WORLD SOCIAL FORUM AT TURNING POINT: REFORM OR BECOME IRRELEVANT
By Roberto Savio (739 words)
IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE, JANUARY 2004
//NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN CANADA, NEW ZEALAND, CZECH REPUBLIC, IRELAND, THE UNITED STATES AND THE UNITED KINGDOM//

At its January meeting in Mumbai, India, the World Social Forum (WSF) will reach its maximum expansion, writes Roberto Savio, founder and president emeritus of the IPS agency, and member of the International Committee of the World Social Forum (WSF). Each of the preceding three Forums greatly exceeded all expectations raised when the decision was first taken to hold in Porto Alegre, Brazil.. The numbers tell the tale: 10,000 were expected to attend in January 2001; 50,000 came. Attendance rose to 75,000 the next year and to 100,000 in 2003. More important than the number of participants was the galaxy of organisations of every type and level that came together to assert that ''another world is possible''.

The Forum provides an occasion of enormous gratification for its participants. The days are full of intense debate where no differences separate the rich and poor, farmers and intellectuals, men and women, and a stunning range of political positions are presented and countered. All leave with their commitment to idealism strengthened and deepened. And yet none of this succeeds in producing an impact on the political world and the international institutions.

(*) Roberto Savio, founder and president emeritus of the IPS agency, is a member of the International Committee of the World Social Forum (WSF).

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DEMOCRATISE GLOBALISATION BEFORE GLOBALISATION DENATURES DEMOCRACY
By Boutros Boutros-Ghali (840 words)
IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE, JANUARY 2004
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While globalisation has generated great hope for much of the world, it has also given rise to numerous threats, writes Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1992-1996.

The author writes that we must democratise globalisation before globalisation denatures democracy. To begin with, the UN system itself needs to be more thoroughly democratised, specifically the Security Council, which remains Eurocentric and does not take into account the emergence of new major powers over the last 50 years.

The push to democratise risks undermining the logic that drives it if it results in the location of global power beyond the reach of the states, and if the new sites of power do not operate according to democratic principles.

Only a new conception of solidarity can prevent or at least attenuate the inevitable exclusions that global society carries within itself. But solidarity cannot be decreed. It must arise out of a collective engagement, that is, the participation of states as well as the non-state actors of contemporary international society.

(*) Boutros Boutros-Ghali was Secretary General of the United Nations from 1992-1996.

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POWER POLITICS ONLY EXACERBATES GLOBAL INSECURITY
By Mary Robinson (829 words)
IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE, JANUARY 2004
//NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN CANADA, NEW ZEALAND, CZECH REPUBLIC, IRELAND, THE UNITED STATES AND THE UNITED KINGDOM//

Since September 11, 2001 shook the world, the commitments which ushered in the new millennium have been overshadowed by the threats of terrorism, fears about the future, and questions about the viability of open societies joined by international norms and values, writes Mary Robinson, executive director of The Ethical Globalisation Initiative, former president of Ireland, and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

If we want real human security, instead of putting up walls of fear and resorting only to power politics, we should seek ways to focus on promoting in practice the values of freedom, equality, solidarity, tolerance, respect, and shared responsibility which can unite rather than divide. We should also remember that 9/11 did not, in fact, change much in the lives of most people on the planet for whom human insecurity was and is a daily reality.

The world's economic system has operated largely in isolation from human rights, both at an institutional level and in intellectual terms. The first step to addressing the apparent conflicts between the values of the market and the values of human rights is to recognise that the objectives of international human rights and international trade in fact have much in common.

This column was adapted from a lecture given by the author at the Aspen Institute and approved by her in this form.

(*) Mary Robinson, executive director of The Ethical Globalisation Initiative and Honorary President of Oxfam International, is a former president of Ireland and former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

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TRADE MUST BE BOTH FREE AND FAIR
By Erkki Tuomioja (840 words)
IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE, JANUARY 2004
//NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN CANADA, NEW ZEALAND, CZECH REPUBLIC, IRELAND, THE UNITED STATES AND THE UNITED KINGDOM//

The current process of globalisation is incomplete, unequal, and characterised by a deficit in democratic governance, writes Erkki Tuomioja, foreign minister of Finland.

Tuomioja writes in this analysis that as with elections, it is not enough that trade is free: it has be fair as well. In many developing countries the formal economic sector constitutes a tiny part of the society, the majority of which is either left out of the globalisation process or experiences only its negative effects. Most of the world's population lacks protection of the law or social security.

It is necessary to expand the space for local initiatives and solutions as a way of limiting the negative effects of globalisation. But this can be done effectively only through multilateral support and rules. We need global social and environmental policies. We have to ask how to democratise the global governance and how to redistribute global assets.

(*) Erkki Tuomioja is minister of foreign relations for Finland.

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NEOLIBERALISM HAS FAILED
By Mario Soares (720 words)
IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE, JANUARY 2004
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Neoliberalism, the economic dogma that has been the rage for the last few years, has clearly failed to solve the world's problems, writes Mario Soares, president of Portugal from 1986-1996.

Whether in the US, Europe, or Japan, or particularly in emerging economies, the sanctification of the market, particularly as practised in the 1990s, gave what it had to give and sank the world into what Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz described as '' the first major planetary crisis of globalisation'' , Soares writes in this analysis.

