible solutions. After the adoption of a Manifesto on Supranational Democracy, in the first edition, in 2018 and a Declaration on Deliberative Democracy, published on May 9, 2023, the contributors to the V Edition (“Focus on tools”) shared their thoughts about several democratic instruments for collaboration across national borders which are collected together in the present toolkit. The toolkit may evolve over time just like the SDD network grows, one edition after the other.

I.       The building of a public sphere

  • Communication
  • Visual communication is more immediate and effective
  • Balancing ethos logos and pathos
  • Accuracy as a remedy to manipulation (sharing sources and data)
  • Inclusiveness (overcoming obstacles like the digital divide, finding a way to counter the scarce attention of the main mass media, like TV, to the non-national political dimension)
  • Education and education to democracy
  • Exchange programs;
  • Cross-border collaboration;
  • Cultural rights:
  • Encouraging transnational conversation among civil society actors and among local authorities;
  • Enhancing the recognition of cross-border transnational shared heritage;
  • Developing European and global communication tools.

II.      Civic Participation

There are many different ways to participate in the public conversation in a public space (blogging, signing petitions, demonstrating, joining transnational movements and parties, interacting through public platforms, using litigation and claiming mechanisms, spreading information and countering fake news and hate speech, unmasking manipulation).

–  Open consultations through assemblies at all levels

–  Claiming at all levels to guarantee correct law enforcement and improve it

Following the EU model, UN and UN agencies could have digital platforms to collect opinions on policy papers, claims, and suggestions.

  • Anti-SLAPPs legislations (see EU action against strategic lawsuits against public participation).

III.    Deliberative democracy

  • Citizens assemblies – selected by type, are a scalable tool for bridging the gap between citizens and politicians, at all institutional levels, from local to macroregional – see on that the Manifesto and Blueprint for a European Citizens’ Assembly – towards the global one (see for instance the experimental Global Assembly)
  • Need for
    • Fine-tuning the tool
    • Making it the new normal

(see the Jean Monnet House Declaration)

IV.    Digital Democracy

Technology is instrumental for I and II as well as for deliberation and public consultations. It also allows us to make sense of the huge amount of collected contributions.

Artificial intelligence – as a tool to use with caution – to

  • make sense of the large number of inputs collected through participatory and deliberative democracy channels;
  • for crowdlaw (as a development of the previous point)
  • to check facts (see iVerify)

Main concerns: digital divide, security, privacy, intellectual property, manipulation, silly mistakes.

Need for balancing ethics and technological advancement.

Need for global supranational governance of the Internet and regulation of AI.

V.      Litigation as a tool allowing a public role for individuals

  • Taking a stance for collective rights (exposing governance flaws or claiming old and new collective rights, e.g. climate litigation before domestic courts and international courts and tribunals).
  • Addressing lack of implementation of existing rights (see referring to ECJ for preliminary ruling in EU case law).
  • Acting as whistleblowers (need for effective protection of fundamental and labour rights through whistleblowers protection programs).
  • Exposing corrupt politicians and powerful manipulators as journalists and as informed individuals on social media (need for adequate laws to counter SLAPPs, see the EU Directive).

VI.    The evolution of multilateralism

  • Collaborative approach: multinational, multicultural, multidisciplinary multistakeholder, multilayer
  • Platforms of international actors (ex. Initiate) as key players from different backgrounds integrating different goals and perspectives;
  • Horizontal, transnational grids – as network model;
  • Participation of non-governmental, non-international actors in the partnership for SDGs – as individuals, civil society, local authorities

The involvement of civil society in international decision-making through protests, petitions, consultations, participatory and/or deliberative democracy mechanisms inside international organizations and multistakeholder platforms would greatly enhance democracy.

VII.   Balancing conflicting interests

Democracy is about managing complexity in

  • Designing policies
  • Adopting legislation
  • Interpreting legislation
  • Choosing the better enforcement tools
  • Managing conflicts

How?

  • Mapping needs – needs-based approach.
  • Digitalizing
  • Prioritizing  – (for example, the environment)
  • Building partnerships (for example, UN Partner Portal)
  • Finding synergies (for example, among environmental policy, economic growth, and human development)
  • Building structured dialogue among stakeholders – for example, AI Alliance
  • Role-playing, playing, team-building.

