By IPS Correspondents
PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil, Jan 29 2005 (IPS)

As the United Nations turns 60, the international civil society movement is aiming to create ”a global alliance” to forge changes that go beyond what the UN or its members are currently willing to do in transforming the world body.

>From top to bottom, a groundswell is growing for "another United Nations."

"Insider" Federico Mayor and "Outsider" Werner Bullig have never met and perhaps never will. But they share a common vision for the world body and at the World Social Forum under way in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre they are fighting to achieve it.

What they want is nothing less than profound reform of international institutions, including the United Nations itself. Such reform, they say, is critical on the long and winding road towards achieving "another world" – the ultimate goal of the WSF, which this year has drawn some 120,000 activists and experts for discussion and debate through Monday, Jan. 31.

At the WSF venue, inside one of the many stifling hot tents on the banks of the polluted Guaíba River, Mayor speaks from inside experience as the former director-general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). "Dissent from the current UN system is not only possible, but an ethical necessity," he says.

Retired from UNESCO, Mayor now heads Ubuntu, a Barcelona-based network of NGOs committed to the transformation of international organisations, which held a meeting here featuring Nobel Prize winners José Saramago and Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, and former Portuguese prime minister Antonio Guterres.

"All countries must be equal in the new UN," he insists.

Both Mayor and Bullig have plenty of company at the World Social Forum and elsewhere. The need for reforming the UN system is coming to the forefront as concern grows about a world with one superpower.

"UN or USA? What do you prefer?" is the theme of Italian NGO Tavola della Pace (Peace Table). "Another UN is possible… with the People."

The Italian NGO, allied with 25 national global networks and 50 international organisations, launched an appeal "to save the United Nations from institutional decline – under attack, weakened and marginalized by strong unilateralism and uncontrolled neo-liberal globalists."

It asked its network members to be engaged in a "a new, major global mobilisations against poverty, war and unilateralism and for justice, peace and democracy." The date chosen is Sep. 10, 2005 – the eve of the UN gathering to assess progress on the eight Millennium Development Goals adopted five years ago.

Its document calls multilateralism "not an option, butàindispensable" although "it is full if limitations (and) has been hijacked by powerful governmentsà it is the only one we have."

As the United Nations turns 60 and engages in its own reform process, civil society is working to create "a global alliance" to push for changes that go beyond what the UN or its members are willing to do.

"The UN system has to be transformed in order to make it more democratic, representative and accountable," according to the current campaign coordinated by Tavola della Pace. "And the reform process must include the active participation of key actors such as civil society organisations, local governments and parliaments."

The idea is to stress "human security" as opposed to military and national security: the creation of a Human Security and Development Council and putting non-UN entities such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation within the new UN system.

Its proposals include a request that the General Assembly be changed – "and brought back to the centre of the UNà strengthened and democratised."

Former UNESCO director-general Mayor told IPS that he sees no reason why civil society groups cannot be active in the General Assembly and even become members.

Another campaign by Reform of Global Institutions is asking that the Security Council – currently comprising 11 member states with five permanent ones wielding the veto power – be placed under effective UN General Assembly control.

Socialist International, in its campaign ‘Reforming the United Nations for a new Global Agenda’, is calling for new global alliances for "a new Global Deal" that goes beyond adding new members to the Security Council and envisages an eventual end to the veto power of permanent members.

As for the UN, its reforms plans call for a Peacebuilding Commission to be established by the Security Council and another Deputy Secretary-General for "peace and security."

It also sees as essential the participation of civil society groups in policy-making in multilateral institutions including an annual Civil Society Forum consisting of representatives of organisations to be accredited to the General Assembly.

Yet even that may not be enough for civil society. "The UN we want is a UN of the Peoples, not a UN of armed sovereign states," as the Italian Tavola della Pace puts it.

Excerpt: