Proposals for the Future of the Alliance
Marti Olivella and Laia Botey
February 28, 2003. Hotel Plaza Porto Alegre

Participants: Manola Rauss, Maria Ercilia, Luis Felipe Cesar, Isis de Palma, José do Mingos, Richard Petris, Nicolas Haeringer, Martí Olivella, Laia Botey, Marisa Nogueira Greeb, Pierre Calame, Gustavo Marin, Delphine Astier, Nadia Aissaoui, Ziad Majed.

After the meeting on February 27 of the nearly 40 allies present in Porto Alegre (Brazil) for the Third World Social Forum, at which the contribution of the Alliance to the WSF was evaluated, a second meeting was held to work out proposals for the future of Alliance.

It was decided that each Workshop, etc. would send within the two next weeks to the “equipo” electronic forum equipo@forums.alliance21.org a short report on each participation at the Forum of Porto Alegre 2003, including:
- a description of the activities planned, and those carried out (participation, dynamics, results.)
- a general evaluation of the WSF
- an evaluation of the presence of the Alliance at the WSF.

Following are the main ideas resulting from the meeting of the 28th. They can be one of the starting points for our joint production of a few leads for the new strategic horizons for the coming years.

After a sabbatical year of the FPH and almost a year of debate on the forum equipo equipo@forums.alliance21.org on the past and the future of the Alliance, the time for thinking might be over, for two reasons:

- In March 2003, Pierre Calame is to present a proposal to the Foundation Council (FPH) for the priorities of the coming years, including one on FPH support to the Alliance. He therefore needs to know what the Allies’ global rallying projects are.

- The World Social Forum will be held in India in 2004 and the Organizing Committee needs to work out its proposal in the course of March 2003. We think that with the experience of the Alliance we can contribute to improve the World Social Forum, as much from a methodological point of view as in its content.

For these two reasons, we invite all active Allies, in February, to evaluate these proposals so that they can be used both as a project to "relaunch" the Alliance and as a contribution to the World Social Forum.

We would like stress the importance of presenting and evaluating on this same electronic forum equipo@forums.alliance21.org all the new proposals, which will allow us to draw the new horizons of the Alliance collectively.

I. SUPPORT TO THE WORLD SOCIAL FORUM

The Alliance can—and this should be part of its new objectives—make an important contribution to the World Social Forum. The Alliance has proposals and a methodology while the Forum, on its part, has a great rallying and media-dissemination capacity. At the same time, Indian Committee needs for its organization of the WSF 2004, support in terms of both methodology and content.

The Alliance could therefore present projects in view of supporting the World Social Forum 2004 so that it can be a more effective place for exchanges and is not just a series of isolated events... but also a permanent process.

Some ideas for the projects to be presented:

- A local training team and a methodology of systematization—mapping of the contents (using as a basis the experience of the team of 25 people, connected to the FPH and IBASE, which already accomplished this task for the WSF 2003. IBASE—Cándido, of the International Committee of the WSF—with the support of the Bank of Brazil, is preparing a seminar in April in Rio de Janeiro to give this work continuity).

- To favor "networking" (articulation, collaboration and exchanges among the actors and the networks): contacts among the delegates through the Internet before the WSF—email and identification data—and preparation of the meetings; during the WSF: sessions specifically designated for networks and actors to meeting and exchange ideas according to topics of common interest; articulation among the workshops, panels, seminars, etc (linkage, fusion of similar issues, etc.); identification cards for the delegates of distinct colors according to the thematic area (for quick identification of possible interlocutors), etc.

- To collaborate in the artistic program of the WSF 2004, in view of involving the local civil society in the forum (Hamilton Faria, Isis de Palma, etc. will work out a proposal: informal street talks, etc).

- It is also important to integrate the Asian and African Allies into the WSF. To invite the 180 Asian participants of the Assembly of Lille to play an active role in this WSF 2004.

- To favor the support of Netword Solidarity (the network of translators and voluntary interpreters of the Porto Alegre WSF). (This subject was not brought up during the meeting but Martí Olivella spoke with the coordinator of NS, Eliane Carmanim).

- To add a thematic area on environment to the WSF (there are many activities on this topic).

- To contribute elements of day-to-day environmental management of the WSF (production of less waste—perhaps Beth Grimberg can help—transportation by bicycle, participation of the people and local organizations in the planning of logistics). In other words, to try to practice the change that we wish for the world).