Trade-offs are unavoidable, those too need to be managed with the tools listed above (particularly under paras II, III, IV)

VIII. Promoting a new economic model intended for well-being.

  • Countering short-termism (for example, abolishing quarterly reports of companies) and reducing the impressive volume of finance compared to actual GDP through adequate regulation;
  • Fostering codes of conduct and ensuring that business has a role to play in human rights and democracy instruments (for example, the EU Action Plan on Human Rights and Democracy);
  • Making trade agreements work also for individuals, to protect social and environmental rights as well as consumers’ rights (for example, EU-Canada Trade Agreement or CETA);
  • Spreading knowledge about rights, tools and enforcement mechanisms to the public at large;
  • Taking care of global public goods at the global level, as the EU already does at the regional/continental level (back to multilateralism);
  • Encouraging long-term investments (for example, allowing the issuance of SDRs and their use through multilateral development banks);

IX. Developing the SDD network as an epistemic community, and a lab in itself, for multidisciplinary, multistakeholder, intergenerational conversation as well as a place for thinking out of the box, challenging the current narrative about global governance and democracy.

Seeds of Supranationality in Times of Crisis

Posted on by Susanna Cafaro

A Few weeks ago, in Brindisi, Italy, the Università del Salento – actually my wonderful little team and myself – hosted the fourth edition of the Supranational Democracy Dialogue. It is a two-days recurring event, one of its kind, aimed at bringing together scholars from any background, NGO leaders and political activists, businessmen and innovative thinkers to discuss together the big challenges facing humanity. Since 2019, this event is supported by the Jean Monnet Chair “Legal Theory of European Integration: a Supranational Democracy Model?”.

The formula is very simple: we publish yearly a call for papers, some months in advance, to invite all those willing to contribute, listing a few topics which are hot or which can be considered a permanent challenge humanity is facing. What we ask to our potential panelists is to be positive, to offer solutions instead of analyses of current problems.

It is easy to see how this kind of conversation cannot but be fruitful for everybody: as creativity is a requirement and speakers come from different paths in life, everybody has something to offer and much to learn from others.

Another interesting quality of the event is that it is quite serendipitous. The special random combination of people and content is different every time, so both their contributions and the interactions among them are always a discovery. As a result, we do not know in advance what will be the real focus of the conversation when people meet.

This year it did not start under the better auspices.The event was in person after two on-line editions and still resenting the effect of the pandemic which took us in physical isolation for nearly two weeks. Yet, the enthusiasm at having again real people meeting under the same roof was hindered by the shadow cast by the war in Ukraine.

Talking of global democracy while we face a reality of war, after several years of regression of democracy in many countries – according to all the renowned democracy indexes- after a pandemic which for safety reasons limited significantly personal freedom, after a global financial crisis, after wave after wave of migrants and refugees…. well, it takes unshakable optimism and strong determination, or – and this is something many panelists since 2018 shared with us – the certainty that no other choice is left.

As counter-intuitive as it may appear, we need vision more than ever. Not by chance, the first topic listed on this years’ call for papers was “The Seeds of Supranationality. From Jean Monnet to Global Governance”. We cannot forget that the seeds of European integration as well those of global multilateralism (UN, IMF, World Bank, WTO- back than ITO- and so many international organizations) were planted during the Second World War. Those who had witnessed the war, who had even fought in it, were the leaders and front-runners in building what they hoped would be lasting peace.

Some of them were political leaders but others were just citizens like you and me, sharing innovative ideas. The Ventotene Manifesto – written by Altiero Spinelli, Ernesto Rossi and Eugenio Colorni in 1941 – while in confinement accused of anti-fascism – is a brilliant example. The road open by these few pages smuggled into Switzerland is history. Not less known is the recognized influence of Jean Monnet, another private citizen, in shaping with his ideas the European Coal and Steal Community, as testified by the 9 May 1950 declaration, which, after, expanded and flourished into the European integration process. It was, nonetheless, essential to this aim the fervent support of the French minister Schumann and, immediately after, that of the political leaders of the six founding member countries.

Addressing this topic during the awful war in Ukraine, we could sense some similarities in trying to imagine a better world when the current order is showing devastating flaws. Yet we could also take stock of what worked and what didn’t in the institutional formulas imagined more than 70 years ago.

Clearly the UN Security Council is to be placed among the tools which did not work. In more general terms, the UN allowed the countries of the world to collaborate on many significant issues. Yet collaboration is maybe not enough and when it comes to peace and war, it happens that collaboration is totally suspended. It is even too easy to consider hopeless an international body where the US, Russia or China enjoy a veto power, and for sure it cannot be considered a bulwark against wars. Needless to say, any war started or supported by a permanent member of the UN Security Council will never be addressed, even less sanctioned.