Especially in the Third World, the free market, when untempered by any governmental regulation, leads to the creation of deep social injustices, systematically refuses to respond to the undeniable ecological needs of our day, and in the current phase of speculative capitalism has led to grave vices, as seen today in the scandals of Enron, Vivendi, etc.

Bush has crowed that since the invasion of Iraq ''the world is much safer'. All we need now is for him to abandon Iraq to its sad chaos and the world to an unprecedented economic crisis. Speculator-philanthropist George Soros was right to commit a large sum to the fight against Bush's re-election.

(*) Mario Soares was president of Portugal from 1986-1996.

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GLOBAL CIVIL SOCIETY MEETS AMIDST CRISIS OF EMPIRE
By Walden Bello (962 words)
IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE, JANUARY 2004
//NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN CANADA, NEW ZEALAND, CZECH REPUBLIC, IRELAND, THE UNITED STATES AND THE UNITED KINGDOM//

For the thousands of representatives of global civil society gathering in Mumbai, India, for the World Social Forum from January 16-22, Washington is the world's number one problem, writes Walden Bello, professor of sociology and public administration at the University of the Philippines, executive director of the Bangkok-based research and advocacy institute Focus on the Global South, and a recipient of the Right Livelihood Award for 2003.

But the US they confront today is not quite the same cocksure superpower of yesterday. The Iraq quagmire and the collapse of the WTO Cancun ministerial were just two manifestations of that fatal disease of empires: over-extension. Then there is the failure to consolidate a dependent regime in Afghanistan and to stabilise the Palestine situation, the boost given to Islamic extremism by US-led invasions; the unravelling of the Atlantic Alliance that won the Cold War; plus the emergence of anti-US, anti-free-market regimes in Brazil and Venezuela.

Is the US in a no-win situation? Bello asks in this article. The crowds in Mumbai will undoubtedly continue to regard the US as a mortal threat to global peace and justice, but they will also be cheered by the increasing difficulties of an arrogant empire that failed to see that decline is inevitable and that the challenge is not to resist the process but to manage it deftly.

(*) Walden Bello is professor of sociology and public administration at the University of the Philippines and executive director of the Bangkok-based research and advocacy institute Focus on the Global South. He is one of the recipients of the Right Livelihood Award --better known as the Alternative Nobel Prize-- for 2003.

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BUILDING ECONOMIES OF PERMANENCE AND POLITICS OF PEACE
By Vandana Shiva (942 words)
IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE, JANUARY 2004
//NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN CANADA, NEW ZEALAND, CZECH REPUBLIC, IRELAND, THE UNITED STATES AND THE UNITED KINGDOM//

The World Economic Forum has designed a world centred on capital and the men and corporations who control it, writes Vandana Shiva, author and international campaigner for women and the environment who received the Right Livelihood Award (Alternative Nobel Prize) in 1993.

In this column, Shiva writes that the rise of religious fundamentalisms, the growth of terrorism and violence, and militarisation and war, are inevitable consequences of an economic system which discounts peoples' fundamental human and democratic rights, basic needs, and ecological security.

The message of people to power is peace and non-violence. Violence is the means and end of an economy based on greed, economic dictatorship and militarism. Non-violence in both means and end is the choice of the people. Corporate globalisation needed militarism, explicit or implicit. When 25,000 Indian peasants are forced to commit suicide, when Korean farmer Lee sacrificed his life in Cancun saying ''WTO kills farmers'', globalisation is exposed as war by other means. When Halliburton and Bechtel emerge as the real winners of the Iraq war, it becomes clear that war is globalisation by other means.

The struggle between people and capital is now an epic struggle between life and death. And it has just begun. This is the beginning of a new chapter of human history -- not ''the end of history''.

(*) Vandana Shiva is an author and international campaigner for women and the environment. She received the Right Livelihood Award (Alternative Nobel Prize) in 1993.

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STRIKING A NEW BALANCE, NATIONALLY AND GLOBALLY
By James D. Wolfensohn (715 words)
IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE, JANUARY 2004
//NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN CANADA, NEW ZEALAND, CZECH REPUBLIC, IRELAND, THE UNITED STATES AND THE UNITED KINGDOM//

The 4th World Social Forum in Mumbai, India, comes not a moment too soon: as 2004 begins, conflict and terrorism continue to grab the headlines, while issues of inequality and injustice are not given the urgency they require, writes James D. Wolfensohn, president of the World Bank.

The dialogue in Mumbai can help restore a development oriented global agenda. Tackling with all our collective might the HIV/AIDS pandemic, coming to grips with climate change and our degraded oceans and freshwater supplies, seeing to it that all children everywhere attend primary school are front-burner issues. They need to be on a par with pensions, health care, unemployment, and other domestic issues that government leaders tend to focus on.

We can begin to solve the problems of imbalance only if we forge a new development path linking economic growth to social and environmental responsibility. Without enlarging the real opportunities available to all citizens, markets serve only the elites. This means providing everyone the chance for a life that is secure -- with a right to expression, to learn, to a clean environment, to development, for women, and for the disabled and disadvantaged.

(*) James D. Wolfensohn is president of the World Bank.

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