Alliance 21: Making Another World Possible
Evaluations, Visions, Proposals, and Projects
Alliance for a Responsible, Plural and United World
April 2003

The first three parts :

- Evaluation and Vision of the Future
- Proposals and Projects
- Report on the Participatory Process Used for the Evaluation and Future of the Alliance

- The second stage of the Alliance :

• First stage of the Alliance :
  - First Steps
  - Structuring the Alliance
  - Elaboration of the “Proposal Papers”
• Present Assets and Weaknesses
• Perspectives for the Second Stage

THE SECOND STAGE OF THE ALLIANCE

By Pierre Calame pic@fph.fr

First Contribution to a Collective Thinking Process

A/ First Stage of the Alliance: an Attempt to Put Things in Perspective

1. First Steps (1994-1997)

This was the time of abundance and expansion. After a first wave of expressed interest in the considerations of the Platform (it was not long before its signatories were from more than eighty countries and the Platform was translated into many languages), it became necessary to move on from the approval of a text to making commitments and working collectively. Each ÒLocal GroupÓ established the way it would work, the first ÒSocioprofessional NetworksÓ were set up (in particular the ÒYouth WorkshopÓ), and the Òthematic pathÓ led to the institution of a large number of Workshops. The thematic path was the easiest to make operational. Each Workshop was entrusted to a facilitator, usually chosen by the FPH, which funded the Workshops. Each comprised, on the basis a more-or-less broad geographical and socioprofessional spectrum, experts or people interested in its specified field. A few meetings were organized for the ÒWorkshop membersÓ to get to know each other.

From the time it was imagined, the Alliance was not to be a classic movement, with members, bodies, a doctrine, and a strongly asserted identity. A formula often used during this first period was, ÒThe Alliance will not close its doors because it has none.Ó Its objective was to create a Òcollective living being,Ó something between a network (which doesn't have common objectives and favors exchange) and a movement (which is cemented by an identity and statutes). Those who initiated it, who had the vision, who produced its first description, who proposed its vocation, its methods, and its timetableÑin a word its founders, who were essentially the FPH and part of the former Group of VŽzelayÑaimed at making it a collective working process for the ÒAlliesÓÑan inevitably vague category basically comprising people and institutions working together in a spirit of tolerance and effectiveness.

It was not very long before the first challenges, contradictions, and difficulties cropped up, including:

This first period ended with the AllianceÕs first world assembly in Bertioga in December 1997. The meeting revealed the AllianceÕs assets and weaknesses. On the assets side: a great geocultural and thematic diversity, enthusiasm and working methods, outlines for proposals, an increasing autonomy of the Local Groups and Workshops, and the first joint financing. Weaknesses included the fact that the participants were selected through fuzzy, opaque methods, and divergent objectives and methods among the organizers.