communiqué on the
First meeting of the International Facilitation Team
Of the Alliance for a Responsible and United World
Barcelona (Catalonia – Spain) September 12 – 16, 1999

We were 25 individuals from the International Facilitation Team to share our vision of the Alliance and to clarify the role of our Team. For five days we have worked to animate the process that will allow us to celebrate the 2001 Assembly of the Alliance.

In this note, we just underline the main conclusions so that we can all start planning and coordinating our agendas.

1.	The role of the team is to facilitate the relationships and initiatives of the allies so that we take this next step in the Alliance together.  In order to underline the fact that we see ourselves as being at the service of the Alliance’s construction, we decided to change the name of the team.  Rather than being an orientation team, it will be a Facilitation Team.  This team does not pretend to have a balanced representation of the geo-cultural, topical and collegial diversity that exists within the Alliance dynamics.  The effort is rather focused in the team work and for that purpose we have set up four commissions.  They are not only at the service of the International Facilitation Team members, but they are open to all the allies that carry experiences and proposals from a region, a college or a topic that are worth being supported. The mandate of this team will end in December 2001.

2.	All allies are invited to participate actively in the Alliance Assembly.  This Assembly will be a two year long process, taking place between January 2000 and December 2001, and its fermata will be celebrated with several simultaneous and interconnected international meetings taking place in each continent around the time of the solstice (June 21), 2001.  Each continental meeting will gather local or regional participants as well as participants from other continents in order to underline the intercultural and international dimension.  It will be also important to have the most balanced participation of the diverse collegial and topical workshops of the Alliance in each of these meetings.
These events will be followed by a working meeting gathering the delegates of the different meetings to bring together the results and to consider the next step for the Alliance.

3.	It is therefore essential that, during the next months, the allies start to formulate and  bring together the values, the experiences and especially the concrete proposals that will be discussed during the 2001 Assembly and that could serve as references for the coming decades.

The gathering of these texts will allow a large intercultural, inter-thematic and intercollegial participation, and it may take on three forms of expression (the numbers are not definitive):
A.	 “Intercultural Earth Charter” (a document proposing common values)
B.	 “Proposals for the 21st century” (a document focusing on several proposals)
C.	 “Perspectives for the Alliance 2002-2004” (a document on the next step)

4.	It is fundamental to start writing the preparatory texts as soon as possible to put them into debate during the year 2000, so that we progress on solid bases and have time to discuss and confront ideas and proposals. We'll then have several texts that will have been progressively enriched, elaborated and approved collectively. We will decide during June 2001 Assembly upon the way to valorize them more.

5.	The document on the “Perspectives for the Alliance 2002-22004” could be worked on during the first part of the year 2001 with input from those who will be involved in the process of the Assembly. A first version will be presented for enrichment and approval.

6.	One of the principal objectives of the allies is to make alliance with all initiatives, movements, proposals and events that lead to “transformative experiences” for a responsible and united world, and to invite them to be involved in the meetings of the Assembly 2001, in order to establish enriching synergies for the future. The Facilitation Team, as well as all those who wish to contribute to it, will work on a cartography of the partners involved in the Alliance construction and of other citizen dynamics that could be involve in ours. This precise cartography should help us to set up collectively the 2000-2001 process and to involve new partners. In that way, these many initiatives will reinforce mutually with more impact and proposal and action capacity. 

7.	In order for the June 2001 Assembly to be creative it is necessary that the participants really contribute to its preparatory process.  For that purpose, it is essential that they appropriate the Alliance history, that they contribute to the work on the three documents and that they participate in diverse initiatives that will have taken place during the year 2000 and at the beginning of the year 2001.  Furthermore, in order to avoid that meetings only concentrate to a final declaration discussed word after word, they will be oriented towards creative exchange of experiences and proposals, long-distance follow-up of other meetings and motivation for putting the next step into place.

8.	In order to support the allies efforts, the International Facilitation Team organised itself into committees:
A.	Assembly 2001: to facilitate the preparation of the year 2001 meetings
B.	Themes: to facilitate the writing of the three documents
C.	Communication:  to facilitate internal and external communications of the Alliance
D.	Methodology: to facilitate the methods for undertaking the different tasks

At the end of Barcelone meeting, we felt it was necessary to create a fifth committee to facilitate the articulation between the committees and to take decisions following the Facilitation International Team debates.  For that purpose, we had a secret bulletin vote to select three names. Pierre Vuarin decided not to be candidate.  The three elected persons were Marti, Gustavo and Siddharta.  But the latter preferred to let his seat to the woman who had the most votes. The members of the coordination committee are therefore Marti Olivella, Gustavo Marin and Nacéra Aknak.  

The names of the members and of the coordinators of each commitee are specified below.

9.	Each committee will draw-up its plan of action and budget before November 5th.   The Coordination Committee will then, on the basis of these documents, draw-up a joint proposal (with specific objectives, means, a common calendar…) that will be presented to all allies before the end of the year.  

10.	The International Facilitation Team works mostly long distance (all members have access to e-mail) and in three languages (Spanish, English and French).  Each committee will be up-to-date with the work done in the other groups thanks to a contact person.

11.	The next meeting of the International Facilitation Team will be held from March 19-25, 2000. The participants of each next meeting will be determined according to the themes and questions to be discussed, considering that for financial and practical reasons it is not necessary that all the members be present at all the meetings. 

We hope that we can count on the enthusiasm and initiatives of all allies to construct this new ambitious step together, and send you our warmest greetings.

Martí Olivella (marti@troc.es), Gustavo Marin (gustavo@fph.fr) and Nacéra Aknak (nacera@nde.vsnl.net.in) 
Coordination committee of the International Facilitation Team

Committees:
Methodology	Kerry Ann Cochrane (Montreal), Louise Yanga (Douala),   Lydia Nicollet (Paris), Martí Olivella (Barcelona), Moema Viezzer (Toledo/Brésil). 
Coordinator: Lydia  (lydia@echo.org)	

Thematic	
Cécile Sabourin (Rouyn-Noranda.Quebec), Dieudonné N’Koum (Douala), Manola Rauss (Paris), Siddhartha (Bangalore), Pierre Calame (Paris), Edith Sizoo (Netherlands/Brussels). 
Coordinator: Manola (manola@fph.fr)	

2001 Assembly 	
 Eulalia Flor (Quito), Gustavo Marin (Chili/Paris), Juan Ramon Gordo (Barcelona), Mounir Bencharif (Alger), Nacéra Aknak Khan, (Algeria/Dehra Dun. India), Nadia Leila Aissaoui (Algeria/Barcelona), Michael Owiso (Nairobi), Sarfaraz Khan (Dehra Dun. India),Théophile Folly Amozou, (Lome), Pierre Vuarin (Paris). 
 Coordinator: Eulalia (cepsi@ecuanex.net.ec)	

Communication	
 Ethan Gelber (New York), Hermila Figueiredo (Rio de Janeiro), Michael O’chieng (Nairobi), Ricardo Gomez, (Colombia/Otawa),  Daniel Pimienta (team enlarged with Philippe Guirlet (France/Barcelona) and Sarfaraz Khan for the artistic work). 
 Coordinator: Ethan (hub@bikeabout.org)
	
Participant invited as a "Caravane" correspondent : Philippe Guirlet

Could not participate to the meeting: Michel Afram (Beyrouth), Bara Goudiaby (Dakar), Moheddine Hadri (Tunis, who proposed afterwards to participate to the 2001 Assembly committee), Semedeton Koudande (Adjohoun/Benin) and Yu Shuo (China/Paris).