Yet the discourse is larger than that. The reason for addressing supranationality and not international multilateralism as a topic for our conference is that traditional international organizations like the UN may prove effective and even successful in bringing many states around a table or even having them voting on something, but they do not address the very roots of pacific coexistence. Being international, which means intergovernmental, they bring around that table states’ representatives focused on their national interest, and it is starting from there that they try to compromise. An addition of national interests is not the same as a genuine common interest.

The EU proved a bit more effective in dealing with the emergency as it decided immediate sanctions, supported in several ways Ukraine and allowed protection to refugees. Even there, though, when it comes to foreign and security policy the model is international and the veto power of all the member states is there. It is much easier to adopt a decision on asylum seekers, as we have seen, than to move in the direction of a single voice in negotiating a truce and a humanitarian corridor. Yet, an organization which is mostly supranational, i.e. with its own legitimacy and accountability – an elected Parliament, a Court of Justice an executive body, the Commission, independent from member states but accountable to the Parliament- exerts a force of attraction far more effective than the international ones and allows States to coalesce around a core of common values by offering a predefined path.

Our conversation in Brindisi, in its first session, focused on the seeds of supranationality and explored it from an original perspective, that of individuals – an essential ingredient in any democratic formula, yet totally absent in the intergovernmental and diplomatic formulas. So, it was a talk about what it takes to make the Union a real Republic, about the role of individuals in pushing for its evolution since its very beginning, not only in the political arena but even in courts, through litigation. And, also, enlarging the perspective to the top and to the bottom, about how one could imagine a multilevel governance from the local to the global dimension. In this big picture, the role of individuals appears relevant not only in their personal capacity, but also as members of social bodies and as economic actors.

Particularly fascinating has been, in this framework, the contribution by dr. Wolfgang Pape on omnilateralism, a term used by him to define a model, beyond multilateralism, both multilevel and multistakeholder.

Two following topics have been at the core of further discussions, both addressing the increasing interconnection in the human family from different perspectives: The first one has been the environmental perspective, the second the technological one. Both address a core necessity of our times, the need to take responsibility for global commons in terms of management/governance as well as in terms of awareness and personal responsibility. The biosphere has no borders and ecosystems do have borders different from the national ones, their fragile balance when altered may result in a permanent damage endangering all the species, humans included.

Internet too has no borders and is similarly a global public good which needs to be managed with
care. Rights and threats come from the same infrastructure, civic participation may depend on it and
misinformation may spread on it significantly impacting democracies and legal orders.

The two conversations had different focuses and if the first one was centered on sustainability, future generations, and rights of nature, the second turned on a spotlight on the big divide among more and less advanced economies and more and less democratic and open societies. Yet both benefited of a true open interdisciplinary dialogue, made up not only of presentations, but also of questions and answers, comments and doubts. It is certainly not possible to solve the problems of the world in two days, but it is at least possible to open the mind to the diversity of perspectives and consider the point of view of the other.

The challenge of inclusion and participation has never been so acutely perceived as in the era of
interdependence we live in, in which everyone is connected and interconnected, not only by
technology, but also by cause-and-effect phenomena as the environmental and atmospheric ones, or
as recently the pandemic. The last and all-encompassing topic has been the one of civic engagement and, in the current situation, it seemed relevant to assess that it is a tool for peace in the broadest sense as it is a tool for coexistence and collaboration and as a way to practice awareness and compassion.

It has been interesting to discuss the role of citizens in the perspective of the participatory and
deliberative democracy, as recently in the process called Conference on the future of Europe, but
also in the challenge of inclusion, which could be effectively pursued through very practical projects and, in the end. also in daily life of citizens who chose to engage in worthy causes.

It may be interesting to notice that supranational and transnational models, those involving directly citizens, support a smooth process leading to pacification i.e. reconciliation, which is more than peace, or, maybe, it is the real peace. Only when people are involved, work together, participate to common decisions, former enemies may overcome hatred and distrust and – as pointed out in the Schumann Declaration “create a de facto solidarity”. Young Europeans from Germany, France, Italy and all the other EU countries do not hate each other and make easy friendships through their free circulation and the exchange programs among their universities.

Unfortunately, hatred and distrust are not only heritage of wars, but also of other past wounds. In several former member countries of the Soviet Union and of the Warsaw pact, the feelings towards Russia are not exactly friendly, they span from detestation to suspicion to fear. Even more now after the brutal aggression to Ukraine. Nevertheless, it is good to remember that the choices of the Russian government do not reflect those of a people who has inside it divergent positions – brutally repressed – and non-irrelevant manipulations. Even if, apparently, it was non needed, a pacification among former controlling and controlled countries would have been most useful for pacific coexistence, even if we cannot say it would have prevented war. It will be the next challenge on the European continent once the most urgent one, that of peace as the end of war, will be accomplished.

