Part Three :
Report on the Participatory Process Used for the
Evaluation
and Future of the Alliance
EIFE and delibera.info-alliance
e-forums, and Porto Alegre Meeting
March 2002 - April 2003
12. PROPOSAL FOR THE COLLECTIVE ELABORATION
OF A CHARTER OF PRINCIPLES OF THE ALLIANCE
Interpretation of the 7 appraisals and 15 comments.
It was unanimously considered that it was necessary to elaborate
a Charter of Principles of the Alliance that would
define the rights and duties, mainly moral, but perhaps not exclusively,
of a person or an organization participating in the Alliance (as
is done for the World Social Forum).
It would be necessary to begin the Charter
with a brief definition of the Alliance and a brief description
of its organization. The most frequently given definition
refers to the Platform, but, with some reservations, it was stated
that recent practice, corresponding to its dynamics, insists less
on the reference to the Platform and more to its form of organization.
Moving in this direction, it seems that the Charter cannot be written
before we agree on new organization principles, which everyone would
accept, although this statement was qualified. To one person it
seemed very complicated to obtain this universal acceptance and
another considered this to be like a cat chasing its own tail, since
it can lead to having the discussion on the Charter of Principles
be a discussion on organization principles and reminds us that there
are three big pending tasks: organization, principles, and human
responsibilities...
With respect to the Charter of Human Responsibilities,
there was disagreement (although there was a minimal majority in
favor) as to whether the Charter of Principles of the Alliance
was much more urgent than the production or the circulation of a
Charter of Human Responsibilities. It was also argued in
the same proposal that for being premature, the Charter of Human
Responsibilities would be in danger of appearing as a set of abstract
principles, while a Charter to which the Allies would be committed
would have an immediate practical application within the Alliance.
With regard to this statement, someone considered that the two could
be worked on and someone stated that the Charter of Responsibilities
could be applied in the Charter of Principles.
Most also agreed that, with respect to the content
of the Charter, it could be based on the fundamental Alliance
documents (the Platform and the short presentations of
the Alliance), on the Charter of Principles of the World
Social Forum, and on other texts of principles
such as those shared by the cooperative movement. One comment also
suggested as reference documents the Charter of Human Responsibilities
and the proposals of the “governance” workshop.
Along the same previous lines, it was considered
that reaching an appropriate definition of the workgroups, of their
organization, of their objectives and of their position in the Alliance,
will be progress toward a Charter of Principles of the Alliance.
Other questions to be examined also seemed very important and agreed
upon: Who can decide whether an electronic forum
can be opened an how, or whether a meeting can be organized? What
are the relationships between the workgroups and their backers and
vice-versa? How can we define a collective agenda?
For the writing of the Charter, everyone agreed that a corpus could
be established as a basis for thinking and discussion. To do so,
a debating forum should be set up, which could be in the form of
an electronic forum.
To fit this debate in with the other consultations
in progress in the Alliance, it could be integrated into
the forum on the evaluation of the past and future of the Alliance,
if it is indeed extended to all the Allies.
It was suggested (with some reservations) to send
an open letter to all the Allies to collect their
proposals and their positions, along the model used for the constitution
of the International Facilitation Team.
With still more differences of opinion, the active
participants of the forum could propose a first draft to
be presented to all the Allies by regular mail. The Allies could
also send by regular mail their proposal for a Charter to a fixed
address.
Lastly, a face-to-face meeting
could also be organized, but though they do not constitute a majority,
there was a very significant (and exceptional on this forum) number
of persons who were opposed to a meeting of a limited number of
Allies (a dozen) having previously given thought to this question,
read the texts that could help in the writing of the Charter, etc.
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