SHAPING THE FUTURE: THE WORK OF SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS

As the World Economic Forum and the World Social Forum convene in Davos and Porto Alegre, respectively, there is the sense that deep forces we can barely discern are reshaping the world and that the national and global institutions we have always counted are inadequate, write Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, and the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, and Pamela Hartigan, Managing Director of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship. Yet we are optimists, the authors write: for the past four years we have worked closely with the world\'s leading social entrepreneurs whose inspired pragmatism banishes pessimism. While we cannot reformulate our institutional systems overnight, we are convinced that we can do it in the long run because we witness the current work of social entrepreneurs who are now creating different types of institutions that combine public and private sector approaches to achieve economic and social transformation. Governments and aid agencies no longer can be the sole actors in addressing injustice and inequity. The private sector can no longer see itself as simply in the business of making business. And the philanthropic sector cannot be expected to fill in the gaps. We need a hybrid organisation that does all of these things. This column is a part of the special series on \"Globalisation & Human Rights\", a joint effort of Dignity International (http://www.dignityinternational.org) and the IPS Columnist Service.

SPECIAL IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE COVERAGE WORLD SOCIAL FORUM PORTO ALEGRE JANUARY 26-31, 2005: HUMAN RIGHTS IS BEST STRATEGY TO END POVERTY

Will 2005 be a year of breakthrough which moves us closer to realizing the World Social Forum\'s conviction that another world is possible? Or will it be yet another year in which the divides in our world continue to grow? The answer, of course, depends on the choices we make and the values we uphold, writes Mary Robinson, Executive Director of The Ethical Globalisation Initiative and Honorary President of Oxfam International. In this article, the author writes that commitments that should be front and center during 2005 are those that governments made at the start of the 21st century. Five years after the largest gathering ever of heads of state and government solemnly vowed in the 2000 UN Millennium Declaration to spare no effort to free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty, it is clear that many countries in the world are falling desperately short of the progress needed to reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. In our search for a more ethical globalization, the time has come to return to the values and principles reflected in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The universality of human rights, their focus on human dignity, and their concern for accountability, make them uniquely appropriate for re-shaping development cooperation, fostering good governance, and combating discrimination, disease, and despair.

AN INDIVISIBLE DESTINY

The new geopolitics of human existence demonstrates an unprecedented capacity to fight for large collective interests and to demand solutions that are coordinated and solidary, writes Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, President of Brazil. In this article, Lula writes that while debts must be honored, payment must not mean the euthanasia of the debtor. The holders of the surplus of financial wealth must consider the social deficit afflicting three-quarters of humanity. This cannot be done simply by applying some automatic accounting formula. Rather, it is a matter of bringing about the transformation of social justice into the new border of sovereignty. The author calls for the reform of the hierarchy of the multilateral institutions. If poor countries are to be able to make the fight for development a priority of the global agenda, democracy must be deepened at the center of power. The reform of the UN and particularly the Security Council is part of this agenda. But the line of inequality will not shift as long as political power remains locked in place by a financial system that perpetuates current relationships: 45 percent of the decision-making of the World Bank is assigned to the seven richest countries. Five central economies hold 40 percent of the votes in the International Monetary Fund, while 23 African nations prostrated by hunger have one percent. This column is part of the series on Globalisation and Human Rights, a joint project of Dignity International and IPS Columnist Service (http://www.dignityinternational.org).

TSUNAMI: SIMPLE STEPS THAT COULD SAVE THOUSANDS OF LIVES

In a January 2 interview on CNN, the head of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was asked, Why was no warning issued to the countries hit by a tsunami after NOAA detected the earthquake on 26 December? He responded that, first, there was no warning system in place; and second, that NOAA lacked a precise model of the tsunami and could not have known how many people would need to evacuate, writes Dietrich Fischer, Academic Director of the European University Center for Peace Studies in Stadtschlaining, Austria, and Co-director of TRANSCEND, a global peace and development network. In this article, Fischer writes that even if the job description of the scientists who detected the earthquake did not include warning those whose lives were in danger, it was their moral responsibility to do so. They may not have had phone numbers of the relevant government agencies in the affected countries. But if they had informed people who could pass on the warning, even at night, they might have been able to reach some people in the affected areas who could have forwarded the information to others. And the US State Department could have contacted foreign governments and its embassies in the region directly. It took the tsunami 3 hours and 52 minutes to reach Sri Lanka, less for Thailand, but plenty of time for a warning.

GLOBALISE HUMAN RIGHTS

The challenge before us today is to use the many opportunities globalisation offers to deliver human dignity for all, writes Louise Arbour, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. In this article, the author writes that the power of human rights lies not just in their expression of an aspiration but in their articulation of a legal framework which binds us all. In this age of rapid globalisation, decisions that directly affect people\'s lives are taken beyond national borders; accordingly, it is crucial that we strengthen the capacity of states to defend human rights and the rule of law and to resist policies that will have negative consequences on human rights of their people. The protection of human rights at the country level is critical if international standards, norms, and laws are to have practical effects on the ground. Only when national laws, institutions and procedures effectively work in this direction can the protection of human rights be ensured. This column is part of the special series on \"Globalisation & Human Rights\", a joint effort of Dignity International (http://www.dignityinternational.org) and the IPS Columnist Service.

REMAKING THE WORLD ON A HUMAN SCALE

While the World Social Forum is a wellspring of alternatives, the process of discussion and comparison that generates them is more important than the alternatives themselves, writes Candido Grzybowski, a sociologist, director of IBASE (Brazilian Institute for Socio-economic Analysis) and member of the organising committee of the WSF.. In this article, the author writes that the WSF asserts the primacy of politics, not markets, in human life. To this end the Forum is a process and space for democratic innovation that spurs different social subjects to participate and assert their will over state power, the multilateral institutions, corporations, and the markets. We have taken on the challenge of remaking the world on a human scale, for all human beings. We must contribute to the development of new agendas. And we must not allow warriors and terrorists, market operators and owners of corporations, and their fundamentalism, to dictate the priorities of humanity. We have to propose alternatives. We need an agenda that embraces, here and now, the world and humanity, with the greatest respect but without fear of taking risks or an intention of imposing anything. A collective construction without models or single solutions requires a radical respect for the incomplete, the different, and the plural, but also a constant search. This column is a part of the special series on \"Globalisation & Human Rights\", a joint effort of Dignity International (http://www.dignityinternational.org) and the IPS Columnist Service.

LESS EUPHORIC, THE WORLD SOCIAL FORUM RETURNS TO BRAZIL

The mood of this year\'s World Social Forum is likely to be affected by the tsunami tragedy in South as well as the changed national context in the host country: the fiscally-conservative policies adopted by the Lula government, which have generated high unemployment and little growth, writes Walden Bello. executive director of the Bangkok-based Focus on the Global South. In this article, Bello writes that the debate over the effects of globalisation has long been won by its critics, yet neoliberal policies continue to reign in most developing countries, often in the guise of World Bank-sponsored macroeconomic strategies. Bello writes that the war in Iraq will be a central concern of the meeting. It was, after all, at a WSF-related event, the 2002 European Social Forum in Florence, that the call was issued for the global anti-war march that brought out hundreds of millions of people throughout the world on February 15, 2003. That the WSF has survived and become an institution demonstrates that it has tapped into the vast reservoir of energy of global civil society. This column is part of the special series on \"Globalisation & Human Rights\", a joint effort of Dignity International (http://www.dignityinternational.org) and the IPS Columnist Service.

A Greenhouse Gas Becomes Star of the Market

Latin America is joining the international movement for trade in methane emissions credits. Environmental activists are giving this approach the thumbs-down.

U.S. Returns to Dialogue on Climate Change

The United States and the OPEC countries agreed to participate in a May 2005 seminar on climate change, but they reject new negotiations. ''It's a positive step,'' says Raúl Estrada Oyuela, who proposed the face-saving meeting, approved at the close of the 10th Conference on Climate Change, in Buenos Aires.

Organic Coffee Instead of Coca

Peasant farming families in Colombia are abandoning their illegal drug crops and staking their bets on fair trade organic coffee. They have already exported almost 5,000 sacks of coffee beans this year.

Ecobreves – ARGENTINA: Alert Against Transgenic Trees

International environmental organizations gathered in Argentina are exhorting governments around the world to ban the inclusion of transgenic tree plantations as possible ''carbon sinks'' to capture greenhouse gases.

Ecobreves – COLOMBIA: Sustainable Crafts

Communities neighboring the 49 nature preserves in Colombia this month presented a show of artisan work that uses natural resources, but are developed through environmental sustainable processes.

Ecobreves – PERU: Eco-Radio Rewarded

Ozono Radio, an environmental broadcaster that targets youth audiences, won first prize in the communications category of the Business Creativity 2004 contest, promoted by the Peruvian University of Applied Sciences (UPC).

Ecobreves – GUATEMALA: Tikal in Danger

The ancient Mayan ruins of Tikal, one of the main tourist attractions in Guatemala, require urgent conservation efforts, say experts.

Ecobreves – HONDURAS: World Bank Protects Hummingbird

The Honduran Ecologists Network announced that it would invest 200,000 dollars to protect the Honduran emerald hummingbird (Amazilia luciae), an endemic species that faces extinction.

CORRUPTION KILLS

December 9 is UN International Anti-Corruption Day, in recognition of the first signing ceremony of the UN Convention against Corruption in Merida, Mexico, on 9 December 2003. Since then, 113 countries have signed the Convention, a milestone in international efforts to curb corruption, writes Peter Eigen, Chairman of Transparency International. Nepotism, patronage, and corruption do not just block development and deepen poverty, Eigen writes in this column. They also hold back the development of a private sector in developing countries, and deprive a new generation of the education and healthcare they need to be able to participate in economic development. Corruption not only diverts public funds into the pockets of well-connected individuals. It also deepens a country\'s indebtedness for generations to come: estimates put the cost of corrupt projects in developing countries at more than one-third of the debt burden of the developing world. Corruption robs children of their future, it breeds conflict, mistrust and even war. Corruption kills.

U.S. Companies See Practical Benefits in Carbon Emissions Market

Dozens of U.S. corporations are already trading emissions credits, even though the Bush administration has rejected the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change. The international treaty, designed to curb emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, enters into force Feb. 16, 2005.

Who Killed the Swans?

Ecologists argue that a cellulose factory caused the mass die-off of black-necked swans (Cygnus melancoryphus) in southern Chile. But the accused respond that the activists lack proof.

Ecobreves – GUATEMALA:: More Royalties from Mining

The Guatemalan Congress aims to increase from one to 10 percent the royalties that more than 400 mines of precious minerals must pay the government.

Ecobreves – ARGENTINA: Activists Demand Cleaner Air

On the eve of the 10th Conference of Parties to the Convention on Climate Change, Dec. 6-17 in the Argentine capital, hundreds of the country's environmental groups demanded that the government take concrete steps towards curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

Ecobreves – COLOMBIA: Devastating Rains

Heavy rains falling in Colombia since September have claimed the lives of some 30 people and left more than 250,000 homeless, according to reports presented by local emergency committees.