The full recording of the conference is online here, as are online the previous editions. Hope to meet you at the next one!

Susanna

Connecting the dots: how a “supranational” path led me to the Supranational Democracy Dialogue.

Posted on by Susanna Cafaro

Most of the experiences I had in my life (in researching, teaching, advocacy) point to this specific direction: governance beyond the State.

Advocacy came first. Since I was a teenager, I played a leading role in the Young European Federalists (JEF).

It was only after I was awarded a Ph.D. grant from the University of Bologna that I had to put aside that experience (apparently to prove to be a “serious” researcher) according to the suggestion of my mentor prof. Paolo Mengozzi. My Ph.D. thesis, which became my first book was dedicated to the economic and monetary union, a brand new topic after the entry into force of the Maastricht Treaty. The focus of my whole work (in the Nineties) was the lack of economic governance in Europe or, to be precise, the need for a common fiscal policy, a topic still relevant nowadays (and the topic for another book later on).

From there I moved to research on the ways and tools for Europe and the Eurozone to speak with one voice in the international fora, so I came to study the IMF and the World Bank (and to the governance of the two was dedicated my second book). The external relations of the EU are a recurrent topic in my record of publications, with two specific focuses: representation in international organizations and euro-Mediterranean relations, between bilateral and multilateral options.

Only later on I realized how my federalist starting point was influencing my research path: wherever I see a governance problem I start to investigate representation, legitimacy, accountability, budget. And I’m drawn to governance issues like a moth to a flame!

Once realized that, I went straight to the point, publishing on democracy in international organizations, on accountability, on citizenship in the European democratic formula.

 I think that not less interesting and diverse has been my experience in advocacy.

In 2009, with a group of colleagues, I founded the think tank The Group of Lecce which, on the long wave of the global financial crisis, started releasing communiques on how to improve the governance of financial institutions.

 In the same period, I started attending the Civil society policy forum convened twice a year by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank on the occasion of their annual and spring meetings and I was invited to join the Bretton Woods Committee.

Starting a blog on “Supranational Democracy” in 2015 was the next step.

It seemed quite natural, two years later, to make the research line converge with the advocacy path and I convened a big international conference to invite scholars and people from academia and institutions to discuss with civil society leaders. All the networks I had previously attended mixed up in this new adventure.

So, in 2018 I have been the organizer – with a great supporting team- of the Supranational Democracy Dialogue (SDD), a dialogue among scholars, civil society and creative thinkers on democratic solutions to global challenges. the story of that experience is in a little documentary film.

As the first edition of the dialogue was a big success and created a platform of like-minded scholars and activists, I am now working on the second edition. I can count on an interesting and diverse network collected around this idea that the world needs some kind of democratic global governance.  

Eventually, this year, I was awarded a Jean Monnet Chair whose title is “Legal Theory of European Integration: a Supranational Democracy Model”. A sort of blessing, for me, after so many years of dedication to an idea which was, for many, plain crazy.

I think that building governance beyond the state and reinventing democracy for the human family is the big challenge of the XXI century, or maybe of the second millennium.

Spiritual people call it oneness: realizing that we are all one, connected and interdependent.

Pragmatical scholars move from different premises: issues are nowadays global (global warming, sea pollution, water scarcity, migration waves, trade wars, threats to peace and security); global institutions are imperfect, as they were created many decades ago for a world of sovereign nations which look nowadays inadequate (both the nations and the global institutions). Globalization of finance, markets, social media calls forth globalization of rights.

No matter which position you move from, you can get to this awareness moved by the mind or the heart. You can come from international law, economics or maybe philosophy, anthropology, a religious belief, or a psychological search… the supranational democracy dialogue could be the place for you.

The panelists come from so many different experiences that nobody expects to teach or to hold the truth, and everybody has for sure something to learn. What is expected is a phenomenon of cross-pollination among ideas, cultures, and paths.

The next edition of the SDD will be in Brindisi, on April 16-17. The program is still a work in progress, it will be posted shortly. If you want to attend or to receive the network newsletter please send an email to info@supranationaldemocracy.net.

See you there xxx

Susanna

Active Global Citizenship: Making the Climate Convention Work

Posted on by Susanna Cafaro

First published on Vocal Europe

 

We are all shocked because of the floods in Paris and across most of central Europe: from Germany to Belgium to Romania. We are scared for the increased frequency and violence of such exceptional climate events, we are worried for our future and the future of our sons.