The Alliance should look for financial sources to develop these projects in addition to the FPH (which will also provide its support). Collaboration with the WSF can be a good objective for obtaining other forms of financing for Alliance projects.

Future World Forums can be ever new occasions of significant rallying points for the Alliance, just the Regional and Local Forums can be.

We must organize a general consultation with the Allies on an intensive participation at the WSF as part of a strategy to add our efforts to change the world, but without this meaning that we could not take an independent road if necessary.

If the majority of the Allies agree with these projects, we should have a specific and collective proposal of the Alliance to submit to the Indian committee for the WSF 2004 at the end of February (just before its second meeting where decisions will be taken on these subjects) and to present it, at the same time, to the FPH financing program as well as those of other foundations.

II. HERITAGE OF THE ALLIANCE AND PARTICIPATION IN THE WSF 2004

We should try to obtain a collective and complete vision of all the work of Alliance accomplished so far and reassess it:

- One of the challenges to be met by the WSF 2004, should be that active Allies own the collective heritage of the Alliance and become vehicles of information not only for our specific thematic, geocultural and socioprofessional work, but also for that of others.

- Obtain spaces within the WSF 2004 to publicize and discuss the Proposal Papers. (Theme/Workshop coordinators are responsible for proposing their activities as soon as possible to the FPH/Alliance, in such a way as they are not only individual proposals, but are clearly connected with the vast process represented by the Alliance.)

- Proposals should be worked out in reference to the other Proposal Papers by connecting them with their own (example: mountains forum)

- Elaborate global and collective summaries of the Alliance proposals through:

* The "Forum for the Cross-evaluation of Proposals for a Responsible, United and Plural World", propalliance: In addition to a possible contribution of the Alliance to the WSF 2004, it can also be a way of developing a final summary. (We should incorporate the mappings in this forum as work material.)

* Evaluate the summary of proposals worked out by Pierre Calame (it can also be done through the Delibera system, www.delibera.info).

* Set up other summarization teams for the proposals with other methodologies.

* On the basis of the various summarization processes, elaborate a final summary of the Alliance to be presented at the WSF 2004: by working through a network and with a final meeting of those Allies who will have had a very high level of participation (for example, evaluating and commenting on at least 75% of the proposals in the cross-evaluation forum, etc). This final meeting could be held in India, one week before the WSF 2004, and would be also used to prepare the presentation to the WSF.

- Include the results of the Call for Initiatives.

- Another proposal for a summary beyond the Alliance is the project "Young People for a New Earth": to involve different teams of young people in the articulation of the proposals of WSF I, II and III and of the Alliance and, with the support of various foundations, to organize an intercultural “contest” which will allow the team producing the best articulations of proposals to travel to India to present their proposals at the WSF 2004.

- A way of imagining the summary, a common concrete method, would be to work out collectively the 20 (?) rules of the game, the alternative proposals to the 20(?) rules of the current neoliberal globalization.

- More generally speaking, in the new stage of the Alliance, we have the change-of-scale challenge to meet, by integrating the local, thematic, socioprofessional scales with a new dimension of contribution to the planetary processes of change, such as the World Parliament of 2010.

III. PROGRESS IN THE INTERNAL ORGANIZATION OF THE ALLIANCE

- Set up a coordination task force for these WSF 2004 projects, with one person in charge per each project: systematization of the contents (cartography), networking—promote contacts and the creation of networks—summaries of the proposals, art, translators, etc.

- Implement the Charter of Human Responsibilities and the Principles of Governance in order to work out a Charter of Principles of the Alliance (such as that of the WSF) which will make it possible to clarify the management and decision-making system of the Alliance.

- Deal with and solve the problem of "legitimacy" of being present as “Alliance” in the different global processes (International Council of the WSF, UBUNTU, etc.)

- Promote a general updated overview of who makes up the Alliance and how it develops (people, projects in progress, etc.)—directory, forums, newsletter, etc.

- Diversified fund raising according to the new horizons and projects of the Alliance as a whole.

IV. APPENDIX. Other interesting information dealt with during the meeting

Meeting of the international foundations with members of the WSF Organizing Committee

The foundations and the agencies that contributed financially to the WSF have the following priorities:
- to give visibility to the groups that prioritize articulation
- activity and communication before, during and after the WSF (the Web site will be active all year, etc.)

Information on the Indian Committee of the WSF

February 15-16: meeting of the Indian committee.
March: presentation of the preliminary program of the WSF 2004 (proposal for a methodology, contents, etc.)
June: International Council meeting in Paris.