Yes, some commentators pointed correctly out that this kind of events – as exceptional as they are – already happened in the past, but everybody agrees that global aggregated data on temperature rise are unprecedented, at least as far as we humans can record.

And no events like natural disasters make us feel more powerless, just victims or scared observers.

Still, an attempt has been done – if not to restore the previous climate conditions – at least to slow down this crazy growth of temperature by limiting the impact of our species on the Earth’s ecosystems, to make it finally sustainable. This is the Paris Agreement on climate change, adopted by consensus on 12 December 2015 by 196 delegations, signed by 177 states and already ratified by 17 of them.

Unfortunately, as ambitious as it is, the Paris Agreement is not enough.

In the text, which is the result of the twenty-first meeting of the Parties (COP21) of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), the member states “…Acknowledging that climate change is a common concern of humankind”, commit to hold “ the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C”.

The goal, so, it is not a correction of the current situation, but just the effort to stop further worsening.

While the convention offers some interesting guidelines to help to reach the goal –subsidiarity, transparency, responsibility – unfortunately it does not provide any real enforcement mechanism nor sanctions in case of infringement. The respect of so important commitments depends solely on the good will of the signatories and on the peer- review mechanism every 5 years.

We know that this isn’t enough, but how could we – the citizens – do something about that?

Well, actually, we can do something.

Through an initiative called “citizens’ climate engagement network” we can all do something.

And I have to thank Joseph Robertson, global strategy director at Citizens’ Climate Lobby for starting this wonderful lab for the empowerment of citizens across the world.

He was right when he wrote to me some days ago: “supranational democracy is underway!”

CCEN could be defined as a new global framework to support and expand direct citizens’ and stakeholders’ engagement in the intergovernmental process, in the surveillance over the States and the way they keep their commitments, in promoting new ideas and ways to stop climate change.

In practice, anybody can host a local working session, to contribute local insights and experiences to the global climate policy process. A toolkit for local sessions is on-line, ready to use. A platform will provide exchanges of views inside this community of engaged citizens. Finally, an Advisory Coalition meets once a month to share insights, think through challenges to meeting the mission of the CCEN, which is to ensure any voice from anywhere with an idea worth sharing can be heard in the global conversation.

The governance is completed by a secretariat and a global team of local networks of leaders, stakeholders and collaborators. The mission is to build a global base of local knowledge, relating to the Paris Agreement, and to bring all the local insight into the COP22 negotiations, making all voices heard. So increasing the legitimacy and the accountability of and the inclusion into the Paris Convention framework.

Representatives from several UN agencies and dedicated NGOs joined the advisory coalition  in their personal capacity, and I’m very glad to be part of it. And the UNFCCC secretariat hosted the initiative in its newsroom. It’s getting big!

What is most relevant in this bottom-up exercise, we learned the lesson that organized citizens may take a stance for global goals, so filling the gaps of global governance. The CCEN is a precious lab. It shows how active global citizenship is possible, as a path towards a more democratic world.

The effort behind this accomplishment could be replicated for other goals, empowering communities of committed people to work together as active global citizens: I think of associations and NGOs promoting human rights, fighting poverty, claiming for women and children’s rights. And these are just examples.

If there is a lesson we can learn from the climate change challenge, it is this sense of belonging to the human family, sharing a “common concern” as humankind.

COP21_participants_-_30_Nov_2015_23430273715-897x494

 

From the Chaos, the Tiles of a New World Order

Posted on by Susanna Cafaro

In many mythologies, order is born out of chaos. Well…  there is hope, at least !

What we see around us is quite a chaotic world: magmatic and unstable, full of emergencies, slipping out of the control of inadequate social and political structures.

Some of us have the impression that time is ripe for a big leap, a cultural revolution as the only  possible alternative to sinking into the anarchic collapse of our societies or, even worse, a new fall into the hell of nationalism and war.

Some philosophers or mathematicians could object that we are used to live on the edge of chaos, being the world a complex system whose balance is intrinsecally unstable. Hence, the  chaos theory seems to ignore  – at least in the social science – the important variable that I would call human evolution.

The choice is not simply between chaos and complexity, on one side, and stability and order, on the other (an illusion sold by many populist politicians). The third way is the most realistic one, even if difficult to walk: ethically navigating the complexity to promote the emergence of new models and solutions.

How could that be possible?

I think many of us have have had insights about it, different but all convergent. I’ll offer a number of inspiring examples.

First of all, I see a rise in awareness. Many people started to feel global citizens and experience this awareness. For instance, the huge community of global citizens has an impact on addressing extreme poverty; everybody, supporting Movements, can help an activist for human rights in need; people signing petitions on Avaaz  take a stance on causes which are perceived as global. Interestingly enough, active global citizenship is being born bottom-up.

There is also a way to express this awareness as economic players. Many years have passed since Klaus Schwab had the brilliant intuition that modern enterprises must serve all stakeholders to achieve long-term growth and prosperity. Since then, his creature, the World Economic Forum, grew exponentially, still committed to improving the state of the world.

Even if the concept of social responsibility of enterprises is not new,  it is getting more and more popular: together with the narrative of disruptive change, the narrative of positively impacting the world has gained traction in the entrepreneurial environment. Beautiful initiatives as XPrize or Hive are thriving. A powerful example of this new way of being economic players is offered by Business Fights Poverty, a network of over 15,000 professionals harnessing business for social impact.

Private foundations are now big players in financing development, education, health care, social justice: One, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Clinton Foundation, Open Society Foundations and many more… Philantropists appear animated by the desire of giving back to humanity, by the deep consciousness of their impact on millions of lives and by the side effect of living more fulfilling lives.

The civil society  -after a long season of demonstrations in the Nineties (against  G7, WTO, globalization) – started building bridges to make their voice heard by international actors. NGOs are more and more global actors, starting original initiatives to make international organizations more legitimate, accountable and inclusive.

The newborn Citizens Climate Engagement Network deserves a special mention as a powerful example of what individuals can do even in the apparently out of reach challenge of stopping climate change.

In this changing climate, States are somehow hanging back, as bulwarks of the status quo, a problem that Simon Anholt is addressing with the Good Country project. He deserves all our support.

Finally which institutional shape would better fit this changing world? Which model would sort us out of this “competitive mode” and organise humanity as a single species sharing  a single planet? This is my issue and this blog is my thinking aloud about it. You can read here and there insights and bits of a solution. Something to work on for decades!

I apologize if I forgot to mention many worthy individuals and beautiful initiatives, I know many of you are on this path of progress and evolution and, if you want to add some information posting a comment, I really appreciate.

It seems to me important – in a world focused on bad news – turn on a light beam on the emerging tiles of a different reality.

How long it will take for the puzzle pieces to get together?

Transnational Politics: The Idea Whose Time Has Come.

Posted on by Susanna Cafaro

As Victor Hugo said :

“rien n’est plus puissant qu’une idée dont le temps est venu“

Abolishing slavery or giving voting rights to women were once crazy ideas.

But, one day, somebody started to think that such ideas were – after all – quite reasonable, or even that they felt righ. It took time to build a critical mass of people thinking that way, but it happened: the time was ripe… and such ideas became powerful.

There are ideas or opinions whose time has just come: that individuals are equal no matter their sexual orientation, that little girls have the right to get an education, that women deserve the same salary of men for the same job: in some places this is already obvious (and not from yesterday), but you can see now a global push for that. Time is ripe.

You may also notice that once every nation had its own time for these evolutionary leaps, even if the neighbouring countries and cultures had an influence on it. Europe has always been that way: a sort of civilization soup where ideas moved back and forth across boundaries.

Now, in the global village, ideas are more and more percolating across boundaries. Leaps will happen more and more on a global scale and critical masses will be, more often than not, transnational ones.

Becoming aware of that is a revelation which pushes us to look for our community across boundaries. I’ve found mine in all the individuals living as global citizens and pushing for a transnational dimension of politics, where individuals may play a role.

I want to mention here some friends:  Joseph Robertson from Citizens Climate Lobby -who is at work building an operative Citizens’ Climate Engagement Network, to improve bottom up accountability to the Paris engagements on climate; Philippe Mazuel, founder of the Party of the Citizens of Europe – PACE, who is candidate for the next French presidential elections in order to promote a real European dimension of politics (and if you are French you can support him on LaPrimaire.org);  and Sargon Nissan from the Brettom Woods Project  -who animates the  Bank and IMF’s civil society policy forum pushing for a stronger participation of civil society in order to improve the legitimacy of these global financial institutions.

I could have added more names and more examples, this avant-garde pushing for supranational democracy is not just composed of few isolated individuals, even if they’re not, yet, a critical mass. Ideas need to go their way and infect more and more individuals until, one day, time is ripe.

Then, they become powerful, as Hugo said.

2015: a Wonderful and Horrible Year

Posted on by Susanna Cafaro

For the good and the bad, no doubts that we will have many reasons to remember this year.

From the summer on, it has been a crescendo of multilateralism: the third Financing for Development Conference in Addis Ababa in July, the adoption of the sustainable development goals in September. Finally, the adoption of the new Paris Agreement on climate change in December. Even the new committment by OECD and G20 to improve international tax co-operation  to counter international tax avoidance and evasion looks promising.

There is a new, evident and increasing awareness that many problems of this globalised world cannot be managed by single countries. The international commitments look ambitious, even if their enforcement is still problematic.

Together with the official initiatives, many private ones show the same awareness, if not a bigger one. So many organisations from the civil society joined their efforts to support the SDG, a big number of them worked to make the Paris agreement feasible, pushing their governments to commitments to heal the planet. Many important initiatives were launched which are a real force for good (to quote the beautiful one promoted by the Dalai Lama).

But we have also other reasons to remember this year: one million of migrants reached the European shores, several thousands died in the Mediterranean sea, innocent victims fleeing wars or poverty. Bloody regimes still oppress their people – whose ISIS is only the scariest example. The death toll of terrorism counts in thousands in middle east and in many near countries, the Paris events being only the tip of the iceberg. The price paid by children is impressive: Boko Haram has kept more than one million children out of school across Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger , according to UNICEF.

You can be wildly optimist if you focus on one part of the story or desperately pessimist if you chose to pay attention to the other part. The truth is: this years fed both the narratives and it’s up to us to select the one which empowers us to do more and better or the one which scares us to death.

I don’t remember another year like this one.

I have never been a Manichean, so I wonder if it is only my impression or really the world is stretched between these two opposite forces, the force of connection and that of discord.

Do you feel, like me, that we should contribute somehow to the bright side?

 

COP21: A Global Community at Work

Posted on by Susanna Cafaro

In the supranational democracy I imagine, every citizen is a global citizen. But not every citizen is an engaged global citizen and not every engaged one is committed to the same cause.

There are so many issues and so many front lines to engage on and we do not have all the same priorities, so it’s quite natural to me that everybody will (and already does) choose what is really dear to his/her heart, what really matters for her.

We are going to join our community, to commit to our cause with like-minded individuals. That’s the best way to make a difference.

I imagine supranational democracy as a galaxy of global institutions and fora, each having its own community of committed citizens to dialogue with, to draw legitimacy from, to hold them accountable. Overlapping global communities will push for the global public goods we all need.

We have in front of us a powerful example.

In COP21 we see a global community committed to stop climate change: national delegations, international organizations and a wide gathering of committed people – businessmen and investors, NGOs’ activists, scientists and experts, representatives of local communities and of indigenous peoples – all involved in one huge debate, at different levels.

The global demos in the making is something different from the nation we have experienced in the past 3 -4 centuries. What makes us stand together as humanity is an idea of common good which will involve us on a voluntary basis in different processes and priorities.

For this reason I think that it is unilkely that we are going to see a global parliament in the future and  -even if I would be the first to support such an evolution of the General Assembly of the United Nations- it wouldn’t respond fully to our need of democracy because of the distance from the electoral body and the (inevitably) small number of representatives.

What would really make shorter the distance between real people and global institutions would be assemblies or gatherings committed to specific topics: humain rights, sustainable debelopment, equality, fair finance, health and so on. Each of them is already prefigured in a global debate among committed people and each debate is already going on somewhere, somehow.

Encouraging these debates and offering them an institutional space  would make them visible and transparent, would enhance  their effectiveness and fuel productive outcomes.

We hope to  remember one day the COP21 as a turning point in stopping climate change. We could also remember it as a big experiment of global debate, at so many different levels, among members of a global community.

IMF -WB annual meetings here…

Posted on by Susanna Cafaro

Every year, governing bodies of  the International Monetary Fund and World Bank gather to take historical decisions (or just to try to), often in Washington, less often somewhere else, now it’s in Peru.

image

This means that financial ministers and central bankers from all over the world are here, with a good number of staff, IMF and WB officials and a bunch of other important people…. and lots of press, of course!

Civil society is here too and, yes, that means I’m here as well, to participate, observe and comment.

Being here, for some of us, is already something: great opportunity to listen to experts, to network, to discover sometimes that we are not less expert than official experts.

Nonetheless, after some years of attending the big kermesse, you start to see how things could simply go better.

I am not complaining! Lima is the navel of the world today and I’m sincerely grateful and glad to be here. Besides, the role of civil society increased over the last ten years and now it seems just normal that we can meet Madame Lagarde and Mr Kim in a dedicated session and ask questions, even if sometimes the tough ones don’t receive an answer.

image

Or that we have our own spaces and propose our own panels and discussions

image

But still, we ask – year after year – that our panels and activities are open to press and officials and national delegates, which in principle is such a simple thing to do. it would be easy to make our program of seminars circulate together with the official programs for everyone who is interested and I just wonder why this doesn’t happen.
Our candid demand for visibility still remains unanswered.

What are civil society seminars about? Fair taxation, Impartial procedures for sovereign debt restructuring, transparency, participatory tools, indigenous rights, green economy and so on and so on. Panels often host highly qualified experts and offer a comfortable venue for an open discussion.

imageimage

Journalists are just a few rooms away, too busy covering official press conferences and delegates walk from a meeting to another -the G20, the G24, the Caribbean, the EU ministers and so on and so on – and some look lost in this babel of interests and activities.

So, mostly, we “civil society people”  ( recognizable by our pink badge) just speak among us, easily agreeing on better procedures, better governance, better financial tools, great proposals that unfortunately nobody listen too.

A great democratic exercise that mostly get wasted, a lost opportunity for real dialogue, for many and for the institutions as a whole.

But we keep on asking visibility and offering great content, for free.

The Global Goals and All the Ways to Communicate Them

Posted on by Susanna Cafaro

Sustainable development goals are ambitious. They are milestones intended to change the world in the next 15 years.

As you can read, the 5 Ps in the preamble reveal a broaden view…

The Goals and targets will stimulate action over the next fifteen years in areas of critical importance for humanity and the planet:

People

We are determined to end poverty and hunger, in all their forms and dimensions, and to ensure that all human beings can fulfil their potential in dignity and equality and in a healthy environment.

Planet

We are determined to protect the planet from degradation, including through sustainableconsumption and production, sustainably managing its natural resources and taking urgentaction on climate change, so that it can support the needs of the present and futuregenerations.

Prosperity

We are determined to ensure that all human beings can enjoy prosperous and fulfillinglives and that economic, social and technological progress occurs in harmony with nature.

Peace

We are determined to foster peaceful, just and inclusive societies which are free from fearand violence. There can be no sustainable development without peace and no peace without sustainable development.

Partnership

We are determined to mobilize the means required to implement this Agenda through arevitalised Global Partnership for Sustainable Development, based on a spirit of strengthened global solidarity, focussed in particular on the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable and with the participation of all countries, all stakeholders and all people.

Many will notice that this list is much longer than the previous one, the list of Millennium development goals, written fifteen years ago. The focus is not just on the people, but on the planet too and on all the living creatures on it. As somebody said, “What does not benefit the hive, is no benefit to the bee.”

Are they achievable? Yes, they are. But if we look at the previous 15 years we can tell than setting a direction doesn’t guarantee that we are going to reach the target. Nonetheless, it is far better than not setting it at all. If we fall short, we’ll be somewhere on the way. Somewhere closer.

Of course, the goals and their formulations are the results of negotiations and compromises – not necessarily the best possible – and the follow-up won’t be easy (you can read something more here)

Nonetheless, this new 15-years-race has been better prepared than the previous one.

First of all, the SDGs are the final results of many different levels of contribution, which have involved an impressive number of people. Even if the diplomatic and political level played the decisive role, it has been preceded by on-line polls (involving more than 8 million people), thematic and national consultations, large debates, meetings with civil society.

The idea is that creating a sense of ownership – through a bottom-up dialogue, inclusive planning structures such as the World We Want Platform  and multi-stakeholder partnerships – will benefit its delivery.

Another powerful idea is that communications is in itself a key to making the targets attainable.

If a majority of people around the world will believe in the goals they will become achievable. Not only because private action will join the efforts of government and international organizations, but also because – on a deeper level – a sort of global awareness will make them appear realistic so that many small actions will add up to the big ones.

The effort to communicate the new goals appears, in this early stage, already impressive.

For instance, for the number of testimonials…

…or for the different targets, including children

…and for the spontaneous involvement of private companies.

Virgin, for instance, has created an app in support of the global goals, wich could transform all of us in superheroes to join ‘the global goals alliance’.

I’ve chosen for myself the superpower “partnership for the goals” ( no.17)

Embarrassing, isn’t it?

But what I think is really great, it’s the idea that we can contribute in many different ways and so several different platforms are just being created to offer us occasions to engage, such as the PEOPLE + PLANET PROJECT or the Global Citizen Community.

Quite interesting as a start, isn’t it?